Input needed - Final list of modifiers you can't live without

[Brian Smith]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the great suggestions for modifiers you cant live without. Here is an alphabetical list of what I have come up with based off the suggestions. Can I please get opinions of anything that anyone feels strongly against.

 

Definitely including:

Bend

Camera Correction

Cap holes

Displace

Edit Mesh

Edit Poly

Edit Spline

Extrude

FFD

Lathe

Melt

Mesh select

MultiRes

Noise

Normalize spline – thanks Claudio…can’t believe I never knew about this one but it’s awesome for animating cameras

Optimize – thinking about ditching this since MultiRes seems far superior

Slice

Smooth

Subdivide

Sweep

TurboSmooth

UVW Map

Wave

XForm

 

Thinking about…can anyone give some examples how useful, practical, or how often you use in work:

Shell

PathDeform (wsm)

 

Suggested but don’t think should be included and why:

Bevel profile – sweep is much better

Cloth – more for character animation / limited practicality

Lattice - limited practicality

Material by element - limited practicality

Meshsmooth – turbosmooth is much better

Normal – extremely unreliable

Stl check – was in the first book but I think should be ditched due to limited practicality

Symmetry modifier – more for character animation / limited practicality

Taper – limited practicality

Tessilate – subdivide is much better

Turn to Poly – honestly can’t find what this is used for

Twist - limited practicality

Unwrap UVW – going in the advanced book

 

P.S. Thanks for that great tip Louis…never knew about your tip to ease scrolling in the modifier list (Right-click on Desktop > Properties > Appearance / Effects button / Turn OFF ‘Use the following transition effect for menus and tooltips’)… going to mention it

[Justin Hunt]

Shell - I use it all the time

 

1)mass out walls, basically draw the spines, and an extrude and the a shell (for thickness). Also great for multi-level ramps, first build the basic ramp and then use shell to give thickness.

 

2)Polymodelling wall with window openings as single sided, then use Shell to add thickness, makes for very clean, efficient geometry that is very easy to modify.

 

3)I developed a ruff script that automatically built windows with frames and glass. Shell is used the control the frames thickness.

 

Also has the bevel profile built in (although I have never used it)

 

Great list by the way

 

JHV

[Matt McDonald]

I rarely use either turbosmooth or meshsmooth but as I understand it, turbosmooth is basically a simplfied meshsmooth with the most common settings applied. It might be worth while if you are going to mention one to explain the other (because they are so similar).

[Mister3d]

I rarely use either turbosmooth or meshsmooth but as I understand it, turbosmooth is basically a simplfied meshsmooth with the most common settings applied. It might be worth while if you are going to mention one to explain the other (because they are so similar).

 

Yes, and it's for animators mainly, because it's applied over a low-poly character. Meshsmooth was too slow.

[BrianKitts]

shell - is the quickest way I've found for giving thickness to single planes. Half the time when I receive models from clients to use in a rendering, the glass is modeled as a single surface, and I need the thickness to get the proper refraction. so it's as simple as grab by material, add a shell mod @ .25" and then re-collapse the mesh.

 

 

 

I rarely use either turbosmooth or meshsmooth but as I understand it, turbosmooth is basically a simplfied meshsmooth with the most common settings applied. It might be worth while if you are going to mention one to explain the other (because they are so similar).

 

turboSmooth is more memory efficient, both are very useful specially for terrain, model less surfaces and just smooth out your mesh

[Sawyer]

I use Shell and Material by element on almost every project I do. I think Shell is pretty straight forward and already argued for but I use Material by element when I have stones/rocks or I have to model bricks or leaves on a tree even grass. Anything that needs a random assortment of material id's applied.

[clauco]

Yes, shell is very useful. I used it modeling architectural details and some furnitures. Is faster than selecting all poligons of the mesh and extrude them.

 

For example, imagine that i´m modeling a translucent tube lamp, at first, i can do a lathe and then apply a shell modifier to give it some thickness (thickness is important to obtain a physical response of translucency with vray material as everybody know) . Of course there are other methods to do that, but now imagine that lamp with lot of details in its profile.

 

I´m not sure if i was clear, but i have those situations frequently.

 

best regards!

[Brian Smith]

I use Shell and Material by element on almost every project I do. I think Shell is pretty straight forward and already argued for but I use Material by element when I have stones/rocks or I have to model bricks or leaves on a tree even grass. Anything that needs a random assortment of material id's applied.

 

Got it...and i can see why it would be useful. I guess i should include it.

[karl zacharias]

Another vote for shell...I line model the footprint, extrude to wall height, convert to poly, section cut the openings, delete the openings, and apply the shell modifier for thickness...very clean results.