Wings 3D/User Manual/The Face Operations Menu

The Face Operations Menu

Reference

If one or more faces are selected, right clicking in the workspace will display the Face Operations Menu. This will allow you to perform functions unique to face manipulations.

Move

Normal – moves the selected face or faces along their normal(s).

Free – Will move the selected face(s) in the direction of mouse movement.
Since all movement takes place on planes that are parallel to the monitor screen, some care is needed to avoid problems when used in a general 'tumbled' view.
This command is especially useful when used in conjunction with View | X,Y or Z, as it allows the user to keep moved faces on the 2D axial planes associated with the relevant viewing direction.
If working with background reference images, Ortho should also be used (with View | XYZ) to eliminate perspective distortion issues.

X – constrains movement along the x axis.

Y – constrains movement along the y axis.

Z – constrains movement along the z axis.

Rotate

Connected faces (Regions) will rotate about their collective center of mass. Non connected, isolated faces will rotate about their individual centers of mass.

Free – Will rotate the selected faces in the direction of mouse movement.
Note that the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the plane of the monitor screen.

X – constrains rotation about the x axis.

Y – constrains rotation about the y axis.

Z – constrains rotation about the z axis.

Scale

Uniform – Scales the face uniformly in all directions at once.

X – Scales the face in the x axis.

Y – Scales the face in the y axis.

Z – Scales the face in the z axis.

Radial X (YZ) – Scales the face radially from the x axis; i.e. The distances in y and z are effected while x remains constant.

Radial Y (XZ) – Scales the face radially from the y axis so that the y dimension remains constant.

Radial Z (XY) – Scales the face radially from the z axis; so that the z dimension remains constant.

Extrude

Normal – extrudes the selected face(s) along their normal(s). By extruding in the negative normal direction you can create indentations into the body of the object, such as a mouth or nostrils.

Free – will extrude the selected face(s) in the direction of mouse movement.

X – constrains the extrusion along the x axis.

Y – constrains the extrusion along the y axis.

Z – constrains the extrusion along the z axis.

Extrude Region

Normal – extrudes the selected face(s) along their normal(s) as a unit. By extruding in the negative normal direction you can create indentations into the body of the object, such as a mouth or nostrils. By using Extrude Region on a group of faces rather than simply using Extrude, you keep the faces joined together into one coherent surface, which is often preferable to having distinct stems "growing" out of the object.

Free – will extrude the selected face(s) in the direction of mouse movement.

X – constrains the extrusion along the x axis.

Y – constrains the extrusion along the y axis.

Z – constrains the extrusion along the z axis.

Extract Region

Normal – extract faces and then move the faces along the regions normal.

Free – extract faces and then move faces freely in all directions.

X – extract faces and then move them along the X axis.

Y – extract faces and then move them along the Y axis.

Z – extract faces and then move them along the Z axis. Extracts a region, or group of faces, from the parent object to create a completely new object. Note that the faces do not have to be contiguous. To create a new object that abuts the original object do an Extract Region and immediately left click without moving the mouse, to lock it in place. You probably will not be able to successfully select the new object due to the underlying original and may have to use the Hide function in the Object enu to hide the parent object so that you can work with the new object. If you have created a new object from non abutting faces and want to work with them as separate objects, then use the Separate command to break them into their component parts.

Flatten

Normal

X

Y

Z

Last Axis

Default Axis

Region Sometimes faces can become non-planar as you work with your model, especially if you Move vertices. This can cause problems latter. One way to fix a non-planar face is to Flatten it, i.e., get all of its vertices onto the same plane. Smoothing the model will also create planar faces, but if you do not want to smooth your model, you can Flatten offending faces. It is also good for setting up geometry for further manipulation, so that extrusions go in the direction you want them to go, for example.

If you have a default axis defined (see Tools | Set Default Axis) you can flatten to that axis or you can flatten to the last axis used. Flatten Region will flatten the edge loop, the boundary between selected and non-selected faces, of the selected faces. Note that the vertices on the edge loop become planar, not the faces contained therein.

Inset

This creates a new face, of the same shape, inside the selected face. It works on one or more faces at a time, creating a new face for each of the selected faces. This could be used, for example, to create a picture inside a picture frame. The inner face could then be extruded in the negative direction to cause the frame to stand out. You can also Inset and make the new face larger than the original face. See the Dog House Tutorial in Section 3 of this manual for an example of this in action.

Intrude

You can make some very cool models very quickly with the intrude function. It is especially handy for making lattice work type of objects, such as the Eiffel Tower or a bird cage. It works by creating an inverted copy of the entire object, then doing a Bridge on all pairs of selected faces. The thickness of the walls is controlled by how far you move the mouse during the operation. The Dog House tutorial in this manual demonstrates the Intrude function quite nicely.

Bevel

Bevels all the edges of the selected face or faces simultaneously, thus creating a smaller selected face and small surrounding faces.

