Why won't negative metaballs work?

[1705]

I,m using the bryce 5 handbook at school and am working with the metaballs. when i tried to use negative and positive ones, it worked the first time ( cutting it in half) but the second time i tried it would not work. now the negeative metaballs don't appear to be invisible. Also the book says that clicking shift and the metaball icon will make a negative metaball but it doesn't, ( had to go through attributes?

 

[Crusard]

I didn't know you could make a negative metaball... are you sure it's possible? If so, what would you need it for anyway?

 

[1705]

the negaative metaballs exist, go to attributes and are supposed to either create indentations or slice a positive metaball in half

 

[Crusard]

What do you need to do with negative metaballs? If it still doesn't work you could find a workaround...

 

[Crusard]

I found that on the readme (Located in the Bryce5 folder) it explains especifically that trees and metaballs can't be used in boolean operations.

 

[spyderco]

There really couldn't be a plausable workaround for using negative and positive metaballs to form unique shapes and cut outs.

And yes, you can use negative metaballs; postive, negative or nuetral.

 

[Crusard]

Quoting from "Bryce(R)5 Readme.txt" in the Bryce 5 folder:


[...]

* Application or file icons may appear as generic icons on the desktop under Windows NT.

* Trees and metaballs cannot be intersected with other objects for the purposes of Boolean rendering.

* Bryce 5 will not function installed on a UNIX partition under Mac OS X.

[...]

 

[Mako666]

* Trees and metaballs cannot be intersected with other objects for the purposes of Boolean rendering."

this says it can't be done with other objects. For example, taking a positive metaball and trying to cut it in half with a negative cube would not work, but cutting it in half with a negative metaball would work.
At least, I'm pretty sure that's right. I'm at home right now, and I don't have a computer that could even run Bryce 5 here, otherwise I'd go try it out to make sure I'm right. I'll check tomorrow at school and post again if I was wrong.

 

[Crusard]

Yes, but they work as simple spheres I believe?
Experiment and post a few screenshots if you can.