Pattern Tool ugh

[mattjgerard]

in KS10 is there any way to get rid of the requirements for an object to be multiplied in the pattern tool? I mean its really annoying to have to have the object in a group on the root level of the model set? Not sure what KS's fascination with nesting everything in groups

[andy.engelkemier]

I thought maybe I had a revelation on that the other day...but maybe not.
It seems that Maybe, since they never really decided on implementing the standard, local/world space idea....it seems they still don't have that figured out. They instead create any object that it doesn't understand to have a parent to it's own parent, thus creating a world space and local space element.
So if you select the object group, it's world space, and if you select the object itself it's local space.

I don't know if that's right. Even if that's what it is, it's still a hack job of a workaround. I guess people are more interested in what kind of strands of cloth they can make than making sense of usability. *shrug*

[INNEO_MWo]

It is a simple problem calculating the transition of the matrices. And to make this more robust and also re-definable, you'll need the groups with a global orientation. IMHO I try to understand the problems a coder has to deal with, so I try to stay fair. The KeyShot devs solve high, complex things to use amazing fast and easy. So it is not a big deal to group some things together to use the pattern tool. Otherwise preps can be done in a modelling tool, that might enable more features for this task.


But this is my personal point of view.


Maybe a future release will have some improvements for the pattern tool?!


Cheers
Marco

[DriesV]

... its really annoying to have to have the object in a group on the root level of the model set? ...

It is true that the Pattern tool only works on top-level geometry (children of Model Set), but it should work regardless of the geometry being in a group or not. As long as the geometry is on the first level under the Model Set it qualifies as a "model" and can be patterned.

If you are seeing behavior that is different, then it could qualify as a bug.

Dries

[mattjgerard]

I'm pretty sure my object needs to be in a group for the pattern option to show up, but I will test that. This is is all user interface stuff, and I know that making apps user friendly is probably harder than making the app do its thing. In fact that's been stated on her by Dries!

The grouping thing is a thorn, with the C4D plugin, the geometry is buried 4 layers deep sometimes inside groups, and I spend a lot of time un earthing those items. Especially when generators are being used (sweeps, extrudes, etc). Adding a shortcut key to creating and adding objects to a group that then has its name highligted in the scene tree for renaming would be an awesome thing too.

Ill test and report back

[INNEO_MWo]

what might help in this case is using the model sets. You can select the parts you need as a pattern, even in sub-sub-sub-...-groups. Then use RMT menu create model set out of selection (linked material and all the other options to your needs - and don't forget to hide & lock this/these part(s)). The new model set will keep the levels of the structure, but only contains the selected part(s). Now you can pattern the top node. Now you've got an isolated pattern that can be deleted without losing original structure (for updates).


hope that helps


Cheers
Marco

[mattjgerard]

... its really annoying to have to have the object in a group on the root level of the model set? ...

It is true that the Pattern tool only works on top-level geometry (children of Model Set), but it should work regardless of the geometry being in a group or not. As long as the geometry is on the first level under the Model Set it qualifies as a "model" and can be patterned.

If you are seeing behavior that is different, then it could qualify as a bug.

Dries

It looks a though this is true now, The object doesn't need to be in a group. Which is different from what I remember, so this is a prime case of operator error!

Marco, that is a good workaround, I'll keep it in mind.