Howard Trickey just merged his “new boolean" branch to master, making his exciting boolean redesign finally accessible in the latest Blender 2.91 daily build.
The revamped boolean promises to be a more robust implementation, allowing for the better handling of special cases, including the ability to properly manage co-planar intersections.
Below is one example masterxeon1001 (developer of hardops) posted on the "new boolean" Blender Artists Thread.
This new system, which includes the use of exact arithmetic, provides a strong foundation on which to build more features. There is a great discussion about the use-cases, current limitations, and future direction of “new boolean” on this Blender Artists thread.
NEW BOOLEANS ARE IN MASTER!!!!
The new #boolean developed by Howard Trickey was just merged in master minutes ago!Las nueva booleanas que desarrollo Howard Trickey estos últimos años ya están en el tronco de #blender #b3d #blender3d https://t.co/TFqqGbXkzU pic.twitter.com/97BeVM7DdF
— Nahuel Belich (@Nahuel_Belich) August 28, 2020
The “new boolean” option is called “exact” in the Blender 2.91 experimental builds. It is currently set as the default option, in order to gather user feedback and catch any bugs lingering around as development carries on, making it the perfect time to try it out and report back!
6 Comments
my life has been changed. Thanks for your continual improvements.
Booleans are love and soon they will be life.
I've been following your comments on the Blender Artists thread, not only did your tests help show and make me understand the greatness of what is to come, but they also instilled in me a love for Booleans I never knew I had. Your excitement is infectious!
Is it the fourth of fifth Boolean in blender?
Hope it does default to the old one in old files which I am quite happy with knowing it's limitations.
I forget the life before carve. But it was the active system back in 2015.
Carve once did the job but added so much extra geometry but could support planes cutting solid objects which was pretty crazy at the time. It was an external lib with no future however.
Bmesh became the replacement and it took a moment to adjust to it and accept it but the addition of edit mode booleans was supreme and just too good to not use. Also bmesh was capable of giving results far cleaner than carve allowing for simple geo to be used to control it for the bevel mod to be tacked on top
Exact (name i've been using) solves the issue of coplanar merging bringing all this boolean work around to a level where I am hoping level blueprint tools can be brainstormed on the idea of equal levels being able to merge seamlessly. Also this update will mean that precision booleans are now possible. (i hope).
We always have used offset and preached it to keep booleans connecting but this might come out the other side with a slight increase in speed in exchange for 100% success in all cases with connecting geo and not getting holes or making non manifold meshes.
I am an old fart user as ton calls us. So just ignore my funny comments.
I highly appreciate your development! Thanks.
It will use the old solver in boolean modifiers in pre-2.91 files. Though if you load such a file and add a new boolean, that will default to the new one (for now; the final decision on which will be the default will made before the 2.91 release in November).