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Old 22nd November 2003, 08:36 PM   #1
halkun
Junior Member
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 7
Default Implementing Lightwave's "Layers"

I'm going from lightwave to AC3D. (I'm doing stuff that requires legal software and junk). I would *ADORE* to have the "layers" implemented in AC3d. That would make boolian operations much more simple

For thos who don't know how this works, Ill show you.

At the top of the 4-split windows are 7 buttons split in half. They look something like this...

Code:
     ___      ___      ___      ___      ___      ___      ___    
    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|
    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|
Now the top half of each button is what layer you are looking at. You can only select one at a time. The bottom half is the layer selector where you can choose more than one layer to do an operation on.

For example, I want to do a union of two spheres. I select both the top and bottom halfs of the first button to select layer 1. It would then look like this...

Code:
     ___      ___      ___      ___      ___      ___      ___    
    |_*_|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|
    |_*_|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|

Then I draw a sphere on layer one. (I'll spare you the ascii-art on that one.) After that I will want do draw another sphere on layer 2, so I can union them togeather. So I select layer two, but as I will want to have the data from layer one visable. This is because I'm going to be using the data from layer 1. To do this I will want to select the top half of the button of layer two. The buttons look like this now.

Code:
     ___      ___      ___      ___      ___      ___      ___    
    |___|    |_*_|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|
    |_*_|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|    |___|

The screen will "grey out" the sphere on layer one. You won't be able to select it and is only usable as a refrence point. It won't display layer 1 at all in the 3d window, only in the othographic views.

On layer two you draw your second sphere, and have it interscet the first "greyed out" sphere on layer one.

After that, you just select boolian -> union and *BLAMO* you have an object made from two spheres with only one surface on the second layer. YOu can then cut and paste that object to any other layer to "get it out of the way" if you want, or delete the first two objects.

There should be a layer menu with "boolian" as a submenu, bringing up functions like union, subtract, etc, etc...

What do you guys think?

I can scan post some screenshots of how lighwave does it if it's too confusing for you...
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