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.