tySelect: edge distance

[betamax]

Hi,

We were trying to replicate an exact Edit Poly selection using tySelect.
We found that Edge Distance functionality seems different between the two.

In Edit Poly - 'Edge Distance' seems to act almost like a mask, limiting the distance of the soft-select falloff 'underneath'. 
In tyFlow, we tried Grow/Shrink with no luck.

We read the tyFlow manual and found this, but we still couldn't work out a way to make Edge Distance behave in the same way as Edit Poly.

Edge distance: soft selection values will be computed as the distance from a vertex to the nearest fully-selected vertex, along connected surface edges.


Note: When soft-selecting in “edge distance” mode, any vertices that have no direct connection along surface edges to fully-selected vertices will always receive a soft-selection value of 0.

Apologies if if we're missing something, but it would be great if Edge Distance in tyselect could behave in a similar way as other familiar tools. No worries if not.

Thanks!

[tyFlow]

Perhaps you could post some screenshots comparing the two. Actual vs desired behavior.

[betamax]

Perhaps you could post some screenshots comparing the two. Actual vs desired behavior.

Sure thing, I hope this shows what I'm getting at!

Both methods have an edge distance set to 9 in this example and both test planes and have the central vertex selected.

The Edit Poly method on the left of the video has Edge Distance as a separate value, which effectively limits the Falloff value to a distance of 9. Once the Falloff value is greater than 9, it gets limited by the Edge Distance.
Essentially tySelect seems to have a different meaning for Edge Distance and also soft selection is seemingly unavailable in Polygon mode?


Thanks,
Max

[tyFlow]

Ah yes I see what you mean. That is because "edge distance" is not a clamp in tySelect, but a literal distance of traversal, from edge to edge, until a cutoff point based on the distance setting you choose. I think that's more desirable behavior than what EditPoly/EditMesh edge distance setting does. Can you think of a usage case where just clamping a normal soft selection with a depth-first edge count would be ideal? Also you can adjust the soft-selection graph to achieve basically the same behavior either way.

The reason tyFlow's edge distance selection is diagonal in your image, is due to the orientation of hidden edges on the mesh. If you set all edges on your mesh to be visible, you'll see that the hidden edges are oriented in the same direction that your selection is biased towards....which is correct behavior given the edge distance algorithm I'm using.

You'll see the same behavior in EditPoly/EditMesh if you enable visibility of hidden edges....perhaps you're getting your diamond shape because those modifiers do not traverse hidden edges....which is, an interesting option I may add into the tySelect soft selection rollout.

As for soft selections on faces, they are not supported by tySelect (and technically within max "soft face selections" are just vert selections anyways, because max meshes have no internal structures to store different selection weightings for vertices directly in faces).

[moonjam]

Apologies for resurrecting an older thread, but I came here to suggest a similar thing as betamax but I have an example of the behavior I'm trying to replicate.

If you use Edit Poly's 'Edge Distance' option, it's possible to have a soft selection that doesn't carry over to nearby geometry because you're capping the number of verts it's permitted to select. 



Is it possible to replicate this sort of filtering using tySelect?

Thanks!

AJ

[tyFlow]

That's already tySelect's edge distance behavior, AJ:

[moonjam]

Ugh, I'm so sorry. I must have been doing something stupid as I could not get this to work earlier. I was using meshes to control the selection and I'm guessing I had one of them too large and it was grabbing extra verts. Apologies again and thank you!