• Welcome to the Community Forums at HiveWire 3D! Please note that the user name you choose for our forum will be displayed to the public. Our store was closed as January 4, 2021. You can find HiveWire 3D and Lisa's Botanicals products, as well as many of our Contributing Artists, at Renderosity. This thread lists where many are now selling their products. Renderosity is generously putting products which were purchased at HiveWire 3D and are now sold at their store into customer accounts by gifting them. This is not an overnight process so please be patient, if you have already emailed them about this. If you have NOT emailed them, please see the 2nd post in this thread for instructions on what you need to do

Blender Help, Forums And Tutorial Links

eclark1894

Visionary
Booleans? If you don't using something like HardOps.
And - and it's godsend -

And upgrading Blender... I'm using local configs with Blender, so upgrade is unpack blender, copy addons and copy config dir.
I've never used Booleans. I remember when I first heard about them in Bryce 3D. Didn't understand it then, still don't now. It just doesn't compute for me. I know what it's for and how it's used, but for some reason, I just can't wrap my head around it.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
Boolean- fancy term for saying cutting the shape of one mesh out of another. lol

Think of using an apple corer. Put the cylinder (corer) into a sphere (apple) and yoink.
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
That's an excellent analogy Vask.

Earl, here's my very first successful Bryce 4 render, which was totally done with Booleans --> Broken Glass

Basically, a large cube cut off the top of two spheres (one smaller inside the larger) to get the thick glass, and then a terrain cut into the side to create the broken edge.

Lastly, I duplicated that last piece and set it up so the broken glass was visible, and laying on the floor. No polys were broken in the process. ;)
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Hmmmmm, I never thought about the poly count, but you may be right.
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Don't ask me. I always thought you were just hiding what you don't want to be seen, but you may very well be correct Vask.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
They don't work like transmaps, so once you make the cut, the mesh you cut away, as well as the object used for the shape are gone/can be removed.

Now you MAY have to add in supporting edges and such. For instance, lets say you cut a cylinder from a square plane, you're going to have to add edges branching from each of the 4 corners of the plane to different sides of the new hole, but you won't have the poly count from the cylinder used on top of it.

Something like this. Kiory isn't awake atm, so I'm just roughly going on a fuzzy memory of watching him do things. Unless someone else steps in and corrects me if I'm wrong, I'll double check with him tomorrow.

I have no idea why Blender is failing to show 2 of the existing edges in my first grab, so I've added the 2nd grab shown in edit mode.

Also note, the red horizontal line is part of the grid floor, and what looks like a white vert in the middle is the object origin, so don't add a vert/edge across the center of the boolean. :p

boolean.PNG boolean2.PNG
 
Last edited:

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Shouldn't add to the poly count from what I understand but you do need to plan how you're going to do it carefully a it can cause problems with the mesh...or at least that's what I've been told.
 

Kiory

New-Bee
Vaskania has done a good job explaining things, but I want to clear some things up.

Booleans can and will add to poly counts as you can see in her example, she has taken a square plane and added a cylinder with sixteen sides, taking the plane from two triangles to sixteen (a polygon always has two triangles even if you can't see them, they're there). But saying all this, booleans are great, I use them all the time for high poly work, they require clean up but they get results quicker than trying to do things manually.

The problem is that they carry a stigma, people saying that they aren't viable or are too messy, and that just boils down to simple ignorance or them just repeating what they've heard without really knowing why. Sure, they can be messy if you don't know what you're doing, so I'd suggest watching some tutorials on them and try to understand maintaining topology, lining edges up with both meshes you want to intersect, it's like a fun little puzzle.

As for doubling your poly count, well in this case it has more than doubled, however, this is a VERY simple model, had she made a weapon of some kind and require a hole like that one, it would not double your poly count, it would only add the required amount of polygons that the intersecting mesh needs, maybe some renegade vertices but that's where the cleanup comes in.

One final thought, don't be too stingy with your polycounts, it's 2016, we've come a long way with 3D art and polycounts aren't too much of a concern anymore, but always be mindful of optimizing areas that don't need geometry (flat surfaces for example), it's good practice, and will give you more geometry to play with else where on your models.

Hope this helps.
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Thank you for stopping in and clarifying Kiory, and while I'm at it, welcome to the HiveWire forums. Don't make yourself a stranger. ;)
 

eclark1894

Visionary
I should clarify as well, you guys and gals were taking me far too literally. I didn't actually mean that the total polygon count would literally double, but add to the total.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
Literally doubling or not, the information is still helpful. It adds to the polycount, but nowhere near the amount you're probably assuming it does, and as pointed out by Kiory, more noticeable on smaller models than larger ones.
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
First welcome to the Hive...
Booleans can and will add to poly counts as you can see in her example, she has taken a square plane and added a cylinder with sixteen sides, taking the plane from two triangles to sixteen (a polygon always has two triangles even if you can't see them, they're there). But saying all this, booleans are great, I use them all the time for high poly work, they require clean up but they get results quicker than trying to do things manually.
This is pretty much what I'd been told that they can be useful but you need to think about how you're going to use them for best effect.
The problem is that they carry a stigma, people saying that they aren't viable or are too messy, and that just boils down to simple ignorance or them just repeating what they've heard without really knowing why. Sure, they can be messy if you don't know what you're doing, so I'd suggest watching some tutorials on them and try to understand maintaining topology, lining edges up with both meshes you want to intersect, it's like a fun little puzzle.
I do know people that won't use them at all but this makes sense...I'm just learning about topology and how it impacts. I know just enough to know it's important....lol
As for doubling your poly count, well in this case it has more than doubled, however, this is a VERY simple model, had she made a weapon of some kind and require a hole like that one, it would not double your poly count, it would only add the required amount of polygons that the intersecting mesh needs, maybe some renegade vertices but that's where the cleanup comes in.
So if I understand correctly you're saying that it adds the polys where the mesh intersects...which if I'm on the right track you would have to add in even in modelling it manually? Sorry just trying to understand...
One final thought, don't be too stingy with your polycounts, it's 2016, we've come a long way with 3D art and polycounts aren't too much of a concern anymore, but always be mindful of optimizing areas that don't need geometry (flat surfaces for example), it's good practice, and will give you more geometry to play with else where on your models.

Hope this helps.
Good advice...it's really hard to know sometimes though when first starting how much is too much.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
So if I understand correctly you're saying that it adds the polys where the mesh intersects...which if I'm on the right track you would have to add in even in modelling it manually? Sorry just trying to understand...

Basically, yes. Boolean's just a shortcut to get the shape you need. You'd have still needed roughly the same additional verts had you done the hole manually w/o using a boolean.
 

ImagineX

Admirable
Knife project is also a viable option. Both of these methods can create some ugly faces in DS. When exporting you may consider triangulate.
 

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
Mind you I'm going by what I've seen, and the idea that you'd still need the supporting verts/edges to support the shape itself. Too little verts/edges and a circle will look like a diamond, etc.
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Mind you I'm going by what I've seen, and the idea that you'd still need the supporting verts/edges to support the shape itself. Too little verts/edges and a circle will look like a diamond, etc.
Very true. I remember having to adjust the arch opening in the front wall of the castle I was modeling in Blender because the center top looked like it was going to a point, rather than having a true arch.
 
Top