Recent projects have proved the usefulness of sticking two things together–or taking one thing from something else–but what, really, is the big deal? There are three types of booleans: unions, subtractions, and intersections. Subtractions are, in my humble opinion, probably the most useful type. It's easy to add detailing to an object by subtracting other objects from it–personally, I've used it to make decorative grooves and even carved-in writing. It also makes it easier to make larger changes that might be harder to design by just manipulating an edit poly, especially if the subtracted section is curved. I've used this to hollow out containers of all sorts, including some clumsily-made coffee cups from the days when I didn't know what a lathe was. It's also helpful for designing models of mechanisms and such, such as making the groove for a switch. I used it recently to level off the bottom of a sphere at an angle when doing it by manipulating the polygons resulted in a jagged, choppy mess. Intersections keep the area of overlap between two objects. I haven't actually done much with this yet, but it has produced some interesting shapes, including a cube with rounded corners and edges that didn't quite look like a chamfer box. As with subtraction, it looks like it's useful for situations where editing the polygons might get messy or inconvenient. I think it's definitely worth experimenting more. Unions are interesting because they are, in my opinion, the least outright necessary. There aren't a lot of situations where a union is outright vital to the model. You can group things together other ways, such as with actual groups. Sure, combining objects makes things like modifiers and textures easier, but there are workarounds for that. So what's a union good for? It reduces polygons, and reducing polygons is always something to keep in mind when designing for a video game. A large amount of polygons means a large amount of loading time, and therefore horrible lag if you don't have a beefy computer; limiting your player base to the people that do is an unwise choice and will probably make the community mad. Also, as I said before, unions make texturing, using modifiers, and generally just moving the model around easier. They might not be strictly necessary in every case, but they're very useful. So, to summarize:
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AuthorI'm moving on to my 4th (and final) year as a Game Art & Design student at Durham School of the Arts. I'd like to call myself an artist, but I'm a programmer at heart. Archives
February 2020
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