Wings 3D/User Manual/The File Menu

Section 5: The Wings3D Command Reference Guide

Wings will keep what was in your workspace, otherwise all objects in your workspace will

File Menu – General

The File Menu contains file handling options, some of which are common to almost all applications. Each option is described below.

File | New (Ctrl-N)

Default when starting the program, prepare a clear workspace to work in. When invoked later, Wings will ask if you want to save your changes with the standard Yes, No, Cancel options.
If you answer No Wings3D will delete all objects in a current workspace.

File | Open (Ctrl-O)

Will load a previously saved .wings model into the workspace and Wings will ask if you want to save your changes with the standard Yes, No, Cancel options.
If you answer No Wings3D shows you a File Open dialog box where you can navigate to your file and load it by typing in the name or double clicking on it from the list of available models.
If you cancel at this point, Wings will keep what was in your workspace, otherwise all objects in your workspace will be deleted before the requested file is opened.

File | Merge... (Ctrl-L)

Adds the contents of another .wings file to your current scene. When invoked, the Windows file open dialog appears. By default, it is set to add a .wings file, but the option all files is available.

The "All Files" option will only load a native Wings file such as one with the wrong extension (or no extension). Therefore, trying to bring in anything but a wings file returns the error message: 'Read failed: no such file or directory" as this command is for loading native Wings files only. One handy use for the File | Merge command is to load up a previously saved set of lights.

If you create a lighting environment you are particularly fond of delete all the non-light objects from the scene and do a Save As. Call it something like lights.wings. Then after doing a file new you can merge the lights into your current scene. Note that File|Import implicitly always merges if you want to add an non-native format model to your scene.

File | Save (Ctrl-S)

Saves the current workspace as a .wings file.
If the model is new, a Save File dialog box will come up allowing you to specify the path and file name to be saved.
If it is a previously existing file, it will save to that file, permanently incorporating any changes you have made since loading it.

File | Save As... (Ctrl-Shift-S)

Allows you to save the current workspace as a .wings file under a new file name.
A Save As File dialog box will come up allowing you to specify the path and file name to be saved. This can save hours of labor, being particularly useful whenever you either come to a point where undoing will become a problem if further work does not pan out, or at a point that you want to come back to, for expanding in a different direction altogether.

File | Save Selected...

Allows you to save the currently selected object or objects in the workspace as a .wings file under a new file name. A Save dialog box will come up allowing you to specify the path and file name to be saved.

File | Save Incrementally

Generate new filename and save.

File | Save Unused Materials

Option flag to include unused materials when saving a .wings file.

File | Revert

Clears all work done since last save and restores last saved. It does not clear the Undo history. The idea is that you should be able to undo a Revert if did it by mistake. Thus there is no question asking for confirmation.

File | Import

Nendo® (.ndo)

3D Studio (.3ds) [import scale] [export scale] [ok] [cancel]

Adobe® Illustrator (.ai)

Wavefront® (.obj) [import scale] [export scale] [ok] [cancel]

Collada (.dae)

gITF (.gitf|.glb)

LightWave / Modo (.lwa|.lxo)

Wavefront (.obj)

Stanford ply (.ply)

Adobe PostScript (.ps|.eps)

StereoLithography (.stl)

SVG Paths (.svg|.svgz)

WMF/EMF Paths (.emf|.wmf)

X3D/VRML (.x3d|.wrl)

DirectX (.x)

Import files of selected format in current project.

Wings supports the importation of Nendo® (.ndo), 3DS Max® (.3ds) Adobe® Illustrator (.ai) and Wavefront® (.obj) format files. Import has no limits on file size other than system resources. Import implicitly always merges therefore you can add nonnative format models to your scene without loosing your current work.

The 3DS Max® and Wavefront® import commands both have option boxes on the right of the menu item. The option boxes allow you to specify an Import Scale. This is useful since many models will be very small or absolutely huge when imported into Wings. By experimentation you can find the right scaling factor and then apply it each time you import models from another program. Simply apply the inverse scale upon export if you wish to take the model back to the originating program.

