Toolkit 3D - Deformation and Polygroups

 Toolkit 3D - Deformation and Polygroups

This session, we started by looking at the deformation palette, which can be found in the Tool menu on the side. This provides ways to sculpt 3D objects using the unique effects found within the menu - To see these changes happen, we have to make sure our canvas is in transform or edit mode. Each deformation effect can be constrained to any of the axis by pressing the corresponding letter. Deformation also respects masking and polygroups made too.

the deformation palette can be seen on the right, within the tool menus.
Before using them, it is important to go over what polygroups are.
Polygroups allow us to organize the mesh into groups. Another way to do this is through sub-tools. The difference is that sub-tools are different pieces of geometry, whereas polygroups are simply separate selection areas.

In the image above, we already have polyframe activated, which needs to be turned on to assign a polygroup. Then, we mask out an area. For this I used a lasso mask. Finally, we press CTRL+ W to assign a polygroup to the masked area.
Next, if we want to isolate the polygroup we can press CTRL+SHIFT and then click on the polygroup. If we need to hide a polygroup we can press CTRL+SHIFT and click on it. These two tools can be used to work on specific polygroups for higher quality models overall. CTRL+SHIFT and then dragging in empty space will invert polygroup visibility, and CTRL+SHIFT+ALT will hide polygroups in conjunction with mesh visibility.

Polygroups also allow masking to be a really easy and quick process. By CTRL+SHIFT and then clicking on any polygroup all other groups will immediately be masked.

I created a really basic shirt model and practiced creating polygroups for each part of it.
With polyframe on, I turned on symmetry and used lasso masking to select the sleeves and other groups, turning them into polygroups in case I would need to edit them individually.
I then selected a polygroup, hid all other polygroups and began experimenting with deformers.
Overall, I can see why polygroups are used in specific situations where subtools can't be. Subtools are separate geometry, and deformers won't work the same way they would with polygroups, as the other polygroups stay connected.

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