Trevor G Quayle wrote:
> Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> 
>>Sure but with some objects there would be diminishing gain from being
>>parametrized, versus the work needed to do it.  I was contemplating a
>>desk fan for instance.  The design is what it is. And it involves a
>>number of cast metal housings with complex curves, smooth chamfers and
>>such. Very difficult to handle in csg without a foregiving attitude.
>>Meanwhile, you parametrize a few things, say to lengthen or widen the
>>base, but to try and code something like a fan such that one design
>>could be morphed into another design by adjusting parameters seems like
>>an exercise in cleverness for its own sake with little practical payoff.
>>Such a design is an integrated thing, not just a matter of making table
>>legs longer to fit a need. Better to simply post a file of the
>>unsmoothed mesh in a common format.  It can be imported into a modeller
>>and the base made taller or wider just as easily that way, (would work
>>for table legs too, btw,) or whole parts of the design concept could be
>>morphed by a subsequent artist in ways the original contributor might
>>never predict.
>>
>>Now, on the other hand, I was also contemplating oak file cabinets.  Now
>>there I could see a csg solution that could, for instance, allow for
>>different matrixes of drawers, anything from a cabinet for 3x5 file
>>cards to one for large flat maps, all from the same macro.
> 
> 
> As I said, I don't think there is anything wrong with adding meshes, you could
> even combine a mesh and CSG for certain purposes, or multiple meshes.  Think
> about the fan idea: make the housing, base and fan blade from seperate meshes,
> they could then be combined in a macro with appropriate variables to control
> the fan spin and housing oscillation for specific scenes, motion blur,
> animation etc., things that wouldn't be simple with a single mesh object.
> 
> -tgq
> 
> 
Yes, nice idea, I'll admit I hadn't thought of animation uses.  I would 
  have broken up the model into separate mesh objects anyway for ease of 
texturing among other reasons.  The texture list in mesh2 objects is 
great but I often find that for flexibility purposes I like to keep one 
texture per object whenever possible. I think it is necessary too if you 
want to apply materials to a mesh2 object? Anyway long ago I adopted it 
as a standard.

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