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!