It is practically no matter
whether you creating a completly new model or edit an exist one -
you need a branch of modify tools. But some of the modify tools
depend of some factors.
The first one is Modify Axis:
There are four states: X axis
modify means modifying horizontally in the current view. Y axis
modify means vertical modify. XY - both axis modify, or modifying
in the views' plane. And Z axis modify means modifying in axis,
that is perpendicular to the viewer.
The second is dependence on Axis center,
this point in 3D space defines an basis point for the modification. For example
this point defines the point that the elements will rotate around while Rotate
modification. This point is shown as gray (X-shape) cross and by default
is is in the point (0,0,0) where the darkest grid lines are crossed. To
change the location of the axis center you should activate the view, move
the mouse over a new location and press (.) key.
When the modificator will be described
it will be pointed whether it is axis depended and/or axis-center depended
modificator.
Before processing farther we will
discuss some more about modes: Selected, Extended and Multy-mode.
Selected Mode forces Modeler
to work with selected elements without paying attention whether the
elements marked or not. This mode is turned on by pressing the SEL
button in the menubar or hitting the spacebar.
Extended Mode effects on some
modificatinos, like movig, rotating and scaling. In extended mode you
get two circles at the cursor: the small-radius circle will modify elements
like normal modifiactor. But if element is between small and big
radius circles, than this element will be modified by the following
rule: the closer this element to the small- radius circle - the more
it will be modified, the closer it to the big radius circle - the
less it will be modified. Well, this mode can also be named Elastic.
It is switched on by pushing the EXT button in the menubar or by
hitting the (,) key. Here is an axample of simple move modify in
extended mode:
In Multy Mode you can mark several
elements by moving the cursor over them, while in non-multy mode only
one element can be marked. This mode is turned on by hitting the (/)
key or pushing the MUL button. It helps when some vertices on the view that
are close enough to each other shoud be modified, but not one by one.
On the following picture these vertices are on the opposide sides of
Z letter:
Well, for any modification you need
to specify an elemnet(s) for this modification. If it is a vertices or
faces then the corresponding object must be switched into this mode. If
you need to modify a group of elements than this group should be selected
first and Selected mode should be switched on.
The following sequence prepares a group
of vertices in two objects for the same modification:
1) Select these objects and switch on the selected mode.
2) Push the vertices button in toolbar and click somewhere
in active view. The selected objects will both go into vertices level.
3) Select the group of vertices you want to modify in these objects.
The group is ready for modifying.
Now we can process with modifications.
All the modification tools are in the
Modify branch of the menubar. All these modification will be described
one by one:
Move - Axis depend modificator, that changes location of the elements in 3D space.
To move the element you simply activate it, left click and drag. This mode supports
moving in Selection mode, MultyMode and Extended Mode. The moving is
acceptable by vertices, edges and objects. The following picture is an
example of moving:
The upper images are before moving,
the green arrows shows point, direction and the length of dragging. The
conditions were the following:
1) Objects level, nonSelected mode.
2) Objects level, Selected mode.
3) Vertices level, Selected mode.
4) Vertices level, nonSelected and Extended mode.
Also supports arrow keys for moving.
NOTE, that you do not need to
deselect an elements if you modify in nonSeleceted mode: you simply
switches the Selected mode off (by unpressing the SEL button or hitting
spacebar) Thus, if you switch the Selected mode off and will try to
move the element (like in the second situation) the marked object will
move (the light-red one). But if you switched the Selected mode ON, than
you need to select something and (like in the first situation) the marked
(but not selected) element will not move.
Rotate - Axis and Axis-center depend modificator, that rotates the elements
round the axis center in the active view. If the Z-axis modify is switched
on then the elements will rotate round the horizontal axis that points to
the right.
To Rotate the element you should
activate it, left click and drag up or down. This mode works in all
modes and their combinations. Rotation can be applied to vertices,
edges and objects. The following picture is an example of rotation:
There are two examples above with
the following conditions:
1) Objects level, nonSelected mode.
2) Vertices level, Selected mode.
Scale - Axis and Axis-center depend modificator, that increases or
decreases width or height of the elements. Click and drag: scaleing
will increas sizes if you move mouse up and decrease them if you move
mouse down. There are two examples of scale modify result:
The conditions are the following:
1) Objects level, X-axis modify only.
2) Vertices level, Selected mode. XY modify
Also note that scale prompts to Hold
SHIFT for 3D scale, thus you can hold it while moving the mouse up or
down to scale the whole element without loosing proportions.
Mirror - Axis and Axis-center depend modificator, that flips the
geometry. It can be applied to objects, vertices or to the edges. It supports
all the modes except extended. The following image is an example of mirroring by X axis
the Z-letter object and mirroring by the Y axis the upper half (selected
vertices):
I've also drawen the green line that
shows the axis of mirroring: it's quite obviouse that mirroring is axis and
axis center depend modificator.
Break - Independ modificator hides three methods for breaking vertices,
edges and faces. On vertices level break method supports Selected and Multy
modes also. It breaks each vertex that used in more than one face to several
vertices, that each of them will be used in only one face. At the
following picture two selected vertices were breaked (onto 6 verts each) and
the new vertices were moved to show the result in best:
On edges level this modificator doesn't
support any of modes. It can break edges one by one only. It creates the
vertex in the middle of the edge and updates the faces that uses the edge:
On faces level this modificator supports
Selected and Multy mode and breaks the faces by adding new verex in the center
of each face fore breaking:
On objects level it has no any method so
it will do nothing.
Reorient - independ modificator, supports Selected and Multy Mode.
This modificator changes the visible
side of the face on faces level. By default Direct3D makes visible the face with CCW-definded
vertices. On objects level it reorients all the faces in the specified object.
Also, on objects level, if you hold down the CTRL key, this method flips (changes direction to opposide) the
normal vector:
On the left object one face was reoriented
(but not deleted); on the second - the object was reoriended "on objects level" and all
its' faces were reoriended.
Delete - independ modificator, supports Selected and Multy Mode.
It's obviouse, that this modificator
deletes vertices, edges, faces or objects. Note, if you delete the vertex,
then all faces that uses this vert will also be deleted. The same thing is
about the edges. If you delete the faces than the vertices that doesn't used
by any faces will be deleted if you confirm the message, that follows the
mouse hit.
Splines subbranch will be described later in Splines
topic.
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