CompuServe Messages

A key to seamless unions in 3DS is getting your vertices welded, James. You can either do it by one-by-one, or with the Selected command (or during Booleaning) to weld coincident vertices, whose threshold can be easily adjusted. Of course, your entities need to be part of the same object for this to work. Also, you might apply mapping coordinates *after* these operations, as retaining them is impossible with the Selected command, and very tricky when you weld one-by-one. When completed, the mesh should map seamlessly. Because the result is one object, movement within the object for an animation requires morphing the object. The Yost Group's upcoming Skin.AXP will address the problem of retaining discreet objects (great for animation purposes) while attaining seamless rendering by skinning a series of cross-sections (like in the Lofter) with spline patches. This will allow linking of object-based cross-sections in the Keyframer for hierarchical animation. This can be much more "face-economical" and controlable that the actual object morphing and vertex-level manipulation one often needs to do with the above solution. Hope this answers your question, -Alan Iglesias