CompuServe Thread

Guy, Jonas is a pretty busy guy, so let me try to help you out a little with your Deform/Fit issues. First, remember that the Deform/Fit function of the Lofter can produce beautiful meshes if used with a few tips in mind: 1) Simplicity is golden. Try to keep your Fit Shapes as simple as possible, while still indicating the contours you need. Smooth, flowing curves and CV's will always make for a cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing mesh. If you have Optimize, go ahead and use a good number of steps in your path while Lofting to get the maximum detail while modeling, as you can always bring down the overall resolution of the model later, if need be. Starting with more detail and working down usually makes a beteer looking model than making a lower detailed one from the begining. Using Optimize or another G-Shaded viewer will help modeling greatly by allowing you to view the model each time you loft it, watching it take shape. 2) Planning is important. For the smoothest of meshes, you need to ensure that both Fit Shapes have vertices that line up with one another. In other words, draw your Shapes in the Shaper side-by-side and work on them until their vertices line up horizontally perfect. The snap/grid can help you do this. When everything is all lined up, your mesh should be free of abrupt changes which can ruin an organic-looking part. As you use the Gen-Path function and look at the resulting path, it will be obvious when things are lined up because the path will not have redundant vertices and your resultimg mesh will have smooth transformations. 3) To help you visualize which part of the path is which, simply switch back to the Deform/Fit grids and count the number of vertices on the path that intersect with the part you are looking for. Now, while in the Shapes screen you'll be able to count up the vertices and see precisely where to place your cross-section. 4) Speaking of Cross-sections, the Simplicity rule applies here also, especially in terms of limiting the number of cross sections, how close they are together on the path, and how many vertices (watch those First Vertices!) they (the cross-sections) have. The fewer you can get away with, the smoother and more organic your mesh will be. If something just seems to not be working out, consider leaving a detail out here and there and adding/subtracting them later. Sometimes you can get a great basic mesh with Deform/Fit and use multiple Boolean ops on it after. Kinda like "blocking out" a clay sculpture first and then going back and detailing it after. I used all of these techniques quite successfully while modeling the Star Wars' Speeder Bike for the upcoming release "Rebel Assault 2" for LucasArts last year. I hope some of this helps you out! Have fun and best of luck, -Alan