The War agains Vertexes, or how MED kills my nerves...

Hi Staffs ^^

I´ve just a small MED improvement Question..

When you select one vertex, you can set it´s position with the Vectorfields on the bottom of the window.

That´s cool..

But.. why isn´t this working if you select multiple vertexs?

I was sitting down here now for more than 1 Day, just to bring all vertexs of a model to their correct position, so they fit other neightbour model-vertexs..

And that job really can be done by simple selecting all vertexes of 1 side, write in the matching X,Y or Z value.. and hit Enter..


Pls add this improvement to MED.. I wasted here 24 work-hours just for that *shit* of work

(sry for bad words.. but this problem really sucks..)

Im gunna agree with that one. Its a real pain.

I agree with the request, although the threads title is in no way funny.

funny or not funny, but very true

You can do that!

Just select multiple vertices. Then you have to click on one of the selected vertices. Then the position box on the bottom will be unlocked and the vertex you've clicked is the reference for position values

I believe already the first MED version could move multiple vertices. I'm sorry to hear that you still moved all those vertices manually - we'll make this more clear in the manual.

Although I didn't knew that feature that's not what at least I was talking about. This way the relative distances between the vertices remains fixed. I want to first select an arbitrary number of vertices and then set their x, y and z positions. When setting these coordinates all selected vertices should get the same values and not remain on their relative distances. The result would be the same as first merging those vertices and then move the merged one around - just without the merging... ^^

But then you lost the feature of moving multiple vertices with fixed relative distances. This is a really important feature. The way of first merging all vertices and then setting its position is the only way that works without kicking the other feature. Or there could be a flag in the preferences where you could choose between both methods.

I don't think that a flag in the preferences will do the trick as you might want to switch between these modes frequently. But I agree that this requires some UI work. Maybe two buttons like the ones for Soft and Dynamic Selection?

Or just working with a hotkey for merging?

That does not solve the problem. When you merge vertices you change the lighting of the model, because the adjacent surfaces now share a vertex and the according normal. If you want to have hard edges between polygons you must not merge the vertices.

I guess Esper and EvilSOB have made the same experience as me when creating tiles for a map.

That's right, didn't think about this. Then I agree this is a missing feature.

An alternative approach would be an un-merge function, i.e. a function that creates its own vertex for every surface using the selected vertex.

At least that's a solution from my perspective. I hope EvilSOB and Esper agree.

I agree, this would be a useful feature too. And in addition, it would be useful if you could select several faces and un-merge them if their vertices are merged to other vertices. This feature is already implemented in the MED skin editor, but not in the model editor yet.

JCL, could you please say a word concerning the two feature requests? Any chance one of them gets implemented?

As a point of note...

I cant speak for Esper, only for myself, but I didnt do this
by manually moving EVERY vertex individually, but the process
I did use was far from 'perfect'.
And as you will see, the 'merge' idea wouldnt help ME.

Here is what I did to achieve the desired results.

I would select a 'plane' of vertices I want to align.
I would then REPEATEDLY use the SCALE function on ONE of the
axiis's, (either x OR y OR z) to 'flatten' the relative offsets.
This is ugly, as they dont always all get the offsets down to exactly zero.
(A single button click here to zero-out (or 'align') the relative
distances of all the vertices to the 'center line' would be perfect.)
I would then drag the 'plane' to where I wanted, or use the position box
at the bottom to exactly place it.

Alternitively, I would sometimes be working with a 'line' of vertices
rather than a plane, so I would need to 'align' two of the three
axis's. I would follow all the above steps for one axis, then repeat
the process for another. Doing this is two separate steps is fine as is.


So, all in all, I think to solve MY problem, a 'button' would not be
economical, because I cant see a 'mode' that would know which axis
I wish to align, and when.

Nor would a 'configuration' setting be suitable, as you be constantly
jumping in and out of the configuration page, and there is still
the above 'which axis and when' issue from above to deal with.

Nor would one button for EACH axis be economical on the available
toolbar space, seeing as it is a pretty uncommon function.

But if it was added to one of the drop-down menus it would make
more sense to me.


Thanks all...

Also, on a different issue...
Uhrwerk's suggestion of an 'un-merge from vertex' function would be nice.

ATM I achieve this by selecting each affected triangle and performing
a copy, delete, and paste in order to separate the faces.
It can be a bit time consuming with 'complex' models...

We have discussed this. The features would be useful, but we are inclined not to add them to the current MED. We will implement them in the new WED when it's finished. The new WED will also be used for model editing and will replace the old WED, MED, and GED. Adding features to the old software would delay the development of the new one.

I totally overlooked your reply. Thanks for the info.

I'm so exited about what is coming. :-)

@JCL: OH the new editor will be used for modeling too o.o. Missed that info, sounds really nice!