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Is it better to remove geometry or reshape the geometry?

WillowRavenWillowRaven Posts: 3,787
in The Commons

I'm using Modular Starship Kit (AcharyaPolina) to build a ship shaped like a shark. The part I'm using for the main 'body' has some areas I don't want. I know how to delete geometry, but I'm not sure what that will do to textures. I have the Mesh Grabber series, but haven't learned how to use it yet. I'm willing to put in the time to crash course it enough to do what I want, but not if it's easier and faster to do what I know and just retexture it.

Thoughts?

Comments

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,994
    edited January 24

    Even if you delete the geometry, UVs are still preserved, there'll be no impact to the textures. So you may go for deleting geometry and save them as Prop assets with your Vendor name. But I would like to recommend an alternative: rig Props to Figures first, then you can use Conditional Graft modifiers so as to hide / unhide parts of geometry by toggles. That'll be a more flexible way.

    But if you reshape a ship / craft with Mesh Grabber, I believe the texture will be stretched, so it's not really recommended...

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • WillowRavenWillowRaven Posts: 3,787

    crosswind said:

    Even if you delete the geometry, UVs are still preserved, there'll be no impact to the textures. So you may go for deleting geometry and save them as Prop assets with your Vendor name. But I would like to recommend an alternative: rig Props to Figures first, then you can use Conditional Graft modifiers so as to hide / unhide parts of geometry by toggles. That'll be a more flexible way.

    But if you reshape a ship / craft with Mesh Grabber, I believe the texture will be stretched, so it's not really recommended...

    I've not heard of Conditional Graft modifiers, but I'm interested in knowing more about how it works. Any video you recommend showing how to do it?

  • Matt_CastleMatt_Castle Posts: 2,583

    My main gripe about conditional graft modifiers is that they don't work on props (only figures), because they're really useful way of avoiding scene bloat from having to completely save edited geometry into a scene or break library links - but once you have to convert something to a figure, then you've got an edited version that needs to be resaved.

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,994
    edited January 24

    WillowRaven said:

    crosswind said:

    Even if you delete the geometry, UVs are still preserved, there'll be no impact to the textures. So you may go for deleting geometry and save them as Prop assets with your Vendor name. But I would like to recommend an alternative: rig Props to Figures first, then you can use Conditional Graft modifiers so as to hide / unhide parts of geometry by toggles. That'll be a more flexible way.

    But if you reshape a ship / craft with Mesh Grabber, I believe the texture will be stretched, so it's not really recommended...

    I've not heard of Conditional Graft modifiers, but I'm interested in knowing more about how it works. Any video you recommend showing how to do it?

    In Mada's tutorial as above link. Still, better save the rigged figures as Figure assets with your Vendor name. However the good news is that the "geometry size" of this product is not huge. Technically, you don't have to save figure assets other than just saving them with the duf files.

    I just tried... the file size (compressed) of the saved scene including rigged figures of a whole starship is less than 1MB, so it's up to your choice...

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • Matt_CastleMatt_Castle Posts: 2,583

    Not to say that the file size is always a big issue, but when you've got a large, merged geometry environment where you'd like to use a conditional graft to remove one tree or trash can that's in an inconvenient place, it's frustrating that it can't be applied in a way that doesn't require a separate version of the geometry.

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,994
    edited January 24

    Matt_Castle said:

    Not to say that the file size is always a big issue, but when you've got a large, merged geometry environment where you'd like to use a conditional graft to remove one tree or trash can that's in an inconvenient place, it's frustrating that it can't be applied in a way that doesn't require a separate version of the geometry.

    Agreed to some extent, though it's case by case and also subject to one's way of manipulation... I suggested save them as the figure assets. That's still the best and safest way... In case the scene file is corrupted by chance, the figure assets / presets are still there in user-facing and data folders...

    Post edited by crosswind on
  • WillowRavenWillowRaven Posts: 3,787

    Thanks, y'all. :) Look like I have some homework :)

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