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- Interface, elements, buttons and their hot keys.
- The hierarchi of objects.
- Marking, Selecting, Disabling and Hidding.

       Ones You have started Modeler you will see a splash info screen and then a main edit window. The edit window has some standart windows controls like menu, toolbar, statusbar and one special control named MenuBar. There are four views: front, side top and 3D View. The order and viewpoint of the viewes can now be changed with a rightclick over the small rectangle in the upper-left corner of the view:
       In 3DView the viewpoint, target, perspective and roll of the camera of 3DView can be simply changed by dragging the mouse in it. All the 3DView navigation features will be described few later.

1) Toolbar. Left to right:


  • New - Clears the scene and materials. (Ctrl-N)
  • Open - Do not use now. (Ctrl-O)
  • Save - Do not use now. (Ctrl-S)
  • Import - Imports 3D meshes from files (Ctrl-I). To use importing you must have an according filter, like 3ds.zmf for 3DS files.
  • Export - Exports scene. To use exporting you must have an according filter.
  • X,Y,XY,Z - Modify axis switchers: Horizontal only, Vertical only, both Horizontal and Vertical, and Perpendicular axis (to the viewer and outfrom the viewer) modify (Tab, Shift-Tab).
  • Splines level - Switches to the level of splines (`). Find more about splines in Splines chapter.
  • Vertices level - Switches to the level of vertices (or nodes) (1).
  • Edges level - Switches to the level of edges (2).
  • Faces level - Switches to the level of faces (polygins, triangles) (3).
  • Objects level - Switches to the level of objects (4).
  • Materials Editor - Opens a Material Editor (E).
    Also you have a standart additional toolbar with view-controls:
  • Zoom tool - Zoomes In and Out.
  • Pan tool - Pans (or scrolls) the view.
  • Fit tool - Fits the object (or objects) into the view.

    Also you have a snapping-tools additional toolbar:
  • Snap to splines vertices - Toggle snapping of vertices to splines' vertices.
  • Snap to vertices - Toggle snapping to objects' vertices.
  • Snap to edges - Not implemented
  • Snap to faces - Not implemented

    2) MenuBar:       The menubar has a tree-structure with buttons for selecting different modes, like modify modes (move, scale,...) in Modify... branch.
          All these buttons will be described later. Now take a look to the buttons at the bottom:
  • EXT - Extended Mode (,). This mode is optional for some modifications to simplify adjusting of the mesh.
  • SEL - Selection Mode (Spacebar) Indicates, that an applyment takes place on Selected objects (faces or vertices). Thus you can apply some modification to a selected group.
  • MUL - Multy Mode (/) Allows you to activate a group of objects (faces or vertices) that are close enough to the cursor, while only one object (face or vertex) can be activated for some modification (it has something common to selection mode).

    3) StatusBar:       The status bar is for displaying the necessry information on how the mode will work (when you drag a cursor over a button in the menubar). It also writes which mouse button will be used for that modificator and a kind of using (click, click and drag, right-click and so on). Also there might be some features with CTRL and SHIFT keys. It is also written in statusbar. If any function requires several clicks on some objects than whis will be written there too.
          For example on the image above the help line says: Right-Click and drag to select. Hold CTRL to deselect." that means that current tool will be applyed to the right button and to activate it you should press the right mouse button, hold it and drag the mouse. This hint belongs to Rectangular Selection tool. If you follow the hints correctly the tool will draw a rectangle and all objects (faces or vertices) in the area of the rectangle will be selected. Note, that there is a hint about CTRL. If you press this key before releasing the right mouse button and hold this key while releasing, than this tool will perform a Deselection instead Selection.
          All you need is some practice=).

