Digital Art Zone

Unfortunately, occasionally I still need to use the Carrara vertex modeller, such as when I’m editing a rigged object in the Assy Room. But I can’t recall if there’s a way to do what every modelling program on the planet does, which is to allow you the option of NOT selecting those “backface” polygons that are on the far side of the object you’re editing.

I realize you can first manually select and hide those in some cases to get them out of the way, but that is a huge pain. Does anyone know if Carrara has the option to not select backface polys?

Not a clue!

RichardChaos - 06 July 2012 06:04 PM

Not a clue!

AWESOME !!! Thanks !! 

There is no way in carrara that I’m aware of to hide back faces (also called backface culling) when editing in the vertex room.

One can always the make the selection of faces you want to work on,
invert the selection,
hide that selection and only the highlighted polygons will show up.

One can also select by polygon if it is named for later work.

Naming key work areas may be the best way around it. 

Some meshes are so dense (DAZ figures)  the hiding of backfaces doesn’t help much.  heh

But there isn’t a hide backfaces like the screen shot image provide shows from Hexagon.

Thanks, but to be clear, it’s not a hiding issue, it’s a selecting issue.

When you rectangular select, or lasso select, for example, on the front polys of a sphere, it also goes thru and selects those polys inside the selection area, but on the far side of the sphere. Which most times you don’t want to happen. Most modelling software has the ability to differentiate and only select those polys that are facing the viewer. Don’t recall if Hex has that or not….

The problem with hiding stuff you don’t want to select is, for example with the sphere, if you don’t want to select the polys in the back of the sphere, how do you select only them to hide them without selecting the front ones also? So you’re back to the original problem….

JoeMamma2000 - 07 July 2012 05:32 AM

Thanks, but to be clear, it’s not a hiding issue, it’s a selecting issue.

When you rectangular select, or lasso select, for example, on the front polys of a sphere, it also goes thru and selects those polys inside the selection area, but on the far side of the sphere. Which most times you don’t want to happen. Most modelling software has the ability to differentiate and only select those polys that are facing the viewer. Don’t recall if Hex has that or not….

The problem with hiding stuff you don’t want to select is, for example with the sphere, if you don’t want to select the polys in the back of the sphere, how do you select only them to hide them without selecting the front ones also? So you’re back to the original problem….

The only way I know is to mark and name selections.

Front of sphere
L. Side
R. Side
Rear of sphere

Then, you just make a selection you want shown, invert, hide all of the others.

So I guess naming and marking selections would be the key in Carrara.  Don’t know of any other way.

I am still just learning Carrara…. but painting the selection would work only on facing polygons and its rather fast…. or you could select a middle polygon and grow click which grows initially on the side you start with. Also you could select all (double click a polygon) and then rotate 90 degrees and then shift marquee the back half out of the selection. But I agree an option to only select facing polygons would be nice for the marquee and lasso.

I am surprised RC hasn’t suggested you just use Hexagon!

MrPoser - 07 July 2012 12:06 PM

I am still just learning Carrara…. but painting the selection would work only on facing polygons and its rather fast…. or you could select a middle polygon and grow click which grows initially on the side you start with. Also you could select all (double click a polygon) and then rotate 90 degrees and then shift marquee the back half out of the selection. But I agree an option to only select facing polygons would be nice for the marquee and lasso.

Thanks, MP. But like I say in my initial post, the difficulty is coming while editing a rigged object in the Ass’y room, specifically editing morphs on a conforming clothing. As we all know, often they are comprised of multiple, unwelded objects, and usually we don’t know the limits of the objects unless we do a lot of investigation, so Growing (which I use all the time) ain’t gonna do the trick. Which is why I like the rect select tool, it’s quick and easy and covers all bases.

Also, if you want to select all the polys even down into the deep crevices of folds, etc., Painting might not do it. Though that is one of those tools that I forget to use, and might come in handy, so thanks for the reminder.

And since it’s in the Assy Room, chances it’s on a character, which is blocking the view of the back parts of the clothing, so unless you’re really careful (or take the time to hide all the interfering characters, etc.) you could be editing all day on what you think is the front of the clothing, when in fact you accidentally selected one lone vertex in the back somewhere, and when you’re done with your wonderful editing job, you realize there’s one vertex behind the character that is sticking out 12 feet behind it, all alone. So what I do is, after selecting, make a note of the position of the manipulator to see that it’s in the middle of the center of the front polys, and not shifted to the back because of a lone poly selected somewhere.

BTW, maybe RC (whoever that is…) didn’t suggest using Hex because he read the first line of my inital post.

Y’know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that using a combination of Paint and Grow might be a good second-best in this case. And actually it gives a bit more control compared to rect select…

Thanks MP, I owe you one… 

If it helps, when you are selecting on a clothed character try clicking on the ‘Hide unselected objects’ icon at the top of the window pane.

This will give you a clearer view for the selection and you can then re-click it if you need to see the whole scene again without losing your selection. This also makes things work smoother in the viewport when you have a complex scene.