What's "polysoup"?
by Ray Depew · in Constructor · 09/24/2007 (1:10 pm) · 4 replies
I was reading Kevin Rogers' critique of TC, and saw the term "polysoup" used several times, usually in comparison to 'brush-based' level design. I get brushes, but what's "polysoup"? Is it the paradigm that SketchUp uses, or is it something else?
#2
09/24/2007 (3:49 pm)
So it's analogous to making paper cutouts of the exposed surfaces and gluing them together, rather than making clay models of the walls and other pieces and gluing them together? 
#3
Since brush based modelling has to specifically be closed, convex volumes, the term "polysoup" has turned up to deal with meshes/geometry that might be concave or convex or non-volumetric or anywhere in-between. It is just a "soup" of arbitrary polygons with no guarantee of convexity, volume (they can be flat), or being closed (they can have open holes in the mesh).
Your analogy is semi-accurate (I often use legos to describe brushes) but not quite complete since you could "glue together" concave piececs in a polysoup world.
09/24/2007 (5:20 pm)
Perhaps this tutorial can shed some light on the matter.Since brush based modelling has to specifically be closed, convex volumes, the term "polysoup" has turned up to deal with meshes/geometry that might be concave or convex or non-volumetric or anywhere in-between. It is just a "soup" of arbitrary polygons with no guarantee of convexity, volume (they can be flat), or being closed (they can have open holes in the mesh).
Your analogy is semi-accurate (I often use legos to describe brushes) but not quite complete since you could "glue together" concave piececs in a polysoup world.
Associate David Montgomery-Blake
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