Wings3D help required - please!

[DaddyHoggy]

OK I'm going mad with this one.

At work, our previous modelling tool of choice (AC3D) allows you to draw just a single 2D plane - we would then call these single planes (associated with the rest of the 3D model) a special name which was then picked up by our 3D rendering engine and it would use the normal of the plane to calculate the out of the window view's location for our tank simulators (as well as making these special polygons invisible).

Wings3D doesn't seem to have a way of drawing just a 2D square poly (if it does please tell me)

I hoped that I could draw a cube, break it up into its 6 faces and then use some of the faces as my 2D polys and delete the rest, but Wings3D seems wise to this ploy and I can't find a way to break up the cube into its individual faces.

I've googled of course but the Google-fu is weak in me today and I've turned up nothing.

This one's a game-breaker (literally) if I can't persuade Wings3D to do what I need, so I'm relying on the genius of the 3D model makers on here to come to my aid.

Cheers,

John

[Svengali]

You could create 6 cubes and delete the faces where not needed.

[Killer Wolf]

wings doesn't do this cos it's a "box modeller". i asked about this on the forum, the idea of creating faces/facets like Hexagon does so you can "face over" gaps or join bits together to form a surface, and that was the reply. you could probably do teh cubey thing mentioned previously but i'm not sure how much Wings would like it if you decide to go further.

it's one of the joys of modelling. i have to swap between 3 modellers, cos each does something the others don't etc. it's a real pain at times.

[DaddyHoggy]

Possible solution.

Create a cube.

Highlight all edges, use .loop cut., drag front face away from cube, highlight what's left and delete...

I'll let you know what the 3D Synthetic environment thinks of the remaining polygon...

[Ironfist]

Is this some thing like what you require

it was created with the mlab plugin for wings3d

[DaddyHoggy]

dashes off to look at mlab plug-in!

[Ironfist]

should have said it is plane cut by points done three times and you can delete the cube leaving sperate planes - hope that helps

[DaddyHoggy]

should have said it is plane cut by points done three times and you can delete the cube leaving sperate planes - hope that helps

Thanks.

I'm confused. I get the impression that mlab is built-in to some versions of Wings3D.

I'm running V1.4.1 - nothing mlab looking in any of my menu options...

UPDATE: these single facets are two-faced (literally) - whereas the ones in AC3D are single sided polys. After a bit of thought the POV bit of the 3D Synthetic Environment Software seems to have concluded that it should (sensibly) pick the face facing out towards the front of my vehicle model not the other direction. This is lucky because it's not in the code, just a side effect of how it reads the face data in...

...phew.

Now I need to shoot a video of it so my Distance Learning students have some hope of seeing what the hell is going on!

[Ironfist]

downloaded the mlab version and just installed it - opted for a desktop icon - it seems to include wings3d 1.4.1 then at the top of all the RMB menus there is a "lots more item" easy to miss

[DaddyHoggy]

downloaded the mlab version and just installed it - opted for a desktop icon - it seems to include wings3d 1.4.1 then at the top of all the RMB menus there is a "lots more item" easy to miss

If there's a link can you post it here please - I can manage with my fudge at the moment but in the future I'd like something neater.

Ruddy M$ Encoder Pro took twenty minutes to fail to convert a video from M$ Expression Screen Capture - grrrrr....

[Ironfist]

went to this page and choose the last link
http://s331378245.onlinehome.us/manifoldlab_releases/
it is a windows install - adds a new version, leaves the original