Cross- You can find more information on the Multi/Sub-Object material type in Chapter 20,
Reference “Creating and Applying Simple Materials.”
You use the Smoothing Group option to assign a subobject to a unique smoothing group. To
do this, select a subobject and click a Smoothing Group number. The Select By SG button, like
the Select By ID button, opens a dialog box where you can enter a smoothing group number,
and all subobjects with that number are selected. The Clear All button clears all smoothing
group number assignments, and the Auto Smooth button automatically assigns smoothing
group numbers based on the angle between faces as set by the value to the right of the Auto
Smooth button.
Figure 14-11: This mesh suffers from objects with flipped normals, which makes them
invisible.
408 Part III ✦ Modeling
Selection rollout
For Editable Poly objects, the Selection rollout includes the Subobject buttons, the By Vertex
and Ignore Backfacing options, and four buttons. These buttons include Shrink, Grow, Ring,
and Loop. Use the Grow button to increase the current selection around the perimeter of the
current selection, as shown in Figure 14-12. Click the Shrink button to do the opposite.
Figure 14-12: Using the Grow button, you can increase the subobject selection.
The Ring and Loop buttons are available only in Edge and Border subobject modes. Use
Ring and Loop to select all adjacent subobjects horizontally and vertically around the entire
object. Ring selection looks for parallel edges, and Loop selection looks for all edges around
an object that are aligned the same as the initial selection. For example, if you select a single
edge of a sphere, the Ring button selects all edges going around the sphere and the Loop but-
ton selects all edges in a line from the top to the bottom of the sphere.
Note For Editable Poly objects, the Hide Selected, Unhide All, Copy, and Paste buttons are located
at the bottom of the Edit Geometry rollout.
Repeat Last
The first button in the Edit Geometry rollout is the Repeat Last button. This button repeats
the last subobject command. This button does not work on all features but is very convenient
for certain actions.
Tip The tooltip for this button displays the last repeatable command.
Enabling constraints
The Constraints drop-down list limits the movement of subobjects to a specified subobject.
The available constraints are None, Edge, and Face. For example, if you select and move a
vertex with the Edge constraint enabled, then the movement is constrained to the adjacent
edges.
410 Part III ✦ Modeling
Create
The Create button lets you create new subobjects, specifically polygons, by connecting iso-
lated vertices and border vertices. When the cursor is over a valid vertex, it changes to a
crosshair, and you can click to create a polygon edge from the last clicked point. If no vertices
are available, you can Shift click to create one. This creates a vertex where you click.
Tip As you create new polygons, the normal is determined by the direction in which you create
the polygon using the right-hand rule. If you bend the fingers of your right hand in the direc-
tion (clockwise or counterclockwise) that the vertices are clicked, then your thumb will point
in the direction of the normal. If the normal is pointing away from you, then the backside of
the polygon will be visible and the lighting could be off.
QuickSlice
The QuickSlice button lets you click anywhere on an Editable Poly object where you want a
slicing line to be located. You can then move the mouse, and the QuickSlice line rotates about
the point you clicked on. When you click the mouse again, a new vertex is added at every
place where the QuickSlice line intersects an object edge. This is a very convenient tool for
slicing objects because the slice line follows the surface of the object, so you can see exactly
where the slice will take place.
For the QuickSlice and Cut tools, you can enable the Full Interactivity option. With this option
enabled, the slice lines are shown as you move the mouse about the surface. With Full
Interactivity disabled, the resulting lines are shown only when the mouse is clicked.
Cut
For Editable Poly objects, the Cut button is interactive. If you click a polygon corner, the cut
edge snaps to the corner, and a new edge extends from the corner to a nearby corner. As you
move the mouse around, the edge moves until you click where the edge should end. If you
click in the middle of an edge or face, then new edges appear to the nearest corner. This inter-
active cut method is much easier to use than the Editable Mesh object method.
Figure 14-13: The Settings dialog boxes for the MSmooth and
Tessellate buttons let you interactively set the Smoothness
and Tension values.
Chapter 14 ✦ Working with Meshes and Polys 411
The MSmooth button can be used to smooth to the selected subobjects in the same way as
the MeshSmooth modifier. This button can be used several times. The Smoothness value
determines which vertices are used to smooth the object. The higher the value, the more
vertices are included and the smoother the result. You can also select that the smoothing is
separated by Smoothing Groups or by Materials.
Tessellation is used to increase the density of the faces or edges. When modeling, you may want
more details in a select area. This is where the tessellation command comes in. Tessellation can
be applied to individual selected subobjects or to the entire object. Figure 14-14 shows a simple
diamond-shaped hedra that has been MeshSmoothed using the MSmooth button and then tes-
sellated three consecutive times.