Bridge

Causes two co-planer or nearly co-planar faces to snap together, thus fusing new geometry between them. Only two faces can be selected at a time for Bridge. The faces must have the exact same number of edges and vertices but can be shaped differently. This can be used to attach one object to another, one part of the same object to another part of the same object, or to create holes in an object if the selected faces are on opposite sides of the object.

Bump

Moves selected faces out along their normals while at the same time creating new faces that meld into the existing geometry via newly beveled faces that are created. This is great for building up muscle tone on a model.

Lift

The Lift Command is only available if Advanced Menus are activated. Therefore, Lift will be discussed in the Advanced Menus section.

Put on

The Put On command allows you to drop one object onto another, much like dropping a box to the ground. Select the face you want to put onto another object then select Put On from the Face Menu. The Icon Bar will change to show you that you can select a vertex, edge or face to put the object on. Select the vertex, edge, or face you want and then Right Click to execute. The first object will jump into place right on the vertex, edge, or face you selected on the second object. This can be very useful when you go to weld parts together with the Bridge command.

Quick Tip – Put On and Bridge

To perform a bridge-like function at the same time, select both faces prior to Put On and Store | Selection. Use Put On, then Recall | Selection, Bridge, Cleanup, etc. This is quite quick, especially if on hot keys.

Mirror

Mirrors an object around one or more selected faces. By choosing multiple faces to perform Mirror multiple mirrors are performed simultaneously in the direction each face points. Thus care must be exercised on complex models least self colliding geometry be created. The Mirror command is most effective for doing symmetrical modeling, wherein only half of a model is built, then a mid model face is selected and Mirror used to create the other half of the model. If you maintain a clean central edge loop while modeling you can model, Mirror, continue to model, select the middle edge loop and do a Loop Cut, Delete the half of the model that needs to be updated, and then Mirror again.

Quick Tip: Fix that mirror plane.

If you use the Loop Cut, model, and Mirror method described above you will sometimes find that the object does not Mirror back together properly. This is often caused by the mirror face getting out of kilter i.e. non- planar, while modeling. Mirroring in such cases will cause a real mess. To fix it up, select the mirror face and do a Flatten on the appropriate axis to make it planar again. Then do the Mirror to make a whole object from the half. Finally, select Tools | Center All to get the whole thing re-centered in the workspace.

Dissolve

Deletes inner faces in a region of faces. You can also slice an object into several parts with the Dissolve command by selecting the faces that would separate the parts and doing a Dissolve. The parts will still be grouped as one object until you use the Separate command (in Object selection mode) to separate them.

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� Section 5.2 The Context Sensitive Menus WINGS3D USER MANUAL FACE MENU | COLLAPSE

Deletes the selected faces, replacing each face with a vertex. The selection mode will be changed to Vertex, and the newly created vertices will be selected, allowing you to apply further commands.

Smooth

Connects all the edges of a face and tightens up the vertices so as to form a smoother shape from the original face. You can make round eyes from square faces with Smooth.

Quick Tip: Smooth To Check For Anomalies.

To check for self colliding 'internal' geometry smooth once and eyeball in wireframe mode, as it won't usually be obvious as an unsmoothed wireframe.

Set Material

New – Will prompt you for a Material Name in a pop-up dialog. Type in a new name of your choice and click OK. This will bring up the Material Editor as pictured here.

Here you can custom design a material to be applied to the selected face by setting the properties Diffuse, Ambient, Specular, Emission, Shininess, and Opacity. The ball on the left will show a preview of your material design and starts out as a neutral gray. To change any of the first four settings simply click on the box to bring up a color mixer. In the color mixer you can type in the RGB values in the fields on the left or use the slider bars to interactively mix the color. Once satisfied, click on OK. The ball on the left will immediately change to reflect your settings. Click OK again when you have finished adjusting all the settings to your liking. The new material will be added to the list of materials along with Default and Hole, with the name that you gave it. This new material can then be applied to any face selection you choose with the Face | Set Material command. The materials are saved with the model. In order to see it properly you will need to look at your model as Smooth Shaded, which you can do by pressing the Tab key. Note that a File | New will purge the materials list.

Default – will set the selected faces to the Default material color.

Hole – will set the selected faces to the Hole material color.

Tesselate

Triangulate – Will convert all the polygons in the selected faces to triangles. Some programs, such as game engines, expect models to be triangulated before import.

Quadrangulate – Will fix n-gon faces by converting them to quads whenever possible or to triangles if necessary. An ngon is a polygon with more than four edges. These are generally considered bad things to have in your model. This is often useful following a Face | Smooth since that type of smooth operation can result in adjoining ngon faces.

Figure 52: The Wings Material Editor. Materials are assigned to faces, and therefore initially defined with the Material Editor accessed under the Face Menu. They can later be edited via the Material Editor accessed under the Edit Menu. 84 DRAFT 1.6