Tutorial: Creating Cars from scratch in ZModeler.

Table of contents

       The first execution is required to let ZModeler init it's profiles and enable opening of .Z3D files on double-click.
       Make sure you have installed ZModeler. After you have started ZModeler, dock the floaters and toolbars, like on the image:

       If you run at 1024x768 or higher resolution, then I recommend to dock Objects floater under Main toolbox. You can customize visible tool- and float-bars through View/ToolBars.../ and View/FloatBars.../ menu.

       Close ZModeler and start it again to make sure everything is OK.

       Now we shall customize ZModeler for newer project. In fact, customizing is just adjusting Direct3D settings.
       In Options/3DView the options should be marked like on images below:

       Especially, make sure, that Force Software is not checkmarked since otherwise ZModeler will run in software mode which is very slow.
       NOTE: If you have any visual artifacts in ZModeler's view (e.g. missing background image) then checking Force Software might help fixing these bugs.
       Choose in main menu: Options/Settings... and jump to Direct3D tab in a dialog box:

       Make sure everything is adjusted like on the image and hit OK.
       Now right-click over the small square in upper-left corner of 3D View (the one with colored background) and a pop-up menu will be displayed. The items in this menu should be check as follows:

Shade,Fill/Solid

Shade,Fill/Flat Shading

Shade,Fill/Wireframe/Enabled
...are the subject.
That's the all about customizing.

       It doesn't matters where you think that you know ZModeler basics and fundamentals, I strongly recommend to study this chapter as precise as only possible, since you might find the following parts not too precise as you expect. Also, you should practice everything from this and Basics chapters.
       If you are using Internet Explorer then you can adjust it for opening sample files right from the tutorial: After you click on next link, a dialog box will appear where you choose: Open form it's current location and uncheck Always ask...:

       Use THIS LINK for that purpose.

       Well, lets start.
       ZModeler has the following hierarchy of elements:

       This images shows that Object has a set of Vertices and a set of Faces. NOTE: Faces are the same as polygons, but in this tutorial I'll write faces. Each face refers to three vertices of the same object, thus, on the image, Face #1 refers to vertices 1,2 and 3; Face #2 refers to vertices 2,3 and 4.
       Here you have to notice several things:
- Different objects can't share vertices.
- Faces refers to 3 vertices and only triangle-faces are supported.
       Object has a virtual edges. Virtual means that there is no set of edges. The edges comes as part of faces: for example, the Face #1 refers to V1 (vertex #1), V2 and V3. That means, in object there are the edges: < from V1 to V2 >, < from V2 to V3 > and < from V3 to V1 >.The following image illustrates this:


Objects, Vertices, Faces and Edges are called LEVELS. Thus you can work with objects (on objects level), with vertices (on level of vertices) and so on.
       To let ZModeler know what level you are going to work on, there are buttons in Main tool bar:
       Splines button works can only be combined with either Objects or Vertices buttons indicating either spline or spline vertices levels respectively.
       Both splines levels will be covered later in this tutorial.
       Now open This File. This file contains two objects, that we shall use for practicing switching objects to different levels.
       Move mouse over the left object and it will highlight in blue. It means, the object is activated and you can operate with it.
       Suppose, you need to switch this object to vertices level:

- Press vertices button in toolbar. (or hit '1' key).

- Move mouse over this object to activate it.

- Click on this object and it will switch to vertices level:

       On the image above the left object is switched to vertices level. When you move mouse over the vertex, it will be activated (highlighted), now you can operate on vertices. NOTE: active vertex highlights the faces it's used in.. Thus, on the image, the upper vertex is activated and upper face (the only face that refers this vertex) is drawn in blue.
       To switch the same object from one sublevel (vertices, faces, edgexs) to another sublevel you simply press the button in toolbar. Thus, you can press Faces button to switch this object to Faces Level.

       NOTE: To activate the face you simply move cursor over the face. Each face has a red dot in the center: on the image, the dot of inactive face I've bounded with red. If cursor overlaps several faces, the face whose dot is closer to cursor will be activated.
       The same way you switch object to edges.
       Well, when you find in this tutorial words "switch object to level ..." it is supposed that you simply presses the according button.
       The most expected question for now is "how to switch to another object when you are editing an object on sublevel?" There is nothing hard in it: you can simply press Objects-level button in toolbar and then switch any other object to desired level. But there is shorter way to change object:

Choose new level by pressing according button in toolbar (current object will switch to this level)

Hit Backspace button (ZModeler will temporary turn into objects level)

Activate another object (assume you are currently on objects level)

Click on new object (since according button in toolbar is already pressed (by step 1) - new object switches to according level)
You can try this on current example by switching right object into edges level:

Now you are ready for ZModelers' basics.

This chapter is also very important before we start with creating the car. It describes Selecting and Hiding features, which go aside the while process of cars' creation.
First of all: Selecting is one of the most recent used features of ZModeler. It stands for forcing ZModeler work with selected group of elements. For the instance, you might need to delete some vertices: you can delete them one by one, but you should use selecting instead:

Select the group of elements

Switch SELected mode ON

Apply tool

Switch SELected mode OFF.
It's real easy and takes several seconds to perform these steps. Lets study small example: Suppose, you need to Move several vertices.
Open This File. You will see the simple terrain. Suppose you need to move several it's vertices - like on the image:

That stands for moving road (gray) few higher. To perform this you will use selection:

Switch ZModeler to SELection mode by pressing SEL button (or hitting spacebar):

Switch object to vertices level.

Choose tool: Select\Quadr:

NOTE: ALL Select\ tools work with right mouse button!!!

Right-click and, holding right mouse button down. bound these vertices with a rectangle:

After you release the right mouse button, you will see, that all SELECTED vertices are highlighted with red and green normals pointing from them. You can hit spacebar several times to see the difference beteen selected vertices with selected mode ON and OFF.

