Hi. I was wondering if there is a way to cut out geometry using a texture map.

So lets say you have a quad thats uv mapped. you apply a black texture with a white dot in the middle. Is there a way to cut that circle out using a method that just aproximates the shape?

I would be using this for complex stuff.  I understand its a crazy question but I figured no harm in asking. The only thing I know to do is to apply the texture and then in the viewport just hand cut. But its a lot of stuff to cut so i’m open to any shortcuts and tips.

Thanks!

I’m not aware of a way to do it. I cut geometry to match textures all the time and I’ve always had to do it manually. It sure would be useful, but since my textures aren’t anything easily machine readable (say paving slabs on the ground, not lines around the slabs) then I’m not sure it’d be something that could easily be automated.

If it is sopmething as simple as a circle on a plain background then yes you could eaily convert that to a spline and use that with Shape Merge.

Thanks!  Thats an awesome tool.

I am having one issue though.  I save out the .AI file and then go to import it into Max 2010 and this is the error I get.

“Line in file exceeds 255 characters”

“improper file format”

Do you know how to fix this? I’ll keep trying different things but so far i’m having a hard time getting the trace back into Max.

Thanks

Max doesn’t support newer .ai files, so you have to save it out of Illustrator as version 8 (I think that’s the last version supported).

3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC

Ok so it looks like I wasn’t trying far back enough in the legacy. I tried saving as older versions but saving as “8” is what worked.  That imported in.

Awesome stuff man!  I’ve never done this type of stuff.

i’ll have to clean up my source art and give it a try and see what I can do. hopefully i’ll get something decently usable. The image is pretty detailed and i’m going to have to try to trace with as few bezier as possible.. That or I could go a bit higher and then right click - Corner and then adjust stuff and work with turbosmooths. 

Is there a way to get less steps in a smooth bezier for like an extrude modifier? Often these things will have way too many edges when you put an extrude on? If not i’m sure i’ll find a solution.. At this point I think I have most of what I need to get this done.

If it works out i’ll have to post what I am doing.

thanks

It depends on the number of steps in the interpolation rollout of the spline.

3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC

You might want to try Rayfire, it has a Fragmentation by Shapes function.

http://mirvadim.com/onlineHelp/3_3_Shapes.html

It uses a black & white image to cut out shapes.

http://rayfirestudios.com/index.php?id=4

Vertex Cleaner may be useful to clean up the results if the Trace step & Optimize angle settings don’t do the job.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/vertex-cleaner.

For reducing vertex if your using an imported spline you could try Optimize Spline if the Normalize Spline modifier in Max doesn’t give you good results (I wouldn’t be surprised).

I think Optimize Spline is better for complex shapes, it’s like Normalize Spline but with a brain ;)

http://www.maxplugins.de/max2009...Spline%20v1.0&sort=Author

Hope this helps, it’s all from memory from a distant project :)