My current workflow is to Clone my object, mirror the polygons on the clone and delete the original half of the clone so I have two working halves. Turn symmetry on so the center points stay on the plane. Then I model - edit and extrude and so on, the original, the clone is updated. Well partially.

If there is a better workflow please tell.

Here are the problems I am running into:

1) There seems to be no way to add a primitive into a polymesh. Been through the manual and I did not find a way to do this. If there is a way to do this please refer me to the section of the manual that covers it.

2) This leads to the next problem. There does not seem to be a way to properly merge or join objects into the poly mesh without creating a new mesh object. This in effect cuts the relationship to the clone. And anytime I want to add a primitive into the mesh as a starting point or target for creating new geometry, this means doing the clone, mirror, delete process all over. Not exactly efficient. As note here I am talking about connected parts not just putting parts in that could be separate. Such as contours on a car body that merge to a disc where the headlight would be. Just as an example. And I am polygon modeling here.

I am aware of lofting just so you know, but the above was just an example. I’d like to know specifically about working in symmetry.

Any tips on a better workflow to model - create/add new mesh components including primitives and edit them - in symmetry would be appreciated.

Thanks

Richard Culver

http://www.richardculver.com

If you’re using 2012, here’s a thought: use ICE Topology to do the “merging in place”
Here’s a hardly tested attempt at a command that applies the ICEOp to the objects, starts a picking session what to merge with and lives conveniently in the “Create > Polymesh” part of the Modeling Toolbar.
Quick “installation” instruction: drop the xsicompound in your user directory’s (or workgroup’s) “Data > Compounds” folder, drop the Python-plugin in the “Application > Plugins” of the same user directory (or workgroup).
This only does a merge without any options. It freezes the transforms on the original object before doing so.
Note also: the modeling relation keeps existing until you freeze the operator. So don’t delete the other object before that.
Again, this is hardly tested, USE AT OWN RISK,
Consider it more as a little “proof of concept” than anything else…

BELATED EDIT: Just noticed I forgot to suppress a totally superfluous PPG…
So I quickly repaired that… see the new attachment (0.2)
(Only the Python-files has changed slightly, the ICE Compound stays the same)

The “other” Softimage community: si-community.com

	Attachment
icemerge0.2_1.zip

Thanks for this!

I’ll download and give it a try, report back.

Richard Culver

http://www.richardculver.com