          The top level of hierarchi of elements that you work with is scene, that consists of objects. Object is a 3D (or planar) mesh that is build on vertices. Each vertex is a point in 3D space. Each object has a set of vertices, but objects must has at least three vertices in to create a face (or polygon) on them. And only faces are visible in the program.
          Lets look closer to these substracts. Press CTRL-SHIFT-Z to let Modeler build a self-test object. Look at the following picture.
          Vertices are just a points, that, if connected, makes an edge. And three edges makes a face. Face is a flat triangle. The face doesn't owns the vertices, it only references them, thus several faces can use the same vertex. Object is just a set of faces and vertices. Objetcts can't share vertices, thus each vertex in the scene belongs to one and only one object
          There are also stand-along elements that are Splines and Spline-vertices.
          To operate all these substances, you need to know more about displaying of them on several levels, and about switching the edit level (from objects to faces, from faces to vertices and like this).
          Lets start from some notes about marking (or activation). When object (or vertex or face) is activated the modification will be applied. Moreover the modification will be applied to marked elements only. To mark anything you will need to move mouse over this element. Move mouse over the "Z" object in the front view (the view with blue bound-rectangle) and you will see that object has activated:
          Now we shall switch to vertices level. To switch level you need to press the according button in toolbar or hit the according key (for vertices the key is 1) Then you move cursor over the object you want to switch (activate it) and then left-click. The object will switch into vertices level. On this level each vertex is draw with small rectangle. To activate a vertex move mouse over it, like on the following picture:
          There are two things you have to notice here. First is that each face that references (or uses) an active vertex is also drawen in blue. The second is that a green line appered from the active vertex. This is a Normal vector or simply a Normal. Each vertex has the normal and only one. The normal describes how the according vertex (the faces that uses it) will be illuminated. The maximum illumination of the vertex is achieved when the viewer looks in a direction of the normal to this vertex. Well, it's simply, that each face has three vertices and as follows three normals. If these normals are not parallel, than the face will have an illumination of gradient (dark and light gradient). Thus you do not need to create a high-detailed meshes for smooth objects, insead normals creates an illusion of the smooth surface. On the following picture there are two flat squares: look at normals and on solid shading result.
          Well, we were talking about switching levels. To swich to edges level you can click an edges button in the toolbar (or press "2"). The object that you work with (if you are on vertices or faces level) will immediatly switch to edges level:
          The same method to switching object to the faces level:
          There is one thing to note here: to mark a faces you have to move mouse cursor over a small red dot in the center of the face.
          It might be also neccessary to change an object that you edit. For that you can click the objects (level) button (or hit hit "4" key) and then you activate another object and can switch it to any described above level. But there is one shorter way to change edit object: You simply hit the BackSpace key and then mark and click on new object. It will switch to the current level.

          Well, the marking of objecs, faces, edges and vertices have been discussed above. But you can also use keyboard to mark something: When you switches onto faces or vertices level you can use Home, Delete, End and PgDown like arrow keys to jump from vertex to vertex in according direction and to mark the vertices (or faces).
           As you might thougt it is very hard to mark exactly the thing you want when there are too much of vertices in the mesh. Also there might be some problems applying the same modification to a group of elemets using marking one by one. To solve these problems Modeler can use Selection of elemets for some applyment and Disable or Hide methods for some unneccessary elements. The hidding also increases redraw speed and the speed at all.
          Lets start from selecting because it is the thing you will always need while working in Modeler.
          All selection features are in the Select... submenu of the menubar (on the right). Click the "Select..." menu item to open this branch of tools:
          Also note that all branches are named with dots: "Branch..." and menu items are named without dots: "Item1".
          Well, "Select..." branch has several menuitems and all they perform selection and deselection. Lets know more about all of them:
    Single - prompts to Right-Click to select or deselect single object, face or vertex. Thus after pressing the Single button you have to activate an object, vertex, face or edge and press the right mouse button. After hitting the right button the marked element will be selected or, if this element have been already selected, the selection will be removed. Look at the following examples of using the Single selection:
    Left to right: Before pressing the right mouse button, after pressing and the last is after moving mouse cursor out from the object. Notice, that all selected elements turn dark-red (the last one) and turns light-red if you activate it (the middle). If you move cursor over the selected object and right-click again you will deselect an object (like the left one).
    Quadr - prompts to Right-Click and drag to select. Also hold CTRL to deselect and hold SHIFT for extended selection. This modificator selects the elements of specified objects (or objects at all) that are inside the rectangle area. This rectangle will appear in the view when you start dragging the mouse while holding the right button down.
          To deselect elements in rectangle area you should, as it was prompted, hold down CTRL key before releasing the right mouse button.
          The extended selection is used with objects only. It selects the object if any of its' vertices is within the rectangle. Thus, if you are on objects level, the rectangle like on the previouse image and SHIFT holded down before releasing right mouse button will select the Z object. In non-extended mode to select an object you should draw the rectangle that object is fully inside it.
    Circle - Very similar to Quadr selection but the shape used as an area is a circle. The center of the circle is in the point you have started dragging from. Deselections is performed by holding the CTRL during releasing the right mouse button. The extended selection and deselection can also be performed by holding the SHIFT key also.
    Separated - An advanced selector. It works on vertices and faces levels only. On vertices level after you right click it will select the vertex, that connected with the edge to the vertex you have clicked. Then it will select the vertices that are conneceted with the vertex that have just been selected. The process of selection will continue until all the vertices connected to each others will be selected.
          On faces level it performs a selection of a sequence of faces, that have a common edge. The deselection feature can be also performed.
          If you right click on the vertex like on the image above than all the vertices will be selected, because all the vertices are consequentally connected with an edges.
          If you right click on the face like on the image above than only upper faces will be selected, because that group connected to the lower faces with one vertex, but should have a common edge to be selected:
    All - Selects all the objects on objects level or all faces/vertices in specified object on faces/vertex levels accordingly. Deselection can be performed by the following method:
    None - Deselects all the objects on objects level or all faces/vertices in specified object on faces/vertex levels accordingly.
    Invert - Inverts the selection. Everything selected becomes deselected and evrything nonselected will be selected.
          There might be some situations when some elements should not be modified, deleted or selected. For example, you have already done the front side of the object and work with the back side. Thus you do not want the front side to be modified by a mistake. So you need it to be disabled for modifications.
          The disabling is performed by Display/Disable option in the menubar. Lets disable somthing:
          Suppose we are going to disable the upper vertices of the Z object:

