Flex Presets bar

1
4 years agoIdea3

Flextools Preset bar

The idea is that having a flex compo selected, you can change its parameters quickly by :

1. selecting another flex compo in the scene by eyedropping it or

2. choosing a preset in a dropdown list and

3. apply the new preset on the flex compo.

Advantage:
– you can quickly change the parameters without having to place/scale/rotate a compo from the FT favorites toolbar or duplicate an existing FT compo and replace/rescale/rerotate it

– you can quickly create variations in place to see which presets suits the best

– you can avoid opening the favorites toolbar and scrolling down to find the presets

Of course, flextools need to keep the box size of the compo while changing only the other parameters… Is it possible?

3 Comments

  1. Yoni on 09/12/2019 at 12:31 PM

    Hey Ryo,

    We kinda have a form of presets within the various windows, but they are only reached by double clicking into the components a few times and then clicking on the glass with the interact tool. I wish we could do a drop down there to choose presets, but it’s a bit of problem now with how the DC plugin works.

    If we were to figure out a way to do presets and attribute sampling, what are the 3-5 most important settings you would want to sample between components?

    BTW. We’ve pretty much phased out the ‘Favorites’ part of FlexTools. I’d recommend to use ComponentFinder instead – It’s a lot more powerful and comfortable.

  2. Ryo on 09/12/2019 at 2:20 PM

    Hi Yoni,

    FlexSlat: spacing, slat width, slat depth, (and to some extent, frame width and depth, but I mainly use FlaxSlat for horiz or vertical blinds so I usually don’t use frames)
    Btw is there any possibility of choosing between horizontal (blinds, vents) and vertical slats (fences, railings)?

    FlexWindow: first, Frame width and depth, profile width and depth, and then second: horizontal and vertical divisions, type of distribution, spacings.
    Btw is there a way to avoid FW to create Glass Thick and Glass_Thin materials? I often end forgetting these and then during rendering having opaque glazing because I forgot these materials, hidden as backfaces inside the glass panels.

    FlexStairs: max riser height, fixed 2R+T, tread thickness

  3. Yoni on 09/12/2019 at 3:18 PM

    Thanks for the info Rio. If/when we get to this it will serve as a good guide for attribute sampling.

    Currently FlexSlat is only horizontal with the option of rotating it 90 degrees like you are probably doing already.

    The glass materials are necessary for cases when not rendering. For rendering they are different for the difference in render materials you would use for single faced glass vs thick glass. The best way to avoid unwanted materials/layers/etc is to make the changes you need (for example modifying the thickness and adding your vray materials like you want them) and then save the components aside with ComponentFinder.

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