Electro Bench

Tailortool 1.0

Booleans better than any other modeler!
Here's quite an unusual and surprising plug-in, able to calculate complex animated boolean operations in Universe.
Booleans in short: For those not too familiar with this technique, a "Boolean operation", in modelling terms, is a process allowing to use one model and subtract it from another one , add it to another one or even extract the intersection of both models.

Here are the tests showing the results obtained with the combination of different settings of the TT shader applied to a cube and a sphere.

Technically...
In fact, don't be fooled and think that TailorTool is an external modelling tool added to Universe. Not at all, actually TT (short for TailorTool) doesn't work as a modeler as such, in that it doesn't physically alter the models geometry, but indeed uses the clipping technique to achieve Boolean operations. In other words, TT calculates the various intersections between 2 or more models and then wipes out the unneeded parts during the rendering process.

Practically???
One would think that using the clipping technique (transparency) would prove a serious limitation to TT, because there's no way one could use it to model anything and export the model as a Fact file... it is also out of the question to chamfer the booleans created with TT... Once the above is fully understood, one starts to realise where the true power of TT lies.

First, for animation of course! One look at the samples posted on Konkeptoine's Website should be enough to convince anyone. TailorTool gives you the tools to achieve insane effects like animated tyre tracks, machined objects, cut-outs, holes, crevasses, and a whole lot of effects you would never have dared thinking of before.

But wait, that's not all, the task where TT really shines compared to any other modeler, is when it is used for extremely complex Boolean operations applied to a great number of objects, or to models with a huge amount of polygons.
Take for example a car engine you would like to cut out on all parts to show the inside; now imagine doing that with your favourite modeler, well, nearly impossible or very painful... piece of cake for TT, and you can throw at TT as many models to process as you want, it will not even blink.

Another good example would be a section on a terrain like one can see on some TV documentaries. Try to perform a Boolean operation on a nice 100k polygons model with your usual modeler, err, you'll be asking for trouble :-) Here again TT surprises and handles the operation on a large terrain model seamlessly, producing a perfect and faultless result.

The process step by step : Import your models (minimum 2) and texture them to your heart's content.
Next, add the TT socket to your project and parent the models you want to process to it. Finally, add the TT shader to each object and adjust the parameters to match the desired effect.

The cherry on the cake is the fact that all of the previously applied textures (bitmaps or shaders) will be taken into account during the rendering, thus allowing to create the wildest effects.
It's like your objects become really solid, and you can expose their internal matter... in one word, it's nuts!

Here above is a test done with a terrain and a rock to cut the hole

Another feature that has impressed all those who have tested TT is it's stability and fiability... One wonders if TT is at all able to crash Universe, replacing models 50 times, grouping, ungrouping... trying to feed TT with dubious models from various sources, I haven't been able to trip it. At the end of the day, it's TT who got me a beauty and made wonder if it was working at all. I had forgotten to check the "clip map" flag in the rendering settings :-))

Rendering: As far as rendering quality and speed go, there's nothing to complain about, the quality of the Booleans generated by TailorTool is impeccable, and as for the rendering speed, it's just a fraction slower than a traditional clip map and TT requires only a couple of seconds to calculate the objects intersection. So, the results of the benchtest are also very positive in that regard. A big cheer to the developers!

In conclusion: Handy as a hammer in a toolbox, TailorTool will allow you to create a whole lot of fantastic effects, limited only by your imagination.
Even though it's a tool of a Holywood production calibre, the pricing is very affordable even for the non-professional.

David Della Rocca & Robert Jan Kila