Spline on Preexisting forms and extruding

[ritterknight]

Is there a way to extrude a face from the line drawing that has been snapped to a preexisting surface? I have attached an example of this being done successfully in the software softimage. I've also attached an example of a spline drawing done in Max that is snapped on the surface of the body. When I convert it into a editable poly, the line drawing converts to a box.

Thank you

[RobH2]

The problem is not really Max. No program can figure out what's actually going on within that border without a little help. If you were to draw or snap a grid of criss crossed splines and then loft those into your surface you could use your outer border to trim it. 

One thing you could do is to create a plane that's larger than your boder. Subdivide it a few times and use 'Conform' to push it down onto your character. Then, snap your border down on your new mesh and manually trim or cut it. There are ways to boolean and a few other ways, but basically I'm just giving you a general workflow to get my point across. 

The main thing is, given a border with multiple points, there are infinite ways the surface between them could go. So you need to give the border some help. One good script for pushing splines onto a mesh is one from Itoosoft.com called 'Glue.' It's free, and it's great for snapping a spline along a complex surface. 

[ritterknight]

Thanks for the responce. I will certainly try the conform tool out.

In Softimage, what I am looking to do seems to be done very seemlessly. This 3d artist has his base human mesh, he uses a tool to add points and connect points on top of his model and he then uses the push tool to elevate the form from the base verteces and points. I have attached two images of how it is done in softimage.

Thanks