GS CurveTools Trailer/Quick Overview
Just a quick overview video for new users of GS CurveTools:
Hello everyone and welcome to this quick overview of the new features of GS CurveTools v1.1!
Plug-in is available in my ArtStation Store. Update is free for all the previous customers (ArtStation -> Purchases -> My Library)
Update Video:
In this major update I've added a brand new mode for curves and tubes - Warp Mode.
This mode mirrors the functionality of the old "Extrude" mode (it creates, converts and adds cards/tubes), but it creates new type of cards and tubes - Warp Card and Warp Tube.
Maybe one of the most anticipated features of Warp Mode - twist at any point of the curve!
Yes, you can now not only twist uniformly but also choose where to twist your cards!
Same control graph is available for Width. You can now change width along the curve with any number of control points.
You can also unlock length of the geometry and it will no longer stretch with the curve:
These new cards and tubes are fully compatible with all the previous functions and have some additional controls available.
This new button expands upon warp functionality by allowing you to attach (bind) any geometry AND any number of curves to a single cuve.
Original geometry and even curves will keep their shape, so you can create braids or clumps of hair cards and then control them with a single curve.
This single curve will have twisting, scaling, orientation and much more options available.
Attaching Geometry:
Attaching Curves:
Editing Already Attached Curves:
*This function should not be confused with the old "Control Curve" function. Control Curve had no control over twisting/orientation and was, in general, very limited.
You can quickly extract geometry from selected curves or even extract and combine all the geometry from all the layers in one click.
You can now quickly show/hide any component of the card in all layers!
You can now switch between original texture and checker texture in one click:
https://gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/
And much more!
You can see all the old features in this Full Tutorial Video from v1.0:
GS CurveTools is a plug-in focused on creating Hair Cards, Tubes, Pipes, Braids and other similar tasks involving nurbs curves.
This tutorial covers only the basics of this plugin, however, it is more than enough to start using it correctly and discover other features on your own. For more in-depth information, refer to the User Manual.
My name is George Sladkovsky and here is a quick tutorial covering some of the main features of GS CurveTools plug-in for Maya:
GS CurveTools UI consists of three Shelf Buttons and a dockable menu that holds all the functional buttons as well as Options, Help and About menus.
CT UI - will open and close the main menu
CT Reset - will reset the menu to its default state
CT Del - will delete the menu and stop all the background activities
You can quickly create curve cards or tubes using "New Card" and "New Tube" buttons. Curve card is a procedural geometry controlled by a single nurbs curve.
In curve cards or tubes there are a bunch of procedural settings that are available for you. You can find those settings in Channel Box in Maya or by opening "Curve Control Window" in the plugin itself.
With these controls you can change divisions, twist & orient, change width, taper of the procedural geometry and more... You can also procedurally control already existing UVs on the generated geometry. This allows for quick alignment of UVs to hair card textures or cable textures.
Solidify option will allow you do add thickness to your cards/tubes.
All the options are fully procedural, so you can change them at any time*
*complex procedural constructs (later) can have some limitations on geometry divisions change
In Hair Cards workflow (or if rendering Pipes or Tubes) it is important to quickly assign textures to your Hair Cards, as well as move UVs in a correct spot to capture the right part of texture.
The easiest way to quickly assign texture to Curve Card or Tube:
In GS CurveTools plugin, all the created geometry already has the correct UVs for this task. All you need to do is move them using MoveU, MoveV, Rotate UV, Scale U and Scale V sliders (or attributes in the Channel Box).
Warning: Do not move UVs manually in the UV editor, only use parameters in your Channel Box or Curve Control Window or you will loose procedural UVs for this curve.
Assign the texture and try moving MoveU, MoveV, Rotate UV, Scale U and Scale V sliders (or parameters in the Channel Box). See how texture is moving with them.
You can then transfer these UVs to any other Card or Tube using "Transfer UVs" button.
