Into a tight niche market Eovia is wedging another polygon modeler into the mix. With so many modelers out there from SILO to Modo to hybrid systems like Cinema4D or Lightwave 3D how does Hexagon fit in?

Eovia has quite a history in modeling from its Amapi days. As of late Amapi is more known for its NURBS capabilities with the introduction of the features in version 6 and now a complete NURBS toolset with version 7 Pro. Prior to version 6 Amapi was a polygon modeler. Now it would appear that Amapi is more geared towards refined surface modeling for product design but some of its core has been inherited into Hexagon.

So, simply this is where Hexagon will shine amongst the fray of other modelers. Not only has Hexagon offered a good set of polygon modeling tools but it also has the capability to utilize surfaces and b-spline or bezier curves. In addition you have the option to utilize Hexagon's 'Dynamic Geometry' which will be talked about later.

Hexagon's interface is pretty straight forward. Most of the available commands are given within the top icon toolbars with tabs to seperate discreet tools. The bottom dock controls the model and interface visual adjustments. While you can't drag and drop your toolbars around the interface, Hexagon does offer a way to utilize the 'custom' tab to store your selected tool icons. For future versions I would like to see the interface adopt a more modern approach to object oriented tool bars so you could create the interface to your desire.


default interface of the current version 1.21

minimized interface

To help visualize your model, Hexagon does have a good array of light maps to give you feedback on your model. Besides the basic wireframe, shaded-wireframe and cel-shaded styles Hexagon offers some advanced lightmaps like chrome and zebra-striping so you can gauge your model's reflective properties.


As for the polygonal modeling tools you will find that most of what you need are there. From the get-go Hexagon is a SDS modeler. The idea is to start out with a primitive and go off modeling or if you're an edge modeler you'll be right at home. While we're on the subject of SDS, Hexagon supports the following smoothing algorithms:

Catmull-Clark
Doo-Sabin
Bezier Interpolation
Loop Subdivision
Butterfly Subdivision

For each of these smoothing algorithms you can define the range (number of subdivisions) and other settings. To freeze the settings you simply 'collapse' the dynamic shape.

Once you get modeling you will find that some tools have been optimized for workflow. For example, the extrude surface tool will allow you to keep clicking and dragging to perform multiple 'bevels' before you drop the tool. However, you fill find that this sort of workflow does not apply to all tools and I would like to see this updated. Another cool tip is on an open edge or edge loop is to hold the 'ctrl' key and drag the manipulator to do an edge extend which saves time clicking the 'fast extrude' button for every extend.

To assist you with view and tool manipulation orientation Hexagon allows you to define your working plane based on an geometry selection (polygon, edge, vertex) and will either orient the grid to the selection or orient the model to the selection. Then, with a click of a button you can reset the working plane. When modeling and especially tweaking you are constantly rotating the model to create or tweak geometry. When you are creating geometry Hexagon is aware of how close you are to either of the tertiary planes and will create geometry to the closest one it can snap to. However to manipulate geometry from your perspective you simply need to apply the 'work in camera plane' function; you can then spin the model to orient the manipulator widget and tweak upon your view plane.

Hexagon runs the gamut of tools from target welding to beveling and bridge type tools. You will be hard pressed to find a geometry creation tool that doesn't exist in Hexagon and yet it is all packaged in a clean interface. However for you organic polygon modelers Hexagon does fall short in a few areas.

For one, there is no 'seam preservation' type tool. While Hexagon does have a symmetry tool, it does not 'lock' the seam as you would think it should so that you cannot model across the seam. For example you could not do a group-type bevel across the seam.

Second, there is no spin-quad or spin-edge type tool. Now this will be an issue mostly for box modelers. Hexagon is quite geared towards edge modeling, so if you prefer this type of modeling the lack of such a tool may not be a big deal.

Thirdly, Hexagon is not a UV or texturing tool. While there is the ability to assign materials you don't have a huge subset of tools. One could argue, however, that Hexagon is more for modeling and it is relying on your rendering application to sort UV's.

Hexagon has good selection tools wherein you can select by rectangle, loop, ring or even between selection (you designate a from-to selection. In addition it is easy to convert selections to other types like polygons to points or points to edges. Hexagon makes it easy to switch between rectangle and lasso type selection as well as dropping a selection.

I want to cover an extremely cool area of Hexagon with its surfacing and dynamic geometry functions. Hexagon has an object history of sorts that allows you to tweak shapes after a modeling function. I will show two examples, and a video link is provided.

First up is the boolean function. Haven't you tried doing a boolean cut and thought “I wished I'd had that cut somewhere else”? In other applications you'd have to undo the operation and redo it. In Hexagon, if you have Dynamic Geometry on, you simply selected the object and drag it and Hexagon dynamically updates the boolean.

Video 1: Boolean Dynamic Geometry

Hexagon Geometry File

Next up is for you surface junkies. Imagine being able to use curves to generate a sweep or a fancy surface and being able to then tweak the shape dynamically. Piqued your interest? Watch the video.

Video 2: Surface Dynamic Geometry

Hexagon Geometry File

Image taken from `Neird – Thomas Roussel`

I want to conclude saying that for a version 1.x application Hexagon has come out with guns blazing. You're gonna find a good toolset that you can model anything you've done in your application now albeit with a few oddities and name differences with tools. Hexagon is very stable and has a very good capability in dealing with large meshes. In addition I found Hexagon to be stable, wherein I could model for hours and not have a crash. Although I did happen about an internal error, I was able to continue working so it would appear that Hexagon also has an intelligent crash recovery/prevention mechanism.

For those of you looking for a subdivision polygon modeler with a no-nonsense interface and advanced surfacing functions you are going to be hard pressed finding anything else that can compare. I'm sure with version 2.x we will see some of the issues I have raised addressed.

Eovia has a good contributing community at www.eovia3d.net where you can find tutorials and posts by other users.

Jason Clark February 2006