Fresh Blender News, Every Day
Cast(? or Spherify? or Cubeify? Oh My)
39 Comments Published by David Millet on April 20th, 2007 in Development
One of the more interesting patches to be added to the tracker recently is the “Cast” patch, submitted by Willian Padovani Germano (also known as “ianwill”). Willian explains that the patch adds a “Cast” mesh modifier, which casts a mesh into certain pre-determined shapes (such as spheres).
The tracker includes the following explanation of features:
- Deforms its mesh like the “to sphere” button or the “push / pull” transform
The advantages, if enough to justify it, are that this is a modifier, the effect can be finely tweaked and animated.
- The effect can be restricted per axis
There are X/Y/Z axes toggles in the interface.
- The factor can go beyond [0.0, 1.0]
Right now it’s codes in [-10.0, 10.0]. The “To Sphere” button only does [0.0, 1.0] and the push/pull transform inflates the object, so this works a little differently.
Values out of the 0-1 interval give “interesting” results.
- Accepts an object whose location is used as “center of the sphere”
The realtime equivalents can use the 3d cursor for that. Using an object makes it easy to animate, of course.
- Accepts a vertex group to restrict the effect to parts of the mesh
Painting weights, then, gives further control over the final deformation, in real time.
Sounds like a fun modifier! Currently, it allows for shape-shifting into spheres, cylinders, and cubes.
Originally the modifier was named “Spherify,” but with the added ability to cast into other shapes, Willian felt that “Cast” was more appropriate. He does not seem entirely sold on the current name, and says that he welcomes suggestions for other names. So, if you have a better name for it, this may be your opportunity to leave your mark upon the Blender forever!
Related News
Related Resources
Related posts are selected automatically based on their content.
I think cast is great.
Why not call it the ’shapeshift’ modifier?
Who knows this modifier could be extended to shapeshift from one mesh to another!
Cast one arbitrary mesh to another?
That would be… schweet. Like an extended retopo
‘Shapeshift’ does sound good. Hopefully this modifier will grow to be more than just spheres. Shapeshifting from one mesh to another would be amazing.
That’s really cool. Thanks Willian! If you want to give it a try, you can get a (Windows) build here:
http://graphicall.org/builds/builds/showbuild.php?action=show&id=401
Happy morphing :)
If it can ‘cast’ from one shape to another, then isn’t it more like a morph-modifier without the usual limitations? :D
(with the limitations being that you usually need to have the same amount of verts/etc on the final shape/mesh)
It would totally rock if it actually would be possible to use custom shapes (meshes) for this modifier…
From Willian’s last Followup on 30/03:
“Next, I will work on a sample .blend file with a few animations.”
Anybody have something to show off the cast feature?
sounds really cool…
my suggestions for the modifier’s name:
- transformer
- morpher
- transmorpher
- shapecaster
any jpg around to feed my mind with? :)
How about “Mold” as a suggestion?
Only problem with a “Mold” modifier is the differences in spelling between US English and English. Shapeshift is a nice name but I do hope that a “shapeshift” modifier would be extended to more than cubes and spheres!
Koba
Meld? Tranformer sounds like the new film that’s heading our way soon. and it’s probably a term that we know means move positon as opposed to change shape. shape caster sounds rather mythical but cool. transmorpher is pretty cool as is morpher.
I’d love to see this work on a mesh outside of the primitives, tho even with just the primitives it sounds pretty fun already!
‘New Order’ or ‘Magno Morph’ would be my suggested name for this interesting modifier.
Cheers
Mold
> Who knows this modifier could be extended to shapeshift from one mesh to another!
I fully agree … giving the modifier another object to be used as the final shape would make this even more powerful than it already is :)
I would still call it “cast” though since you then just cast the original mesh into a more complex shape than spheres/cylinders/etc…
Werner
A very nice idea !
It s nice to see the modifier stack grow…
Any chance for this to be implemented in future versions of Blender ?
