Boolean selection inconsistencies

[Whoop]

Boris, I don't know whether this is related to my other issue with being able to create rogue booleans, but I am going to try and describe here what I see as inconsistencies with the way boolean roles are defined.

I place two hypertubes (or any other objects) in a scene and I wish to now make a boolean out of them. I am perhaps a beginner or have read elsewhere on the forum that it is NOT necessary to define a role for an object prior to making a boolean.

So I right click and go New Cluster From Selected.



At which point the Booleans window in the picture below seems to tell me I have created a cluster with an ID of 1 yet with no objects in it, in spite of the fact that it was made from the two objects I had only just selected. Note also that I cannot activate boolean editing, it seems to think it is a Non-Boolean Object and is greyed out, yet the Booleans window is saying it's an inactive cluster with ID 1 and no objects in it.



Now at this point, in my frustration and confusion, I have sometimes been doing New Cluster From Selected again, whereupon I get an ID of 2. So what has happened to ID 1, I wonder?

If, instead, I had ignored the fact that there were 0 objects in boolean ID 1 and gone ahead and defined roles for my two objects, it would then behave as normal, I now see 2 objects in ID 1 and I can activate boolean editing.

With me so far?

Now sometimes, once I have these two objects in a state where the boolean is editable, I can right click on the hypertube in the main window and select roles for it that it should not have. Which is how I got the results in the other thread I posted, with impossible intersections for a hypertube. I presume I have put Groboto into a flaky place where it's unstable and confused. Heck it was Groboto that confused me.

I have another issue which I think is probably more cosmetic than anything else, but does not help the general confusion with booleans.

If I Choose New Role for Selected Trims from the button under the object list, Impossible options are greyed out, I only see the valid Inside All option. As indeed I would expect, except that Primary should be a valid choice yet it is greyed out also. Why?



If I try to do the same thing by right clicking against the object itself, I don't see any greyed out options. This might lead some users into thinking they ought to be able to have these choices when they haven't.

[boris]

John,

I don't see this behavior (on Windows). I get a boolean cluster with 2 objects whose roles are undefined, and I can activate it for editing. On the Mac this could be a vestige from the time when objects in a cluster had to have a defined role. Since the Bool tool was introduced, we hardly ever use that New Cluster from Selected, so much faster to set bool ID and roles at the same time. Sorry cannot check the behavior of that button under the boolean list - don't have it on Windows. We'll look into this on the Mac.

[Whoop]

Boris you seriously need to look at the Mac boolean systems.

For instance here is a typical example of the nonsense I get regularly. I used the booltool to make a new cluster with one sphere. It came in as a primary. I added a second sphere to the boolean and it is undefined. Groboto now tells me I am changing a primary when I am changing an undefined. Furthermore it insists it is the only primary, which is silly, because the other sphere is a primary. See how this could confuse a person?



Whether its the way I do things I don't know, but almost every model I work on ends up in a mess, either crashing or not meshing or being just plain weird.

Below is a model I have been working on. It's a boolean, part of a critter's wing. It displays as intended on-screen, yet if I preview the mesh I get something else.

[The Amorous Squid]

I can confirm the same such performance inconsistencies on my Mac which as a first time user left me unsure whether it was my fault or an operational error.