Now ZModeler will apply modifications to these selected vertices!

Choose tool: Modify\Move
Since Move tool uses the left mouse button, it does not affect the tools that uses the right mouse button. Thus, Select\Quadr can stay and does stay active (available).

Left-click and, holding left button down, drag mouse up to move selected vertices:

Choose tool: Select\None and right-click ones in the view. This will remove selection:

Unpress SEL button, since we done with selection.
       I recommend to practice a bit this example. You should also practice deselecting groups of vertices. To deselect you perform the same operations as you do when selecting; But you hold CTRL key when releasing right mouse button. Most of Select tools uses CTRL key as deselector (exceptions are: All, None and Single). As for Single - when you right-click it changes selection: it selects if the vertex wasn't selected and deselects if it was.

             Practice, Practice, Practice!

       Second: Hiding is also very important, since the more you create, the harder the work becomes. The more detailed shape you create, the more lines you see in the view. To avoid this chaos you can hide unnecessary elements and show them when needed.
       You can hide the whole object or any part of it: from single polygon up to most of polygons. You can also hide vertices (and, of cause, all neighbor faces).
       To perform hiding of a single element you follow the steps:

Choose tool Display\Hide.

Make sure ZModeler is NOT in SELected mode (SEL button isn't pressed).

Click over the element ones.
As a result the active element disappears.
To perform hiding of multiple elements you follow the steps:

Choose tool Display\Hide.

Make sure the SELected mode is ON(SEL button is pressed).

Select group of elements using any of Select\ tools.

Click in the view ones.
As a result all selected element disappear.
The backward operation (unhiding of elements) can be divided into two situations:

Unhiding of the Objects.

Unhiding of objects' elements.
The first one is simple enough. You switch to objects level and then choose tool Display\UnHide. The dialog box will appear where you select an object(s) to unhide and click OK.
When unhiding elements you have to note, that ALL hidden elements of THIS object will become visible. To unhide elements of the object you:

switch desired object to according level (e.g. to level of vertices)

choose tool Display\UnHide

click in the view and all hidden elements of this object appear.

       Open This File. You will see two cubes. The left one has hidden vertex (and hidden adjacent faces), the right one just shows what faces are hidden (some faces are semi-transparent).
       Switch the left cube to level of vertices and unhide invisible vertex. Then switch to objects level, choose tool Display\Unhide and click in the view. In the dialog box you will see the name of hidden object: cube-invisible. Select it and hit OK.
       As a result you see, that there are three cubes and the left one doesn't contain hidden vertices.
There is more simple way to operate on objects, especially - on hidden elements.
This is a Objects float bar. If you run with 1024x768 or higher resolution, then it is strongly recommended to keep this float bar available and docked under main toolbox:
       This float bar contains list of objects names. When the item is selected - the object is visible. You can simply click on non-selected item (cube-invisible) to unhide that object.
       There are also four buttons to operate objects. I think it's all clear with them.
       One thing should be noticed that you can right-click on object in the list (e.g. right-click over the cube) and a small popup menu will appear:
As shown above, by choosing Vertices...\UnHide all hidden vertices appear. I think it's very more comfortable and you will find it very useful later.


       One more mode that is worth been described here is MULtiple Mode. You might have noticed that only ONE element can be actived at a time, but sometimes happens that some (two ore more) elements should be modified at the same time. The following image illustrates that situation:

Suppose, you need to move this pair of vertices. On the front view, when you move mouse cursor over them only one vertex activates:

Of cause, you can select them and use Selected Mode, but since this situations is very frequent, it's much easier to use a MULtiple mode for that purpose. To switch this mode ON you press MUL button in the main toolbox or hit / key (on the left from the right SHIFT key):

When you move mouse cursor over that pair, you see that both vertices can be activated:

and you can use Move tool to move them.
The file is HERE.

       Tthe following topic in Getting Started chapter brings some understanding on dependencies. This one is also very important and will be refered in tutorial later.

There are two recently used types of dependencies. The first is Modify Axis. Suppose, you need to move object vertically and only vertically. Can move mouse cursor up or down that the object moves exactly vertically? I suppose, it's real hard. For your convenience there are several types of Modify Axis in ZModeler. They are:

H - horizontal modify

V - vertical modify

HV - both horizontal and vertical modify (default)

D - depth axis modify (toward the viewer and out from the viewer).
The first three can be illustrated on Scale tool, when you make object 2 times bigger:

       The last one (D axis) will be used very often with Move tool.
       You can practice moving toward the viewer and out from the viewer on THIS Example. In the side view there are two objects. The left one is for practicing, the right one is a desired result.

       The second type of dependency is Axis Center. It is used in two ways. First, it's a PIVOT point and describes center of modification. It ZModeler it is shown as "X"-style cross in all views.
       The following images illustrates how Rotate and Scale tools depend on Axis Center:

       The second way, how the Axis center is used is the Depth coordinate source.
       Suppose, there is a tool that creates a triangle, when you click in the view. Like on the image:

now suppose that axis center was placed not in the plane of front view - it's lied in 3D space:

if you will use this abstract tool in this case, the polygon will appear not in the plane of the view (black and light-blue lines), it will be placed (in Z-order) where the axis center is (red lines):

       I suppose it's all clear with it. The only left to mention is how to change dependencies.
       To change Modify Axis you can use buttons in toolbar:

or Tab and Shift-Tab to change them sequentially.
       To Place Axis Center you can use tool: Display\Place Axis and click in the view ones. Or move cursor into the view where you want to place axis and simply press (.) key (twice left from right SHIFT).

       Hope you have studied all suggested examples.

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