If you already have some curves in your scene, or you accidentally deleted the procedural geometry, it is very easy to convert already existing curves back to Curve Cards/Tubes.
Just select any number of curves in your scene and click "Curve Card" or "Curve Tube" button. This will create fully functional procedural Curve Cards and Tubes that you can then control just like any other Curve Cards or Tube.
WARNING: Do not use Curve Card/Curve Tube on instanced curves, it will have limited functionality or it will not work at all. Only real curves supported right now.
You can easily add new curve cards/tubes between already existing cards by using "Add Cards" or "Add Tubes" buttons.
This will not only create new cards/tubes, it will also smoothly blend curve paths between already existing curves as well as it will blend any attributes between those curves. This creates a natural transition between curves that is very useful when dealing with Hair Cards.
You can easily select the number of added cards/tubes with a simple "Add" slider.
Added Curve Cards/Tubes are fully functional and can be used as any other Curve Card or Tube.
When creating Hair Cards it is important to keep things organized. You can, of course, use outliner for this but in GS CurveTools there is a better way to organize your work.
Every curve card/tube must have a layer when it is created.
By default, all curves go to the layer 0. You can select between 20 layers by simply clicking on them before you create a new curve or you can transfer curves from layer to layer later, using marking menu.
Layer Controls:
You can easily convert any number of edge groups (unconnected edges) to curves using "Edge to Curve" option. This feature is fully procedural and keeps the construction history. This means you can use this feature to create even more complex curves, like braids:
To make a procedural braid:
Warning, do not change Length or Width division of the original curve from this point.
GS Toolbox is primarily a hard surface modeling plug-in but it can also be used in other workflows as well.
This tutorial covers only the basics of this plugin, however, it is more than enough to start using it correctly and discover other features on your own. For more in-depth information, refer to the User Manual.
My name is George Sladkovsky and here is a quick tutorial covering some of the main features of GS Toolbox plug-in for Maya:
GS Toolbox UI consists of three Shelf Buttons and a dockable menu that holds all the functional buttons as well as Options, Help and About menus.
TB UI - will open and close the main menu
TB Reset - will reset the menu to its default state
TB Del - will delete the menu and stop all the background activities
GS Toolbox makes selecting edges an easy task. Using interactive slider or just typing in the angle value and clicking one button.
Creasing by Angle:
Select Edges, Crease+ and Bevel+ buttons are context sensitive, which means that they will react on different selections differently. If you select Object they will look on all the edges in that object. If you select part of the object (using face selection) it will only look for edges in this selected part.
You can also change any creased edges by creating crease sets right from the menu:
Beveling workflow expands on all the previous workflows by adding the ability to convert creases to bevels and bevel by angle feature. To convert creases to bevels:
Bevel by angle works similar to Crease by Angle.
When you activate Interactive selection (Angle button, near the Angle Slider) you can notice that some of the buttons have changed colors from default to orange. This indicates that you can finish interactive selection using one of those buttons.
Sometimes it is necessary to quickly save selected components or objects to then return to this selection.
Quick Groups allow you to quickly add any selection to a special set that can be accessed later.
Select part of your model or entire objects and then click with LMB on any of the 20 quick groups to save the selection. The group will change color from default grey to orange. Subsequent clicks on that group will select any stored components and objects.
Here are some group commands you can use:
The ability to quickly mirror and instance objects is very important in Maya because of its lack of global modifiers.
In GS Toolbox mirroring, instancing, flipping and cutting geometry is done in the Mirror Menu.
In this menu you have all the mirroring, instancing and cutting features available with advanced matrix transformations for Flip and Instance and more.
Multiple selected objects are supported for every mirror feature.
GS Toolbox has a simple yet powerful material management menu. Using 12 material slots, that can quickly apply materials, select meshes with this material, save/load scene independent presets, create MatCaps (Material Capture shaders) using any user image and selecting a global shader (applied to any newly created meshes).
There are even more features to discover in GS Toolbox. Here is just a small part of additional functions: