Maya Component Tags into Modelling Operations

[mickeal_alex]

I added this to the ideas forum so modelling can become more procedural, the example i gave is if u want to apply a bevel only on the intersecting edges created by a boolean it will work procedurally even if u move the boolean object. I know this works now automatically in Maya 2025 but having a Modelling Tab to plug in Component Tags for every Modelling Operation would make this very flexible. I used to do this with Maya Soup Group node, i even created a tutorial for nondestructive bevel where u could add and remove edges used in the bevel.

Is there a way to do this now in say Bifrost? It's been a while since i've played around with nodes, i focus on making high quality characters nowadays but it would be nice to have this in the future and possible a workaround now?

Would it be possible in Bifrost to create a group selection node that can be used in the Node Editor on operations?

[sepu6]

You can def create any kind of tags/groups in BF and some modeling operations inside the graph, however there are still some missing pieces to get a complete workflow, you can do a lot but not everything just yet.

You def create procedural tag/groups output the mesh to Maya then do more modeling by grabbing the tags and work on those. However as you know not all the modeling tools in Maya support tags either and this workflow it has some hiccups.

With that said I agreed with you, Tags should be everywhere, it would be great to have full procedural modeling capabilities. I believe it will happen and probably inside BF which Maya will take advantage

[mickeal_alex]

@sepu6 Tried Soup plugin again, used to play around with it many years ago, i particularly like the group node now called componentGroup , made a tutorial a while back with it with a nondestructive bevel basically u could add and remove edges used in the bevel node, shocked they still haven't added this feature or a similar node, think other programs like Max can do this normally due to the modifier stack. The componentGroup i see also mimics the 2025 bevel in that if u add a boolean, then a componentGroup and then a bevel it automatically adds the component tag of the intersecting edges created by the boolean into the bevel by default and can do operation per hard edges similar to Maya 2025 as well as adding and removing edges, selecting edges by angle, etc.

I haven't invested much into Bifrost, i focus on high resolution characters nowadays, haven't had much need for procedural workflow besides what i need for characters, Bifrost is so unintuitive to me, feels super complicated just to do the basic stuff and needs lots of nodes and compounds of premade examples to be easier for artists without having to learn a lot and make things myself from scratch.

[sepu6]

Yeah it can be intimidate at first, when you get used to how it works, is actually pretty straight forward and nowadays BF on the latest version has a lot more high level compounds like for example all the tag nodes, to group component procedurally, that is one of the many things that you can do.

On each release is getting better and easier to get up and running.  I would say give it another shot, BF is pretty powerful and is one the best thing that happen to Maya.