Subdividing faces

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SJS66
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Subdividing faces

Post by SJS66 » Fri Jan 31, 2020 10:01 pm

Hi guys, I'm following the "Rendering in SketchUp with Twilight Render Pro Part 1 : Modeling" tutorial video. :gj:

At 3:12 it shows how to use the subdivide faces tool. I can' t get mine to work the same as the video. When I activate the tool, it defaults to one subdivision & I get a prompt saying "Click twice to set the number of subdivisions. Crl = rotate, Ctrl+Shift=slide."

But if I click twice it jumps to 10 subdivisions & if I enter a number in the value box instead I don't get a preview, it just stays at one subdivision.

What's the trick to getting it to work like the video? (I'm using S.U. Pro 2019, Windows 10).

Cheers.

Fletch
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Re: Subdividing faces

Post by Fletch » Fri Jan 31, 2020 10:59 pm

Cheers SJS66,

The previsualization of bright green and red lines does not show up on very complex geometry. SU seems to fail at some point.

If you don't double-click anything, just select all the faces you wish to subdivide, and choose
right-click>TwilightV2>Faces>Subdivide it will default to a single subdivision.
Simply hit the number 2 on your keyboard and hit enter - it should give you 2 subdivs. 3 then enter, and so forth. Be careful not to go too high. You can't go over 10, but we recommend you do not exceed 4 in most any case.

If you single-click a selected/highlighted face and move your mouse away from the point you clicked it will increase or decrease the subdivs interactively. perhaps after the single click you are moving your mouse away from the point where you double-clicked? Keep the mouse very close to the point where you initiated the single-click in order to carefully move the mouse curser slightly up or down to increase/decrease subdivs. When you have the look you want you THEN double-click (click a second time) to "set" or "fix" the subdivs to the number they were adjusted to when you were moving the mouse, then hit "enter" key to "commit" the subdivs operation. The word "double-click" is probably confusing there. It's really "click once" to start subdivision adjustment pre-visualization and "click a second time" to stop subdiv adjustment pre-visualization.

If that doesn't work:
Do you have a screenshot of the model you are trying to subdivide?
Or can you share the model via filesharing service? You can PM the link to me.

:hat:


Keep in mind this is a "flat" subdivision, it's simply subdividing the face, it is not trying to "round" the surfaces by interpolation as the subdivision modifier does in some applications. For that functionality, you would need ThomThom's SubD plugin.

SJS66
Posts: 7
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SketchUp: 2019 Pro
Location: Australia

Re: Subdividing faces

Post by SJS66 » Sat Feb 01, 2020 12:04 am

Hi Fletch, thanks for the prompt reply. I'm doing the wall that you use in the video (BarcelonaPavilion_MilesVanDerRohe_TwilightGettingStartedTutorial.skp) exactly the same wall & face you use to example the subdivision tool on.
I've worked out only to click once and drag my cursor to adjust the number of subdivisions but if I don't click once & leave on default (one subdivision) & enter 2, 3 or 4 on my keyboard (value shows in measurement box) the preview doesn't change from one. If I hit enter it subdivides to the value I enter but the preview doesn't seem to update or change unless I use the cursor. I do have to say, that preview line is very faint but I can see it.
I've got SubD (Evil Software - Thom Thom) but I didn't even realise TR had this option built in. But I'm aware of how subdivision works & the impacts of going over 4. Actually I'm in the process of building a new PC (always had a laptop) so I'm looking forward to being able to utilise TR a bit more with my custom built system. I'd be interested to get some feed back from you regarding some of the components I've included on my build list (order start of next week).
Cheers.

SJS66
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 3:47 am
OS: Windows 10
SketchUp: 2019 Pro
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Re: Subdividing faces

Post by SJS66 » Sat Feb 01, 2020 12:18 am

G'day Fletch, I worked it out. I've got to hit enter after entering a value for the number of subdivisions, for the preview to update.
Happy days :^: Typically I was half way through making a video of it to send to you when I worked out how to do it. I wish I had a dollar for every time I'd done that... :lol:
Can we change the colour or thicken that preview line by any chance? I think I need to go to Specsavers..... :P

Fletch
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Re: Subdividing faces

Post by Fletch » Sat Feb 01, 2020 9:31 am

Hey there, SJS66,

Glad to hear you worked it out. :hat:
I tried to be clear when I wrote
Simply hit the number 2 on your keyboard and hit enter
but admittedly it's easily missed.

In fairness, it's just how copying multiple objects or dividing works in the VCB with normal SketchUp functionality.

I'm not sure if we can tweak the thickness of the preview lines or not. We can take a look, for sure. :totgm:

Thanks for the feedback. I will try in an upcoming tutorial to do a little more slow and careful review of that subdiv tool. It is a hidden gem of Twilight Render most don't know or use. We will try to improve that in the future.

pbacot
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Re: Subdividing faces

Post by pbacot » Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:54 pm

What is it useful for?

Fletch
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Re: Subdividing faces

Post by Fletch » Wed Feb 05, 2020 7:30 pm

  • The main intended feature of face subdivide is being able to use "grid subdivide" for when we are able to have material displacement (coming feature).
  • Also, there are times with some geometry with large faces that are tris or polygons (non quad faces) that the texture mapping fails. Subdividing the faces can make the texture mapping look better (by reducing the distances between inconsistencies where the adjacent faces UVs can not align along all edges)
  • But there have been times when it's come in handy with organic modeling because if you have ThomThom's SubD and Quadface tools, or Artisan SubSmooth plugin neither of them have this particular grid subdivide feature. There are so many ways one can subdivide a face or, more importantly, a series of connected faces, it just depends on what one needs in a given modeling situation.
  • Another situation is in combination with Fredo6's "Bend" tool
    Fredo6 Collection>FredoScale>Radial Bend - it works best with a grid-divided face, the more divisions the smoother the bend results.
It's a unique style of subdivision as it's deliberately maintaining the "look" of the geometry without trying to round or smooth it in any way. This makes it great for use with displaced materials.
Keep in mind this is a "flat" subdivision, it's simply subdividing the face, it is not trying to "round" the surfaces by interpolation as the subdivision modifier does in some applications. For that functionality, you would need ThomThom's SubD plugin.

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