Dynamesh "sub" button not working

[harbottle]

If I understand things correctly, I should be able to insert a mesh and hit the dynamesh sub button and have it subtract the inserted mesh from the original. But when I hit sub, it creates the union. My problem is I dont want to position my inserted mesh with the mesh insert brush and hold down alt, because I already have it positioned with great accuracy. I simply want to append my perfectly positioned mesh, and subtract it. Is there really no way to do this? I HAVE to use the insert mesh brush? Then what use is the sub button? It doesn’t do anything?

Am I doing something wrong?

Cheers,
Will

[Spyndel]

The sub button doesnt appear to be functioning as documented at present.

A work around for what you want to do is to merge down your subtool that you want to be negative into the target subtool, and duplicate it in transpose Move mode, while holding down CTRL+ ALT and dragging on the middle transpose circle. This tags the duplicate as a negative mesh. Position the negative duplicate as desired, and delete the original apendee (hide+delete hidden). Note, you’ll need enough space between the original and the duplicate to marquee hide it, because dupes share the same polygroup, so you cant immediately click it away.

It’s a bit clumsy, but relatively painless once you get used to it, at least until they fix Sub, and hopefully introduce some way to Force tag any existing geometry as negative.

[harbottle]

The sub button doesnt appear to be functioning as documented at present.

A work around for what you want to do is to merge down your subtool that you want to be negative into the target subtool, and duplicate it in transpose Move mode, while holding down CTRL+ ALT and dragging on the middle transpose circle. This tags the duplicate as a negative mesh. Position the negative duplicate as desired, and delete the original apendee (hide+delete hidden). Note, you’ll need enough space between the original and the duplicate to marquee hide it, because dupes share the same polygroup, so you cant immediately click it away.

It’s a bit clumsy but relatively painless once you get used to it, at least until they fix Sub, and hopefully introduce some way to Force tag geometry as negative at will.

Thanks for the quick reply!! Unfortunately, this won’t work for me. I make action figures, and I can’t stand to eyeball things. I’ll just have to keep doing it the way I have been until this gets fixed. Thanks anyway!!

Cheers
Will

[Spyndel]

Thanks for the quick reply!! Unfortunately, this won’t work for me. I make action figures, and I can’t stand to eyeball things. I’ll just have to keep doing it the way I have been until this gets fixed. Thanks anyway!!

Cheers
Will

Theres only as much “eyeballing” involved as whatever eyeballing you used to position the original tool. You can use the same methods to position the negative duplicate (transpose, deformation palette, etc).

Remember, you can draw a precise transpose line , and constrain movement along it by holding shift to move it back into position along a track. It’s a little awkward for this particular tool ,I know, because this time your mesh is in “perfect” position, and you’d have to move it out of position to duplicate the negative mesh into its spot. But in the future you should be able to plan for it, and it will be easier.

It should be pointed out that even if the sub button were working correctly, according to the description it would still require you to use an insertion brush. What we ultimately want is some way to force any mesh to be negative.

[Spyndel]

Also, dont forget the original re meshing tools in the subtool palette. They dont work nearly as well for boolean subtraction, but perhaps you’ll be lucky in your situation.

[harbottle]

Theres only as much “eyeballing” involved as whatever eyeballing you used to position the original tool. You can use the same methods to position the negative duplicate (transpose, deformation palette, etc).

Remember, you can draw a precise transpose line , and constrain movement along it by holding shift to move it back into position along a track. It’s a little awkward for this particular tool ,I know, because this time your mesh is in “perfect” position, and you’d have to move it out of position to duplicate the negative mesh into its spot. But in the future you should be able to plan for it, and it will be easier.

It should be pointed out that even if the sub button were working correctly, it would still require you to use an insertion brush. What we ultimately want is some way to force any mesh to be negative.

As you say, what we ultimately want is to be able to select addition or subtraction for any mesh. As far as eyeballing my original goes, this isn’t actually correct. I made the original in Maya and snapped it to the correct position. Action figures have all kinds of sockets and hinges and pivot joints that have to lign up perfectly. They are output on a 3d printer and exist in the real world, and you’d be surprised at how much a few ten-thousandths of an inch can ruin my day! Besides, a single figure can have a hundred different candidates for a boolean operation and to do this for each one would drive me nuts.

Thank again
Will

[Spyndel]

I understand and sympathize.

In a leap of intuition, I thought perhaps clicking on the icon for the individual subtools in the subtool palette that tags them for subtractive re-meshing with the old re-meshing tools and merging it down might merge it as a negative mesh, but Im afraid no luck there.

Just remember, at one point merging subtools was a juggling act as well. They’ll get there.