  • Select a vertices level and switch the object into vertices level by hitting on it.
  • Select by any select method the upper vertices:
  • Press the SEL button in the menubar or hit spacebar.NOTE: The selected vertices turns in blue like you have marked all of them at one time. You have switched to Selected Mode, that force all the applyments to perform on SELECTED elements insted on MARKED elements.
  • Select a Display/Disable in the menubar.
  • Hit in the view over any vertex and the SELECTED vertices will be disabled:
          There are two things to be noticed here: The first is that disabled vertices and corresponding edges turned in gray (like windows' disabled controls). The second is that disabled vertices can be marked (activated) with a mouse, anyway. But that means nothing: the disabled vertex will not accept any modifications (like moving, deleting and so on).
          To disable faces follow the steps above but on faces level. The objects can also be disabled.
          As you might guess Enabling is the backward operation for disabling. To enable a vertex you migh follow the steps:
  • Select Display/Enable in the menubar.
  • Activate any vertex and click on it. It will be enabled.
          To enable all the vertices follow these steps:
  • Select Select/All in the menubar and right-click on object. All the vertices will be seleced (including the disabled).
  • Select Display/Enable in the menubar.
  • Push the SEL button or hit Spacebar to switch to the Selected mode.
  • Click on any vertex. All selected vertices (all vertices) will be enabled.
          To enable faces follow the steps above but on faces level. The objects can be enabled by the same steps.
          The hidding is very similar to disabling but the one thing: all hidden elements become invisible. Moreover, I recommend to use hidding instead disabling, because it accelerates drawing speed and do not shows unneccessary lines. You should use disabling insted hidding if you need the geometry lines to be visible, and only in this case!
          The hidding is performed by Display/Hide option in the menubar.
          Suppose we are going to hide the Z object:
  • Select an objects level.
  • Select a Display/Hide in the menubar.
  • Activate the object and hit it. The object will disappear.
          To hide faces and vertices you can follow the steps of disabling in the topic above.
          Of cause you will need to unhide the hidden elements. But you CAN NOT perform it by following the steps like in Enable topic. Insted there are some special features to perform unhidding. Suppose that Z object have been hidden. Lets unhide it:
  • Select an objects level.
  • Select a Display/UnHide in the menubar. A dialog box will apper immediatly:
    This dialog prompts you to mark objects in the list to unhide them. There is only one objects' name in the list and it is already marked. Thus you simply click OK and the specified object will appear.
          To unhide some objects again click in the view and this dialog will appear again.
          To unhide vertices and faces follow the steps:
  • Select vertices (or faces) level and switch corresponding object into this mode.
  • Select a Display/UnHide in the menubar. No dialog box will appear now.
  • Click in the view and ALL hidden vertices (or faces) will appear.
          Not, that you can not unhide several vertices or faces - only ALL of them. This is a disadvantage.

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