Subdivision Surface
Editable Poly objects include an extra rollout called Subdivision Surface that automatically
smoothes the object when enabled. The Subdivision Surface rollout, shown in Figure 14-15,
applies a smoothing algorithm known as NURMS, which stands for Non-Uniform Rational
Mesh Smooth. It produces similar results to the MSmooth button, but offers control over how
aggressive the smoothing is applied; the settings can be different for the viewports and the
renderer.
To enable NURMS subdivision, you need to enable the Use NURMS Subdivision option. The
Smooth Result option places all polygons into the same smoothing group and applies the
MeshSmooth to the entire object. Applying NURMS with a high Iterations value results in a
very dense mesh, but the Isoline Display option displays a simplified number of edges, mak-
ing the object easier to work with. The process of smoothing adds many edges to the object,
and the Isoline Display option displays only the isolines.
The Iterations value determines how aggressive the smoothing is. The higher the Iterations
value, the more time it takes to compute and the more complex the resulting object. The
Smoothness value determines how sharp a corner must be before adding extra faces to
smooth it. A value of 0 does not smooth any corners, and a maximum value of 1.0 smoothes
all polygons.
The two check boxes in the Render section can be used to set the values differently for the
Display and Render sections. If disabled, then both the viewports and the renderer use the
same settings. The smoothing algorithm can be set to ignore smoothing across Smoothing
Groups and Materials.
If the Show Cage option is enabled, an orange cage surrounds the NURMS object and shows
the position of the polygon faces that exist if NURMS is disabled. This cage makes selecting the
polygon faces easier.
6. Select the Top viewport again and press T to change it back to the Top viewport. Select
the single vertex in the center of the polygon with the Ignore Backfacing option enabled
in the Selection rollout, and then drag it slightly downward in the Left viewport.
7. Disable the Ignore Backfacing option in the Selection rollout and select the entire sec-
ond row of vertices in the Left viewport. With the Select and Scale tool, scale these ver-
tices toward the center in the polygon in the Top viewport.
8. In the Subdivision Surface rollout, enable the Use NURMS Subdivision option and set
the Iterations value to 1.
Figure 14-16 shows the completed tooth.
Editing vertices
When working with the Editable Poly objects, after you select a Vertex subobject mode (key-
board shortcut, 1) and select vertices, you can transform them using the transform buttons
on the main toolbar. All vertex-specific commands are found within the Edit Vertices rollout.
Figure 14-16: The organic look for this tooth is accomplished with NURMS.
414 Part III ✦ Modeling
Remove
The Delete button for Editable Mesh objects lets you delete the selected vertices. However,
the Remove button is similar to the Delete button, except that a hole isn’t left after the vertex
is removed. The Remove button automatically adjusts the surrounding subobjects to main-
tain the mesh integrity.
Note You can still delete Editable Poly subobjects using the Delete key.
Figure 14-17 shows a sphere object with several vertex subobjects selected. The middle
image is an Editable Mesh that used the Delete feature, and the right image is an Editable Poly
that used the Remove feature.
Connect
The Connect button can be used to add new edges to subobjects. In Vertex subobject mode,
the button connects vertices on the opposite side of a face. In Edge and Border subobject
mode, they make a settings dialog box available, which includes a setting to Connect Edge
Segments. This value is the number of edge segments to use to add between the selected
edges or borders.
Weight
The Weight settings control the amount of pull that a vertex has when NURMS subdivision or
a MeshSmooth modifier is used. The higher the Weight value, the more resistant a vertex is
to smoothing.
Chapter 14 ✦ Working with Meshes and Polys 415
Figure 14-18: This pyramid was created from an Editable Poly object.
Insert Vertex
The Insert Vertex button lets you add a new vertex anywhere along an edge. The cursor
changes to crosshairs when it is over an edge. Click to create a vertex. When in Edge, Border,
Polygon, or Element subobject mode, this button also makes vertices visible.
Edit Triangulation
For the Editable Poly object, the Edge, Border, Polygon, and Element subobjects include the
Edit Triangulation button. The Edit Triangulation button lets you change the internal edges of
the polygon by dragging from one vertex to another. When this button is clicked, all hidden
edges appear. To edit the hidden edges, just click a vertex and then click again where you
want the hidden edge to go.
By default, one of the polygon’s edges will be used as the hinge about which the section
rotates, but in the settings dialog box, you can click the Pick Hinge button and select an edge
(which doesn’t need to be attached to the polygon). Figure 14-20 shows a sphere primitive
with four polygon faces that have been hinged around an edge at the sphere’s center.
Figure 14-20: Several polygon faces in the sphere have been extruded along a hinge.