[TUTORIAL] How to use the new Deformation tool

[niebo26]

Hello item makers !

If you were in the previous betas or if you already fiddled with the mesh Modeler, you've already seen a tool called "BlocTransformation" in the Selection Mode of the Mesh Modeler. If not, don't worry, you'll know everything here. The tool (when working) let you to bend, twist, etc a selection of your geometry. But it was kind of limited and the UX was not one of the best in the world. That's why it was revamped.



Now you should see this when entering the Deformation tool after you selected some geometry (as always, the more subdivided your geometry is, the smoother the results will be). Here, you have 4 options on your control spline (the orange line) :

• Change control spline original direction, by clicking the orange dot at one end of the control spline. When you click it, you'll see 4 orange dots that are the usable origins for your control spline. They depend of your selection size. Click one to set a new direction (if you made other changes on your control spline, they'll be adapted and "converted" to your new direction).
  
  

• Edit "step control frame". A step control frame is the lime green square line you can see on the other end of the control spline. Deformation tool now follows these as obligatory steps for the control spline and thus your geometry. Click the center of that frame to enter its own edition mode. Here you have 4 options available :
  
  
  
  - Move the step control frame (with the center of the frame).
  - The 3 others lime dots let you rotate the frame following the local reference frame of the spline (on the picture above, each "rotate" label has its color matching the axis it will let you rotate around).
  
  You can exit the edit step control frame mode by clicking anywhere else or by pressing escape.

• Extend the control spline by adding a new step control frame, by clicking the green dot, next to the last step control frame of the spline. After clicking once, when you click again, you will add a new step control frame in parallel with the last control frame.
  
  
  
  You can press escape to not add your step control frame

• Add a step control frame between two existing step control frames, by clicking a lime dot in the middle of two step control frames on the control spline. In that mode, you'll see a dozen of orange dots appear on the control spline between the two step control frames corresponding to your first click : click one of them to add a step control frame
  
  
  
  You can exit the mode with escape or by clicking anywhere else than the orange dots.

If you want to delete a step control frame, you can with right click on its center.
When you're done with the Deformation tool, you can press escape to exit it, or click another mode.
The Deformation tool uses its own undo stuff, so while using it, you can only undo what you've done in the current use : when you exit the Deformation tool (with escape or by selecting another mode), you'll lose your different steps that you've made in the Deformation tool (if you undo now, it'll undo everything at once)

As usual, if i'm not clear enough, don't hesitate to drop some questions about the tool here, i'll answer them
Hope you like this tool !

Niebo

PS : here's a video trying to show some possibilities of the tool

[Florenzius]

Thanks for explaining niebo, will definitely try it out

[Demented]

Wow. That is such a cool tool. I liked it before but it was a bit tricky. This looks so nice.
Also, I too appreciate the nice explanations and examples.
Watched the video.
(I made some banked curve transitions in my F1-Kit a while back and started with a straight road divided into 32 segments and adjusted each segment, individually one at a time to get the desired shape).
Took me about 15 minutes to do what you just did in a few seconds.
Love the new additions!

[TMarc]

Nice!

At first, when I saw the headline, I thought "wow, now they are adding objects that show deformed when the car crashes into it ", but then "oh, only deformation for modelling... "

[DocRBP]

Would it be possible to add a function to this tool that makes the curve more homogeneous?.
Instead of each added step making its own S curve the steps would work as if they where one curve.
Kind of hard to explain, but when you try to make corkscrews with the current tool you end up with a janky converging point at each step,
due to each step starting a new curve point and not continuing on the previous.
Well they do technically but it ends up looking as if it just started its own.

[Harest]

This is insane. I did a some basic stuff in the MeshModeler previously (like in my last map) but it was mainly for scaling parts of a block, or making an item out of a normal block so i could place it more freely (cf. the inclined towers in the linked map, etc.).
I just did my first twisted item by subdivising the mesh and following what's done in the video. I tried these tools before without tutorial, i didn't go far as i wasn't understanding anything, it was doing nothing.
It's obviously not a perfect item but i guess i'll manage somehow to fix the edges to match other blocks cleanly. I'll have to watch out for the size of the blocks though (from 18 to 137 ko on one block :s ; and it wasn't smooth enough, new one : 517 ko rip). Not sure there's a way to reverse the subdivision on the mesh automatically to optimize it. Good that i'm using OpenPlanet to get more than only 1 Mo of embedded items (i know for the servers 4 Mo limit though, i'll not exceed it).
Edit : Ctrl+Z doesn't seem to work well. Not sure also why the deformation doesn't start from the start of the block but from the end of a face, i must do something wrong ^^ (ok it was just that i needed to unselect deformation and reselect it so it takes the whole item and doesn't start just from where the initial deformation started). I'll experiment more with it for sure.

I wish this stuff would be better integrated / explained in the game, it's so powerful.
Edit : Oh and i want to say that the video in the PS is more useful than a thousand words. I didn't read most of the OP, just watching the video was enough to understand the possibilities and how to do it (though reading a bit more would answer my issues with the undo :p).

[Demented]

Mesh Modeler is still a work in progress and thus will have various bugs that come and go while the code is being written and updated.
The bugs frustrate me as well, but I also know it's to be expected while still in development.
I think it will be a really nice map editor tool when finished.

[DocRBP]

Is there currently any way to change the behavior of the deformation curve from the usual ´S`-looking curve?
I know you could technically stretch it but you always end up with some form of completed s-bend in every segment you make. For example upward turns always realign themselves instead of transitioning or continuing into the next deformation segment. Kind of hard to explain but try making something like a helix or 180 turn that goes upwards and you will have that spot in the middle where it has gone back to a flat surface before going upwards again.
could there perhaps be settings for 90,180,270,360 degree turns or even 45, 60 so it knows when to go back to flat again?

[mGuy]

Is there currently any way to change the behavior of the deformation curve from the usual ´S`-looking curve?
I know you could technically stretch it but you always end up with some form of completed s-bend in every segment you make. For example upward turns always realign themselves instead of transitioning or continuing into the next deformation segment. Kind of hard to explain but try making something like a helix or 180 turn that goes upwards and you will have that spot in the middle where it has gone back to a flat surface before going upwards again.
could there perhaps be settings for 90,180,270,360 degree turns or even 45, 60 so it knows when to go back to flat again?

I think there is no way to change it for now