The original question was whether Modo had any kind of modeling history.
The answer there is no (not that I've ever needed it either).
The bigger issue is that Modo doesn't have 'operators' at all in the
Softimage sense. And believe me I miss this from Softimage. I still
don't know how I would do something like .... apply an MDD (deformer),
then add modeling operations on top of that (topo change), then add
secondary animation on top of that (more deformers)... There are
definite limitations. Especially with the demise of Soft, I've been
trying to get the Modo devs to see exactly why people like it so much,
and the op stack is a major player, not mention a good problem solver.
That said Modo is not closed-minded to the notion of stacking operations
in a way that lets you edit them later... Its deformer stack is a good
example of this, and seems easier and more flexible to me than the
equivalent in Softimage. Someone with feet in both apps will have to
tell me if I'm wrong here (Sergio? Gideon?).
-Tim
On 5/6/2014 5:07 PM, Matt Lind wrote:
Under general modelling conditions, you're right in that most people just
freeze it anyway, but there are workflows that come into play where you must
have a construction history to employ. For example, primitive retopology.
You may need to do a primitive re-topologize. So you get a polygon mesh grid
and shrinkwrap it to the object you want to retopo. Although the shrinkwrap
operator has an option to use nearest vertices, you end up with situations
where the vertices on the grid collapse and target one or more of the same
vertices on the target mesh. No good. To fix the problem you must move the
shrinkwrap operator up the stack into the animation region then use the
movecomponent tool (or just translate subcomponent) to move the points on the
grid until they snap to a different vertex on the target mesh. This works
because your movecomponent operation evaluates first, then the shrinkwrap
evaluates with the vertex in its current location to find the closest vertex on
the target mesh. Simple example, but illustrates the point. Also comes into
play with enveloping and corrective weighting.
These are the kind of flexible workflows we lose by not having a construction
history.
Matt
