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Question about removing parts of surfaces using Geometry Editor

SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,646
edited December 1969 in The Commons

I noticed that when you select a material/group name in the Geometry Editor's Tool Settings panel, all of the surfaces that are part of that group are highlighted red in the scene. Is there a way to use the lasso or other selection tools to then deselect only from those 'red' areas?. If I use a selection tool while some regions are selected, it still selects everything the tool passes over. I basically want to make everything except those 'red' surfaces un-selectable.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,805
    edited December 1969

    Hide them - right-click, Geometry Visibility>Hide Un-Selected polygons - is the only way I know.

  • SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,646
    edited December 1969

    That works well, thanks very much. I wish I'd discovered how useful this tool is earlier. A while ago I used it to make a new material for the wing bones of the Popobawa set, but then I forgot about it. Now I'm finding it extremely useful for hiding bits of scenes that can't otherwise be done with opacity.

    Does Studio have a tool that can extract selected polygons and make them into a new object? For example, if you wanted to take a rock or brick from a Stonemason set and save it as an individual item or move it elsewhere in the scene.

    Thanks again.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Using the same tool select your Rock etc and then Inverse the Selection and Hide the selection and Then Delete the Hidden Facets...All the commands are in the same sub menu of the tool. Yes you would then have to reload the set to do another item. What I do is select say a group of items for a set, hide the inverse, delete and then save the remaining items as a scene. With that scene I go and do the reaming items one at a time, saving each separate item as a Scene Subset, then reload the main split off scene a repeat until I have them all split.

  • thoreandanthoreandan Posts: 151
    edited December 1969

    SnowSultan said:
    That works well, thanks very much. I wish I'd discovered how useful this tool is earlier. A while ago I used it to make a new material for the wing bones of the Popobawa set, but then I forgot about it. Now I'm finding it extremely useful for hiding bits of scenes that can't otherwise be done with opacity.
    ...

    I have been doing the exact same things recently with this tool (including making a new surface for the wing bones on Popobawa, it's like you read my mind!) One other thing I have recently used this tool for is to fix poke-through that can't be fixed by d-formers or smoothing. This usually occurs when smoothing collision detection or multiple applied morphs make one layer of an object poke through another layer of the same object (like an inner jacket surface poking through an outer jacket surface due to morphs or smoothing/collision detection).

    Anyway, one issue I recently discovered is that deleting the hidden facets can have undesirable side-effects on props or figures that have morphs. I found that after reloading a scene where I had previously deleted hidden facets, most of the morphs are broken. Strangely, the applied morphs didn't break right away, only after reloading the scene. I filed a bug report, but was told this is expected behavior because deleting polygons changes the polygon order that the morphs depend on to work properly.

    So now, rather than deleting those hidden polygons for hiding things or fixing poke-through, I assign them to a new surface and call it something like "invisible" so I don't forget its purpose, and just turn off the opacity (or null that surface in Reality). It'd be great if Daz Studio would just identify in the scene file which polygons are hidden, rather than having to actually delete them, but it doesn't.

  • SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,646
    edited December 1969

    That makes sense Szark, thanks very much.

    Thoreandan, that's also good to know if things start acting strange. More people should know about this tool and these methods, as they can help not only with adding materials or deleting unwanted objects, but for hiding walls and objects that block the camera, and for creating new objects as Szark said.


    Thanks again.

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    I am glad it made sense cause I wasn't sure if I was making sense. LOL My pleasure.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,805
    edited December 1969

    To preserve existing morphs (but not new ones added later) save the modified item as a new figure or prop asset (make sure you don't overwrite the original, give it a new author or product name in the option dialogue)

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 41,257
    edited December 1969

    SnowSultan said:
    That makes sense Szark, thanks very much.

    Thoreandan, that's also good to know if things start acting strange. More people should know about this tool and these methods, as they can help not only with adding materials or deleting unwanted objects, but for hiding walls and objects that block the camera, and for creating new objects as Szark said.


    Thanks again.


    ...I use this tool quite regularly to modify scene elements as my modelling skill is pretty well...non existent. Can't do things like put blast holes in walls & such as most often the polygon structure of the prop/set doesn't allow for this, but for a lot of small changes and texture work I find it indispensable.

    Actually used it once to set up all the surfaces on a .3ds model of a bus shelter that I imported through Hexagon.

  • CypherFOXCypherFOX Posts: 3,401
    edited December 1969

    Greetings,
    I love that tool. I used it to make shorts out of StreetWear's Rogue Sci-Fi Suit in this image... It does rely on the original object having good polys that can be nicely selected. So for instance there was nothing I could do to make Shantara City usable because the polys were HUGE and I couldn't make good surfaces out of them.

    You win some, you lose some. But the Geometry Editor and surface editing tools are a big win, and definitely more people should know how to use them.

    -- Morgan

  • trhancocktrhancock Posts: 39

    Hi,

    Although this is an old post, I thought it might be worthwhile to comment, as I have just noticed @CypherFOX's comment that "definitely more people should know how to use [the Geometry Editor]".

    I'm presenting a webinar entitled "Who’s Afraid of the DAZ Studio Geometry Editor?" on October 25, 2020. This will have lots of examples and also explanations of how to use the GE. The link for this is below. At present there is a discount code of "wolf10" to give you $10 off the price of the main session, but in fact the first half-hour is free if you just register for this. The free session includes 1 of my 6 Case Studies (the rest are in the main session!) plus some basic knowledge.

    If you miss the webinar, I expect it will be turned into a video product and put in the DAZ Shop, under the PA vendor name of Digital Art Live. So hopefully you won't have lost out. But as for me, I always enjoy the camaraderie of the Chat box in a live webinar!

    Here is the link:   https://digitalartlive.com/event/whos-afraid-of-the-daz-studio-geometry-editor/

    Best wishes all, enjoy your Geometry Editing!

    Trevor

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