Inset

The Inset Type has been changed and you no longer need to select the faces encompassing any marked sharp edges. You only need to select the edges now and the faces are automatically selected by the script using and angle threshold to limit the selection.

The generated panel cut detail are composed of what is called "panel islands" or "face islands". These are sets of faces that make up a selection of faces sorrounded by the marked sharp edges. They are separated from other panel islands and each can have a different setting when you use randomization or toggle off the unified value.

The terminilogy "inset depth" and "extrusion" are both used to describe the offset of the panel islands.

Listed below are the properties under inset type and what they do.

Limit

This consists of 3 options: Select, Sharp and Seam.

  • Select: Converts selected edges to panel cuts.

  • Sharp: Converts marked sharp edges to panel cuts.

  • Seam: Converts edges marked with seams to panel cuts.

Angle

Limits the automatic face selection to create the panel cuts based on an angle threshold. This basically stops the selection in sharp angled edges.

Even Offset

The Even Offset property when enabled makes the extrusion of the panel islands straight in sharp corners or edges. Toggling this off will make the panel island depth average the sorrounding faces for extrusion or thickness instead.

Figure 4

Turning off Even Offset will also let you avoid geometric spikes when you make a panel cut on tight areas of the mesh.

Thickness

The Thickness property determines the scale of each individual insetted or extruded panel islands thereby affecting the size of the panel cut details.

Figure 5

You can also toggle off the uniform toggle icon to use a randomized min/max value that will generate different scales for each individual panel island.

Figure 6

Thickness Seed

This will only appear if you toggle off the uniform value toggle for the thickness property. This will let you use a seed number that will generate its own random result.

Figure 7

Depth

The Depth property determines the thickness of the panel island extrusion.

Figure 8

This also has a uniform toggle and when turned off will give you a randomized min/max value that will generate different extrusion thickness for each individiul panel island.

Figure 9

Depth Seed

This will only appear if you toggle off the uniform value toggle for the depthproperty. This will let you use a seed number that will generate its own random result.

Figure 10

Margin

The Margin property creates a margin for each individual panel island.

Figure 11

Offset

Offsets the panel islands from the source mesh.

Figure 12

Clear Faces

The Clear Faces property consists of 3 options: None, Inner and Outer. This lets you remove certain faces from the panel islands to create interesting effects.

Figure 13

Inner will delete the top faces of the extruded panel islands while Outer will remove the side faces from the extrusion.

Keep Boundary

This is an on and off toggle which allows you to remove the sorrounding face islands when using the add-on on face selections.

Figure 14

Bevel Offset

The Bevel Offset property will let you bevel the corner verts of the panel islands.

Figure 15

This corner beveling will only affect vertices with 2 connected edges. As you can see in Figure 14, some of the corner vertices inside are not being beveled because they have 3 linked edges which when beveled will create complex and messy topology.

Figure 16

This property also has a uniform toggle which is off by default and when turned on will use a uniform value for all corner bevels instead of using a random min/max value.

Bvl Seg/Angle

The Bevel Segment property lets you set how many segments there are in the corner bevel.

Figure 17

The Bevel Angle or limit property lets you select the angle to bevel the corner vertices. This angle is determined by the 2 linked edges of the vertex. In most cases, the default angle of 30° is okay.

Figure 18

Bevel Seed

The Bevel Seed property will show up if the bevel offset uniform toggle is off. It will randomize between the mix/max value to get the bevel offset strength.

Figure 19

Material Index

The Material Index property lets the resulting panel cut mesh inherit a material from the active or work mesh.

Figure 20

The default value of -1 means it will use the active material in the work mesh if that material exists.

Using 0 and above means you will be using the 1st material in the material stack when using 0, the 2nd material when using 1 and so forth.

Using a material stack number when that material does not exist will assign no material to the resulting panel cut mesh.

Clear Sharp

The Clear Sharp toggle will let you clear the marked sharp status of any edge in the face selection you are using to generate the inset panel cut effect.

Figure 21

Merge Panel

The Merge Panel toggle allows you to join the resulting panel cut mesh to the work mesh as a single mesh or object.

Figure 22

The boundary vertices in the panel cut mesh and the work mesh vertices will be automatically merged in the process.

The merge panel will not show up or work if you have bevel offset or is using clear faces: inner or outer.

Floater Mesh

The Floater Mesh toggle will turn off all ray visibility properties for the panel cut mesh except for camera. These settings can be found in the properties editor in the object properties and in the visibility section.

Figure 23

With these settings off, it will make the new panel cut mesh look like a part of the workmesh but in reality is actually another object.

Figure 24

This is a perspective trick achieved by making the panel cut mesh not render any diffuse, gloss or shadow to another object or mesh in the scene.

Limited Dissolve

Limits dissolve the resulting panel island faces to reduce their resolution.

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