Maya 2018/19: Target Weld Tool inconsistency with border vertices

[davidSFL]

I noticed inconsistent behaviour with border vertices using the target weld tool (TWT).

To be more specific.
When using the TWT, vertices get highlighted when you hover over it, indicating you can weld that vertex to another.
Yet most of the time border vertices wont get highlighted, so merging these vertices is not working, as they wont be selected / affected by the TWT. Also, in these cases, it wont let you snap a non-border vertex to the border vertex or vise versa.

There are times though, when i'm able to merge border vertices just fine using the TWT. These cases are rare though.

Why does it work at times, and then again it doens't?
What criteria needs to be met in order for it to work / not work?
Or ist that a bug or a feature i dont unterstand?

[sean.heasley]

Hi @davidSFL 

I'm testing this and can't really see the issue you're describing.

Can you possibly post a video or GIF of this happening on your end? I'd like to see if I can reproduce it and if needed log it with our development team.

[davidSFL]

Thanks for your reply.
Here is a small video i put together showing the issue.
After deleting half the model, it becoms impossible to weld those border vertices.
This seems to be happening once a scene becomes more complex.
It wont happen when i delete 1 face of a cube in a fresh scene. It will happen however when i delete 1 face of a fresh cube in the scene with the rifle.
Also, this is not the first model this is happening with. This is pretty common on my end, happening in 99% of my scenes sooner or later.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @davidSFL 

Ah ok I've seen this before and it is odd. Instead of trying to drag select or hover directly over the vertice can you try moving your mouse around the area of the vert and see if it highlights red which means you can weld it?

This does seem to happen on more complex scenes and its not that the target weld wont work on border verts its more that Maya seems to struggle with "finding" the vert as you hover your mouse over it. It can take a little bit but the vertice should light up and be able to weld to another one.

I'm not entirely sure if this is a "bug" as it has been around for previous versions of Maya but I'll log this with our dev team anyway to see if they have any other suggestions.

[davidSFL]

@sean.heasley 
Thanks again.

Funny enough, i opened the same scene today, deleted the same portion of the mesh and it worked. Kind of like the construction history was to blame. Yet i delete history each time i save, which i do like every 10 seconds, so i guess the CH is acquitted.
I was curious, so I deleted half the stock of the highpoly, just to see if it'd work, it wont.
Tried hovering around border vertices left, right and center, with no success.
Turned the camera, so nothing was lying behind the vertex, just to exclude the possibility of it being some sort camera related issue. Didn't help.

Thanks for passing this on to the team. Please let me know if someone comes up with a suggestion/solution.

EDIT:
Working some more, it now started happening again on the lowpoly as well.

[mspeer]

Hi!

"It will happen ... in the scene with the rifle."

If this is a scene-specific issue i highly recommend to upload the scene-file and to provide information about at least one specific vertex who does not work correct with this tool.

[davidSFL]

@mspeerThanks. Tho as i mentioned:
"This is pretty common on my end, happening in 99% of my scenes sooner or later."
so, it's not really a scene specific thing i'm afraid.
I don't have permission to share the scene file anyways.

[mspeer]

Hi!

"It wont happen when i delete 1 face of a cube in a fresh scene. It will happen however when i delete 1 face of a fresh cube in the scene with the rifle."

This means scene-specific.

To sort this out, please provide a scene-file and the steps how to reproduce this.

Without being able to reproduce this there is nearly no chance to get this fixed (ever).

[davidSFL]

I don't have permission to share the scene file i'm afraid. If at some point i get permission, i will upload the scene file or upload a personal scene, once i come across this issue in a personal scene.
But i wouldn't know what steps to take to reproduce this, as its working when i open the scene.
Once i did some simple editing, merging/moving verts, deleting edges/faces etc and come back to the TWT at some point, it stoped working.

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

When you reload the scene it works again?

When you restart Maya and the load the scene it works again?

[davidSFL · Accepted solution]

So... i figured it out. You asking for it being fixed after reloading the scene got me thinking.
It's entirely my fault, and here is why.
I am using a small script with the polySelectConstraint command. One of the flags used is the where flag, set to 2.
As you may have guessed by now, i didn't set it back to 0 in the script, causing the select constraint to stay active.
This seems to have been the problem all along. Did some testing. No issues yet. So, solved i guess.

Can't believe i was such an idiot.

Anyway. Thanks both of you.

[mspeer]

Hi!

I am glad you figured it out and thanks for posting what the problem was.

[paukoff]

have same issue with polySelectConstraint,
So how do you fixed it?

[paukoff]

Ok I think I found solution by myself.

So in my case I use some "hard edge selection" script that has this string in the middle:

polySelectConstraint -m 3 -a on -t 0x8000 -ab $lowAngle $highAngle; 

and this (this suppose to clean Constrains after job is done) in the end: polySelectConstraint -m 0;

I just replaced the last one with: polySelectConstraint -dis;  were -dis means, disable every constraint.

And that works, and so far I'm ok.

Another thig I realize, is that, broken constrains setting is saved with file, so once you open file that have this kind of broken selection constrain, you must use the fixed script once or just run polySelectConstraint -dis; 
in order to reset selection constrain setting, and then save it.

[Anonymous]

Hey paukoff,
I was using the same hard edge selection script, and wondered why target weld just broke after working for a bit in Maya. This wouldn't be something that I'd find out about on my own, so this absolutely saved me.

Thank you so much!

[paukoff]

Glad it helped you!