United3dArtists Archive

If you are old enough, you may have used trueSpace4

In tS4 there was a tool called Spline Polygon. It is gone now. It has been replaced with the NURBS curve tool.
With the Spline Polygon tool you could draw a 2D shape, and specify the amount of segments between each control point. That feature was great when building a polygonal pot with the Lathe tool because user can finely control the number of vertices : add segments when the curve is soft and draw straight lines where no sgments are needed. See below : But when tS5 came, we were forced to use NURBS. NURBS are great as long as you keep them NURBS, but if you need to convert it to polygonal, you have almost no control over the process : trueSpace is putting segments automatically and there is no way to refine it precisely.

The former draw path tool still exists in tS7.6 though, but it is dedicated to animation paths. Stan did a cool plugin some time ago, called QuickPoly.tsx, to convert an animation path into a polygonal object.

But if you want to build a Spline Polygon directly, there is a Bridge command to call the Draw Path tool while drawing a polygonal spline.
Here it that command : tSBridge.SuggestTSState(48 , 4096);

So I did a Workspace button to run it, thanks to Clinton's create button tool.
You will find this tool in the zip file below. To install it manually to the bottom-right WS toolbar,
1. download and unzip the RsObj file on your desktop,
2. in tS open the Link Editor, move up to the root, then enter Windows_Manager_Space>Frame_Window,2>Toolbar, then drag the Spline_Polygon.RsObj file there.
3. update that toolbar : clic the little arrow at the right border of the toolbar to switch to 1D, then back 2D display.

WS is not my universe and I don't know how to make an installer yet

So how did you find 48 and 4096:
tSBridge.SuggestTSState(48 , 4096)
?

Nice one Emmanuel

tS7 exposes all of tS6.6 commands in their toolbars in the Link Editor.

clintonman wrote:So how did you find 48 and 4096:
tSBridge.SuggestTSState(48 , 4096)
?

It was a suggestion by Vladimir Sisolak (former Caligari dev.)

trueBlue wrote:Nice one Emmanuel

tS7 exposes all of tS6.6 commands in their toolbars in the Link Editor.

Can you post a picture of that?

It may be awhile as I have tS7 packed away. If you install it look in System/Toolbar Prototypes. As I recall.

"packed away!?!???!" why that's blasphemy!

Anyway, I looked but only saw workspace toolbars, nothing for modelside.

Here is a 7.11 model tool bar in link editor.

I see... tS7 not tS7.6
I'll have to reinstall and take a look. Thanks for the clarification.