smoothing isn't making new polys available

meghan

At least that's what looks like is happening. First, I'm still pretty new to Hexagon, so hopefully it's something simple that can be reversed.

I've been following a tutorial (the DigitalTailor Classic Bikini Tutorial). The first couple of starts sucked so I used the User's Guide Tutorial to make the "Wild Space Creature" and messed around a little bit. They both use the Box Modeling method. Then I tried the Bikini tutorial again.

1. Removed the left, top, and right sides, no problem.
2. Shaped the remainder to the Genesis mesh. Good to go.
3. Then clicked on the first level of smoothing. <<<---- Problem: It <i>looks like it accomplishes the first level of smoothing except that the extra polygons, edges, vertices, etc are not individually viewable, selectable, or modifiable.

I tried checking the different object model views. None of them revealed anything different.
It's getting really frustrating being stuck on this. Any help would be marvelous!!

Thanks!

RedSquare

Just a guess, but it maybe because you haven't selected the (control) element which is found in the DG tree. Bottom right panel. Once you've highlighted the bottom item, you should be able to work on the mesh. Although, it would be better to introduce the increased tesselations at the beginning rather than by way of collapsing the DG with the lightning bolt.

RedSquare

DG collapsed thus.

meghan

*sigh* THANK YOU! That appears to have been the problem. I'm not a big fan of video tutorials cuz I miss details like that. So does the lightening bolt/control element act like an "Apply" button? The UI on that is a little strange, but... Guess that will be at the top of my reading list today. Thanks again!

RedSquare

So does the lightening bolt/control element act like an “Apply” button?

Hmm, not really. The DG panel at the bottom has three modes. No DG; Restricted DG and, full DG. What it is, is in effect the history of the changes to the original geometry that you have undertaken to get where you are at any one time. What the little lightening bolt icon does when you click on it is to wipe out, the history. With the history tree in place you can back track and make alterations to your object by affording you the opportunity of selecting the relevant stage. Without the DG history you cannot.

If you look at the number of faces shown in the first screen grab, just under the smoothing selection bar. You can see that there are 60 faces making up the geodesic sphere. Because the DG is still intact I can select 0 smoothing and it will revert and, as shown as I have selected the bottom of the tree as you look at it, I am able to select verts', edges or faces. Now if you look at the same zones in the second screen grab which was taken AFTER I had clicked on the lightening bolt and collapsed the in my case restricted DG look at how many faces the sphere now has and you cannot reduce them now the DG has been collapsed. Normally if you can, one tries to leave collapsing the DG until the last moment prior to for example exporting your model as a .obj file.

Obviously, if you have incrementally saved a series of .hxn files of your model then you can go back a stage and reload the file version prior to you collapsing the DG history, with the result that it will be back with it's history reinstated less any actions you took between saving the file and collapsing the DG.

So does the lightening bolt/control element act like an “Apply” button?

If you click the lightening bolt it does apply the smoothing level selected permanently. :roll: