[Inset Tool] A full-fledged tool on par with competition: Offset Even, Edge Rail, Quad Corners, Manage Overlapping, Boundary, Randomize, Select Outer etc.

Kranos_Orphydian · ‎01-23-2022

Besides being by nature a low-level tool, in 3ds Max, the Inset Tool it's even more downplayed being deprived by some basic features that have become standard in other software. No need to look further than Blender's Inset Faces Tool and Modo's Polygon Bevel. In Modo, Inset is integrated in this more robust tool, a model that is shared to a certain length (and for a good reasons) by other programs such as Maya. The tool as a whole has received a major awesome update within Modo 11.2 (link to video) and it's probably the best out there. Blender one is no joke as well and it's more than decent to work with. Cinema 4d one, though not on par with these two, at least has Offset variation and subdivisions.

Autodesk should go beyond fixing and updating these low-level poly modeling tools and take the lead in this department. The fact that in the past couple of years it came up with an advanced Retopo and Chamfer solutions and it plans to do the same with Booleans and other major tools will make the contrast between these and the teribly outdated day-to-day polygon modeling tools from Editable/Edit Poly even more glaring.

Again, spamming separate ideas for all these basic options for a low-level tool itself, that will only get lost and crowd this board it's not a priority now and this is a more about the vision of a tool most of us knows its lacking. Some of these options can be added to the Interactive Smart Extrude Inset function as well so that would make for other round of ideas.

INSET, EXTRUDE, BEVEL, EXTRUDE ALONG SPLINE = ONE UNIFIED TOOL

Extrude, Bevel, Inset, Extrude along Spline, Branches etc. = one tool. This falls in the broader long overdue and multiple time requested suggestion of unifying similar tools as part of the general revamp of the Edit Poly modifier and of consolidating the modeling tools into the Command Panel. This will save space and make modeling more fluid and will follow the model of some other software like Maya or Modo. The best integration of this idea so far belongs to Modo which has the Polygon Bevel Tool to accommodate these interconnected and similar ops. Maya Extrude command is similar but a bit outdated. It also supports extrusion along splines with auto-generation and alignment of these. In 3ds Max Bevel differs from Extrude only in Outline option so, by any means, this is a big redundancy and follows to old-school UX system of "we need a button for everything". For the Extrude and Bevel operation improvements alone, I made a dedicated idea you can vote about here: [Extrude/Bevel Polygon/Extrude Along Spline/Inset etc.] Unified with further enhancements: Bevel Pro...

OFFSET EVEN + ADD SEGMENTS

Makes the vertex distance of the inserted face even. When this option is disabled, the edge length between source vertex to the new source vertex is the same as set Inset value. Segments option specifies the number of edge segments along the inset direction (link to video). These two are obvious non- related but the later is so basic that I had to sneak it somewhere.

3ds Max Inset Tool Offset Even.png

EDGE RAIL

Available when insetting in groups of polygons. When enabled the vertices on the boundary edge of the selected area are aligned to the correspondent vertices of the adjacent edges. This is the Modo explanation of the option. Consulting Blender doc: Created vertices slide along the original edges of the inner geometry, instead of the normals. It’s probably better to just watch the demo videos provided in the links and see it in action (link to video).

3ds Max Inset Tool Edge Rail.png

QUAD CORNERS

Adds quadrangles at each sharp corner of the boundary polygons. When Group Polygons is enabled, quadrangles are created at the corner vertices connected to the selected polygon(s). Useful when you want to prevent corners from rounding, caused by the default inset behavior that creates a loop of polygons all around. Best example is a planar surface that you want to give thickness later such a bottle label that needs to keep its corners straight (link to video).

3ds Max Inset Tool Quad Corners.png

MANAGE OVERLAPPING (AUTO WELD (or/and other solutions)

Performing a Polygon Inset particularly with complex corners may sometimes cause the inner vertices to cross over themselves, which results in overlapping geometry. The workaround in many software is to inset with a minimal value then scaling inner. This user here (link) suggested: "Ideally, there would be an option to just scale the entire shape down so that topology is maintained rather than just pushing verts around." I don't exactly know how this should work. The Auto Weld option instead can be used to join the inner vertices and avoid the overlap. This option found in Modo and in Blender (here as a general toggle) is again not ideal but until someone comes with a better solution to manage overlapping is better than nothing (link to video).

3ds Max Inset Tool Auto Weld.png

BOUNDARY

When enabled, boundary edges are not inset. This is a dire needed feature for Extrude and Bevel tools as well where you more often than not have to delete the extra faces created at borders (link to video).

3ds Max Inset Tool Boundary.png

ARBITRARY POLYGON SIDES INSET

This is a similar behavior to the Smart Extrude Scale inset functionality using Edge constraints except the last case illustrated and other more arbitrary selections are not achievable using it. That’s because with Smart Extrude you can constrain the inset to an arbitrary axis but not to arbitrary edge/edges. It’s often desirable to control if the end vertices of the end edges will continue their movement even when they reach the adjacent vertices that lay on the edge on which the vertices are moved. If not, they should stop and auto weld with them. This was actually inspired by the Miauu's Inset Pro Script (link to video).

3ds Max Inset Tool Arbitrary Polygon Edges Inset.png

RANDOMIZE

Easily and quickly achieving variation can be useful when insetting many polygons simultaneously. This was inspired by Cinema 4D and Modo which have it not just for Inset but for Extrude, Bevel polygons etc. as well. Therefore, should see a more general scale implementation (link to video).

3ds Max Inset Tool Random Value Range.png

SELECT OUTER

Normally, the original polygons which become the inner ones stay selected. Having a toggle for which side of the inset is selected after the operation can result in a powerful and intuitive workflow. Together with Variation (random) value option this should be generally expanded to other tools that can benefit from it and for the sake of consistency. Some modifiers in 3ds Max have this to start with.

3ds Max Inset Tool Select Outer.png

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MY OTHER IDEAS

MODELING

UI AND VIEWPORT

OTHERS

teratron · ‎02-04-2022

Very much needed.

dswahn · ‎06-10-2022

Heck yes to all of this!

Community

[Inset Tool] A full-fledged tool on par with competition: Offset Even, Edge Rail, Quad Corners, Manage Overlapping, Boundary, Randomize, Select Outer etc.

[Inset Tool] A full-fledged tool on par with competition: Offset Even, Edge Rail, Quad Corners, Manage Overlapping, Boundary, Randomize, Select Outer etc.

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