The Nendo® import works much better than the others because it is a one-to-one translation. This is because both Nendo® and Wings use winged-edge data structures. Import of other formats is trickier. The other formats contains triangle or polygon meshes. To import them, Wings must combine the polygons into one or more closed objects that can be represented by the winged-edge structure. Combining gets tricky if the mesh contains defects, and many meshes do since the defects usually are not a problem in other modelers or renderers.

Also, if you import a model that has a texture associated with it you may get a Wings message box when attempting to modify it, telling you that the operation can not be performed on a textured model. This is because texture support in Wings is under development. In a future release of Wings, the question will be if you want to convert the texture to colors (just as in Nendo®). But currently, the workaround is to use the Strip Texture command in the Body pop-up menu. Or you can save the model as a Wings file and reload it.

One thing new users may find helpful is the knowledge that Wings and Nendo® work well in tandem since Wings supports both the import and export of .ndo files. So you can model in Wings, take the model into Nendo® to do color assignments, and save the model with colors. Then you can use Wings File | Import (.ndo) and bring the model in with all the color assignments intact. Some Wings operations still cannot work with color assignments but you can smooth the model to a greater degree than is possible in Nendo® for a smoother looking model while still retaining the colors.

Currently, Wings only import textures from the OBJ format, not 3DS. Acceptable file formats for textures are 24 bit BMP, TGA®, and TIFF.

File | Export

Nendo® (.ndo)

3D Studio (.3ds) [import scale] [export scale] [ok] [cancel]

BZFlag (.bzw)

Collada (.dae)

glTF (.gltf|.glb)

Cartoon Edges (.eps|.svg)

OpenJSCad (.jscad)

LightWave / Modo (.lwa|.lxo)

Wavefront (.obj)

Renderware (.rwx)

StereoLithography (.stl)

X3D/VRML (.x3d|.wrl)

DirectX (.x)

Saves all objects in workspace in Nendo® (.ndo), 3D Studio (3ds), Animation Master (.mdl), Wavefront (.obj), or VRML 2.0 (.wrl) format. When YafRay rendering software is installed this option will appear. There are option boxes for .3ds, .and obj, exporters which bring up sub-menus for specifying parameters. The option box for .3ds allows you to enter an export scale. The option box for .obj allows this and a check box to create one group per material.

YafRay uses the options setup under the File > Render > Yafray panel.

Quick Tip: Rendering with YafRay

On the PC side you can send a file to render in YafRay right from wings, but on the mac side you are limited to exporting the model and rendering from the command line. See section 7.1 YafRay.

File | Export Selected

Nendo® (.ndo)

3D Studio (.3ds) [import scale] [export scale] [ok] [cancel]

BZFlag (.bzw)

Collada (.dae)

glTF (.gltf|.glb)

Cartoon Edges (.eps|.svg)

OpenJSCad (.jscad)

LightWave / Modo (.lwa|.lxo)

Wavefront (.obj)

Renderware (.rwx)

StereoLithography (.stl)

X3D/VRML (.x3d|.wrl)

DirectX (.x)

Saves selected elements in one of the export formats (see [Export]).
Note that the selection can be of any type (e.g. face selection).

File | Import Image

Import an image file.

File | Render

Renders the workspace using either the default OpenGL® render routine or YafRay if you have installed it correctly. Support for other rendering engines may be added in the future. The Option Button on the right will bring up a sub-menu for several parameters you can set. Before you can send the file to render in YafRay make sure you have added at least one light or you won’t see anything. The image is rendered from the point of view of the camera

File | Install Plug-in or Patch

Install a plug-in or a Wings patch file.

File | Save Preferences Subset

Save a preference subset from your current settings.

File | Load Preferences Subset > Load

Load a previously saved preference subset.

File History
If you have opened files previously you will see their filenames listed below File | Export. Clicking one will open that file (provided it is still in the same location where you had it at the time). The history list is currently limited to 4 files.

File | Exit (Ctrl-Q)

Exits Wings3D. If changes have been made since your last save Wings will ask you if you want to save them before shutting down.