Hide and Holes

[Geta-Ve]

Just a general gripe here, but I really wish that the hide and hole options were separate from each other. It is all too easy to apply the hole command instead of the hide command, with very little indication as to which you have done.

A few dozen commands later and it is impossible to get your 'holed' geometry back.

A few options I can think of to prevent this.

1. A confirmation box when applying the Hole command
   
   
2. Separate the Hide and Hole commands.
   
   
3. Coloured edge borders depending on whether the adjacent faces are hidden or holed. Like when you throw on Hard Edges.
   
   
4. An adjustable transparency option for hidden geometry, while also locking it off from the user, ie it can't be selected.
   

[puzzledpaul]

Whilst I've used Hide, I dunno about Hole (other than for tests) so I'm probably not a good person to comment - however, a few observations - other than the obvious - be more careful

Check afterwards - connecting a couple of verts across a hole will form geom ... this won't happen with Hide - then Undo.

RMB Hole (with appropriate geom selected) will fill in the hole - but if the hole is anything other than trivial, you'll have problems re-instating same.
Sequential saving of the model may well offer a solution there - either replace the bit of Holey model with a bit of intact ... or use the original as a reference to rebuild.

However, as I suspect you're now more than aware of the issue ... it's less likely to happen anyway?

pp


Edit

Ignore the bit about checking by connecting a couple of verts - I was wrong - doesn't work
Well, it seemed to, but I suspect I'd selected a vert on the inside of the object, thro' the hole - for one of pair.
Selecting a boundary face and using Hole > rmb does, tho ...

[Geta-Ve]

I will definitely be more careful next time. Part of the frustration was that I had sequential saves at completely unhelpful times. It involved resizing some arms, hiding them to access the ribs, and then I would have unhid and continued on. Unfortunately for me I saved before the arm resize, and right after the "hide". :S

The RMB solution definitely did not help. haha. Especially when I had holed out entire arms. I am actually quite curious as to what ever happened to the 'hole' material. The benefit there was that you always had control over what part of the model would be 'deleted' upon exporting, but, as in my case, if you had 'holed' the wrong section it was a trivial matter to apply a different material.

C'est la vie I suppose.

[oort]

Geta-Ve,

Here is a thread in the old forum about .hole and the hole material... hole material.

Since many people miss this and ask about it, I wonder if it would be good to add "hole material" in the menu next to .hole???

Select faces > RMB > Hole Material. This would automatically create the old hole material if not already present and assign it to the selected faces.

Just a thought...

oort

[Geta-Ve]

I almost feel like there shouldn't even be a Hole command at all.

To simplify things, at least for the user, keep everything within the Hidden command. It will sufficiently hide your geometry, and, if need be, it can delete the faces upon export, lets say with an export option?

This way, you get the benefit of a temporary hide, as well as having the option to act as a hole on export. All in one command.

I don't doubt that this is probably a lot more complex to implement than I understand, but, from a user perspective this makes sense I think.

[optigon]

A major difference between the two commands is:

• Hide keeps the individual faces intact.
  
• Hole dissolves adjacent faces into a single face.
  

[Geta-Ve]

Indeed. Though couldn't that step be saved until exporting?

IE.

Export OBJ

(pretend this is a tick option)
Delete hidden faces [ ] (check mark the box if you'd like it done).


The reason I feel this way is because, in reality there is no place for holes in Wings current workflow. What I mean is, visually, from the user's point of view, Hole and Hide do the same thing. They remove faces (for whatever reason the user has decided).

The only time Holes need to be utilized (in the way that Holes are actually utilized) is when taking the model in to another program, say, Maya. At that point you are left with a literal hole in your model (or a flat plane if you've modelled such a thing).

Not sure if I am making sense here. The only advantage to applying a Hole, pre export, is to visualize how it will look (in the case of flat planes). This however can already be accomplished by the Hide tool, thus ... route the Hole command to the export screen.

Or, if that is too much work, as in, if you'd need to manually edit each exporter, then perhaps more simply place a command in the Tool menu that 'Converts all Hidden faces to Holes'. A user can decide to invoke such a command before he or she exports the model. Though realize that the eventual request of "just give me the option at export" will probably arise.

*shrug*

Food for thought perhaps?

[Misty Wisty]

i would appreciate more space between hole and hide too.

[oort]

Geta-Ve,
As you know, the old "hole" material did the work of removing faces on export. As a matter of fact you can still create a "hole" material and apply it to faces in order to remove faces on export.

I think Hide is only meant to be used during the modeling process to get polys out of your way so you can model tricky areas of your model. It is not meant to be a permanent status for those polys. I may be wrong though. I never use hide or .hole. I may have used hide once or twice in all these years.

Edit: I am wrong about the old "hole" material still working but there is a workaround that Ran13 gave us.

Make your "hole" material. Color/opacity doesn't matter.
Assign hole material to faces you do not want to export. (Just like in old Wings)
When you are ready to export, RMB on the hole material in the outliner and choose "select".
This will select all faces with the hole material assigned.
Invert the selection (Press CTRL+SHFT+I)
From the main menu, File-> Export Selected -> [file format of choice]

Only the faces WITHOUT the hole material will be exported.

I am not sure that in its current state .hole is a good thing??? It is good as long as you never have to get those faces back. Does anyone use it?

oort

[Geta-Ve]

I use both Hide and Hole regularly for client and personal work. In fact Hide is a great way of hiding objects that have been Combined into a larger group.

IE.
Select two cubes
Combine
try selecting just one cube (especially if their faces overlap)
Select face of one cube
increase selection until it encompasses whole cube
Hide

I used this method yesterday when dealing with about 10 objects that had been combined, and I had to get inside to start Hole-ing faces, and hardening edges.

With that being said, I still feel that the two commands accomplish the same task depending on what the user wants to do afterward. It is just that Hide is non-destructive, whereas Hole isn't.

It may be worth looking in to a hybrid Hole method, where it marks areas for deletion upon export, like the old Hole material did, but also hides the section to be deleted, like the current Hole command, furthermore, some kind of transparency option for this 'material' would be nice so that you can double check everything that will be deleted, and subsequently change if need be, once the model is exported out.

This option would give the benefit of still using the Hide command as intended, where the user can choose to unhide everything at any time (which would conflict with any 'Hole-ing' of faces as in my previous idea), but also allowing the Hole command to stay non-destructive.