How is Split Hidden supposed to work exactly?

[system]

I am confused about how Split Hidden is supposed to work.

The manual states “The Split Hidden button will split the selected SubTool into two separate SubTools, so that the hidden part of the mesh and the visible part of the mesh become separate SubTools.” and the tooltip says virtually the same thing.

So I take my ZTool that is organized into different polygroups. I hide all the different polygroups that I want in a separate subtool and then go to find the Split Hidden option in SubTools is greyed out. I can’t see parts of my model…are they not hidden? What is going on?

Thanks for the help.

[Altea]

Split hidden won’t work with subdivisions unless you are in the lower subdivision. Perhaps that is the problem.

You have also group split that doesn’t have that limitation and also creates no artifacts. Split hidden can create artifacts with subdivided objects, in the same way than freeze subdivisions. It is fine if the object has no subdivisions or detail is not important.

[system]

Thanks, that was the problem. Oh, how I wish the manual would bother to include things like that…mastering this program is going to take ages

What were you saying about Freezing Subdivisions? Does that eliminate artifacts?

BTW…do you know if Split Unmasked Points and Split Masked Points will create artifacts with subdivided objects?

[Altea]

Freezing Subdivisions and split hidden creates artifacts, but only noticeable if the model has high subdivisions. It looks like 3d irregular noise in the surface, like isolated spots.
I don’t remember about split masked, but it is also not available unless you have the lower subdivision selected, this could mean uses the same process and will create the same problem.
If you are doing low poly, even medium poly, these artifacts are not relevant and you can use it.

[system]

Alright. Well thanks for the information. I really appreciate it.

[Altea]

To clarify how are exactly the artifacts: this is the default cube converted to poly mesh and subdivided to 8 millions.

And these are the artifacts that appear when using split hidden or freeze subdivisions. It also appears when using the mirror option in subtool master as probably uses internally similar systems. As commented split groups avoids the problem, and also obviously deleting the subdivisions before split hidden or any of the other operations.