This sounds very cool, and in the future it probably would be able to ‘CAST’ any Mesh into any type of shape, even another mesh made by the user…
My Opinion on the Names:
Cast (Cast Sounds Professional (Ignore my spelling))
Mold (That also sounds like a pretty powerful tool)
Other Names like, Shape Shift, or Transformer, transmorpher, morpher, and shape caster make it sound cheep and makes it sound like some little toy some kids run around with… And they just sound bad or non-professional, but that’s my opinion…
…mmm…
“shapefy”
new name, but that reminds where we’re coming from…
Ciao
This sounds very nice, I’m looking forward to it.
For the name, I actually like “Cast”. Reminds me of programming, where a cast is when you change the type of a value, for example: (int) my_variable would change the type of my_variable to an integer.
So, +1 for “Cast” from me.
transmogrify:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmogrifier
How about Gruntmaster 5000?
But seriously, “Mold” sounds like a tool for growing green fuzz on your meshes…
Hopefully this will evolve into using custom shapes (with their own vertex groups)……
Can anyone say MUSCLES ?
(using a squash and stretch rigged sphere as an underlying “muscle” to deform a skin mesh)
I like Shapify, Transmogrify, and ShapeShift :) Transmogrify has got to be the best tho.
forge
mutate / mutation / transmute
transfigure
metaforge / metaform / metacast / metamold / metamorph / metashape/ metashift
hyperforge / hyperform / hypercast / hypermold / hypermorph / hypershape/ hypershift
transforge / transform / transcast / transmold / transmorph / transhape / transhift
Conform
I don’t like cast for the simple reason that it reminds me of a “cast” as in a broken leg more immediately.
forge
mutate / mutation / transmute
transfigure
metaforge / metaform / metacast / metamold / metamorph / metashape/ metashift
hyperforge / hyperform / hypercast / hypermold / hypermorph / hypershape/ hypershift
transforge / transform / transcast / transmold / transmorph / transhape / transhift
adapt / adaptor / adaptation
reforge / reform / recast / remold / remorph / reshape / reshift
reforger / reformer / recaster / remolder / remorpher / reshaper / reshifter
warp / metawarp / hyperwarp / transwarp
warper / metawarper / hyperwarper / transwarper
Sorry everyone. My browser didn’t update and I thought I was amending my original entry. Could the Webmaster delete my first three posts so I don’t look like such a silly tool?
PS: mutator
I just watched the polyboost videos for max and saw a feature that i would love as a modifier in blender.
http://www.polyboost.com/
Go to features and look for curve loop.
I did manage to make this functionality myself in houdini apprentice. http://www.sidefx.com. I would love to have it in blender though.
It looks like it should fit well within the “Cast” modifier as a mode.
I love this modifier and I “Casted” Suzzane using “Cast” modifier (Duh!!). Check it out at the link below.
http://iluvblender.googlepages.com/untitled1CastSDump.jpg
Great work ianwill.
Subversively teaching people programming terminology is a great idea :D.
ShiftShape
Don’t use shiftshape. It sounds too much like shapeshifter by aniboom.com. Check this url: http://www.aniboom.com/Pages/Application/Animachines/Shapeshifter/ShapeshifterMain.aspx
I tired posting this message yesterday but somehow it didn’t get posted, it seems.
“‘Shapeshift’ does sound good. Hopefully this modifier will grow to be more than just spheres. Shapeshifting from one mesh to another would be amazing.”
I agree with you :)
I was playing with “Cast” (I like this name!!!) and it would be great if we can control “Factor” along individual axis. We can create some interesting effects. Willian, if you are reading this please consider adding it to the modifier.
Greetings,
Satish.
Just after posting my last message i had realized that we can achieve the same with cascading “Cast” modifiers. Please ignore my previous post. (Its 4 am here and its a sign that I should goto sleep)
Greetings,
Satish.
I would be cool to have torus included too. So you could cast into a torus. Though this would be more complicated since there is a hole in the middle. It might need to check if the object is genus 1 (has 1 hole).
would be nice also to make a retopology, would be a marvelous tool !
I should call it meshblender, for blending meshes into other meshes.
or shapeblender.
I belive that the best name accordingly to the action of that modifier is “Round shape”…
Congratulation for the excelent job!