Howto: Separating Edges?

[bubbafrye]

hello.. I have modeled a large map that I am now cutting up into bite-sized pieces to export out to a (Torque) game engine.

In the past, I have had to duplicate the original mesh, select faces I want to break out on one model, and the opposite on the other, then delete. This needs to be done for as many sections that I need to cut my mesh up into... very tedious.

Is there a way to select a line of edges (assuming for now that they span from one border edge to another) and 'cut' a mesh into two pieces?

You can 'split vertex', but it is just as tedious to sew all of the verts you didn't want split back together.

~thanks

[drblacksnake]

editPolygons->extract

[bubbafrye]

While that does not answer my question itself, it does offer an excellent solution to my problem - thanks a ton Doctor!

editPolygons->extract works by breaking out a group of selected faces. Any idea if there is a method to break along selected edges?

[joojaa]

Heres a quickly made one, it splits the selected edges up so thet the freestanding edge point is allways sewn back closed.

CODE
global proc jooSplitEdge(){
  sets -text "gCharacterSet" -name "jooTemp";
  PolySelectTraverse 1;
  sets -text "gCharacterSet" -name "jooTemp2";
  select jooTemp;
  polySplitVertex;
  select jooTemp2;
  select -d jooTemp;
  polySewEdge -t 0.01 -tx 1 -ws 1;
  select  jooTemp;
  delete jooTemp jooTemp2;
}

Source the above to use run proc jooSplitEdge

PS. its still has a slight bug if you dont follow a loop but it'll get you started. Actualy the bug is in polySewEdge wich sometimes craps up a bit if your comming in hard corners. so if you want to split a l shape do it in 2 steos!

[naughty]

woah joojaa, serious syntax error in the proc definition, and at line 9:

global proc jooSplitEdge{ // (you forgot the parameter() braces..!)

polySewEdge -t 0.01 -tx 1 -ws 1 -; // a flag name missing after the last - ?

this test proc severly screws up my test sphere!

actually, I wrote a script which does this, and does it pretty well in every obscure case I tried, but it's ridiculously slow and complex for something Maya should really already do... I even had to use the closestPointOnMesh plug-in command!!

:nathaN

[drblacksnake]

well.. just I dont get why exactly You want separation by edges and why face extraction is not good.
anyway, You still can use splitVertex-method, just add few more actions -
1) sparate parts after splitting;
2) select all vertices of newly splitted object;
3) select boundary of selection editPolygons->Selection->selectSelectionBoundary;
4) merge all remaining vertices editPolygons->mergeVertices->[] with distance set to 0.0.

Only thing that may occur is unwanted merging of specific vertices, but for those cases You just should check before if there are some vertices that stay in same location, but should not be merged.
Perhaps check topology with poly Cleanup.. but as far as You do models for game, then latter is optional.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(Naughty @ 10/11/06, 11:51 AM) [snapback]249704[/snapback]
woah joojaa, serious syntax error in the proc definition, and at line 9:
:nathaN

Fixed anway what the hell do you expect for 5 mins of coding. Blacksnakes way works fine if you split trough but not uif you split only part of the object such as wanting a hole in the mesh alog some verst.