+ B0006 - Blender's Vital Functions+
Instructor - Pradeep Mamgain
+ Vital Functions +
In this tutorial I will talk about Special Menu, Merging Vertices, Removing Doubles, Sub-Dividing Meshes, Center Points, Smoothing Object, Extruding Elements, Pivot Points and Proportional Vertex editing.
+ Special Editing Menu +
When you press W key while in edit mode, you get a special kind of menu (as shown in Fig – 5.6) which is incidentally called Special, that gives you variety of option to edit the object. You can access these options even without touching the mosue. Suppose you want to access the Subdivide option. Press W key and then 1 key to activate the subdivide operation.
Subdivide :- Each selected edge is split in two, new vertices are created at middle points, and faces are split too, if necessary.
Subdivide Multi :- Blender asks you how many cuts you want ?
Subdivide Multi Fractal :- As above, but new vertices are randomly displaced within a user-defined range. Blender asks you about the number of cuts and random faces.
Subdivide Smooth :- As above, but new vertices are displaced towards the barycenter (centre of mass) of the connected vertices. You can sepcify how much smoothing you want?
Merge :- Merges selected vertices into a single one, at the center, at cursor position or it collapse the selection.
Remove Doubles :- Merges all of the selected vertices whose relative distance is below a given threshold (0.001 by default). You might have some overlapping faces in the mesh, it might create artifects when you render the image. It accidently happens when you duplicate faces and verts in edit mode. To get rid of those unwanted faces, apply remove double command.
Hide :- Hides selected vertices.
Reveal :- Shows hidden vertices.
Select Swap :- All selected vertices become unselected and vice-versa.
Flip Normals :- Change the Normal directions in the selected faces.
Smooth :- Smooths out a mesh by moving each vertex towards the barycenter of the linked vertices.
Bevel :- Bevels the face.
Set Smooth :- Sets smooth redering of selected faces.
Set Solid:- Sets solid rendering of selected faces.+ Subdivide Mesh +
Create a new plane mesh. Hit Tab to enter into the edit mode. Go face editing mode and select the face. Press W and choose the first option Subdivide, it will subdivide mesh into 4 faces. Fig – 5.7. Same command can be accessed from the Mesh Tools pallete in button window. Fig – 5.8.
+ Pivot Points+
Pivot point is a point around which the rotation are calculated and also used as reference point for scaling. When Median Point is selected pivot point is calculated in the center of the entire selection. This is default option and can be set with Shift + Comma hotkey. You can also set pivot point to 3D cursor (Hotkey – Period Key on Main Keyboard) and Bounding Box Center. When you set it to Active Object, object will use last object you have selected as reference point. Individual Centers make reference point independently aroound objects’ own center.
+ Center Points +
Every mesh in blender has a small dot in the center which is callled the center point or center of the object or pivot point. When you move mesh in object mode, pivot point moves with it. But when you are in edit mode and you move the all vertices in a certain direction, center does not move. Create a plane mesh, select all vertices in edit mode and move them away. Center point stays at the center. Come out of edit mode to object mode and try to rotate the object, mesh will rotate around the center point which is not moved. Fig –5.9.
There are three ways to relocate center point of an object. They can be accessed from the Mesh panel from the window pallette. Fig – 5.10, Move the 3D cursor to the location where you want your center to be. You can use right click to place the 3D cursor and then hit Center Cursor button in mesh panel. If you select center, object’s ponits and faces will be moved around the object center. Center New option will move center to the object’s data mathematical center.
+ Smoothing Objects +
You might have noticed that rounded meshes do not appear smooth on screen and in render. We can use Set Smooth, Set Solid and Auto Smooth button to smooth the mesh inside of blender. These option are available in Links & Materials and Mesh panel. Fig –5.11.
Create a new UV Sphere. Select it and press Set Smooth Button. Activating the smoothing features doesn't actually modify the object's geometry; it changes the way the shading is calculated across the surfaces, giving the illusion of a smooth surface. Click on Set Solid to see solid view of the object. You can also choose which faces to smooth by entering into the edit mode then selecting the faces and clicking on the set smooth button. In the same way you can set the solid faces. Press the auto smooth button in the Mesh panel to apply Auto Smooth on the basis of angle between the faces. Only faces that have been set by set smooth will be affected by the auto smooth function.
+ Extruding +
Extruding is often used when you create shapes like tubes and tunnels and also when you want to lengthen the shape of an object. It can be done by selecting a group of vertices or faces or edges.
Create a cube go to front viewport, enter into edit mode, press CTRL+Tab and select vertices from the popup menu. Select top vertices using lasso tool as shown in Fig 5.12a. Press E to activate the Extrude menu and select region. If Extrude menu doesn’t pops up, you might be in face selection mode. Get out of that mode and enter into vertex selection mode. If in the pop menu you have only two options Only Edges and Only Vertices, you probably have not selected all the four vertices or there might be some double vertices in your object. To remove the double vertices, press W key and choose remove doubles. Go ahead and select the vertices as shown in Fig – 5.12a, press E to activate the extrude menu and select Region from the popup. Drag mouse upword holding down CTRL, press left mouse button to complete the operation. You have successfully extruded the cube. CTRL key allows you to snap the vertices to the grid. We will talk about snapping in a later chapter.
By default extrusion is done along a locked axis, you can either change axis using X, Y or Z key or press middle mouse wheel once to get into the freeform extrude mode.
+ Proportional Vertex Editing +
Proportional Vertex Editing comes handy when you want to create a flow in vertex editing. It works like a magnet to smoothly deform the model’s surface. Proportional Editing can be turned on by pressing the O key while in Edit Mode or by clicking on small two circles icon on the header area. Next Button to Proportional button is the falloff button which controls the sharpness or smothness of the editing. Fig – 5.13. Fall options can be activated using the Shift+O hotkey.
It has settings On, Off and Connected. O is the Hotkey for toggling the Proportional Editing. When connected option is on, hot key ALT+O, rather then using a radius only, the proportional falloff propagates through connected geometry.
Create a UV sphere. Select few vertices. Pull them out without turning on the proportional Edition option. Undo your last operation. Turn on the Proportional Editing and pull out vertices again. As you can see in Fig –5.14, now we have much smooth transition. Undo once again, change falloff to sharp and pull one more time. See the difference. Experiment with other options as well.
You can control the no of vertices affected by scolling the mouse wheel while your are transforming the vertices or hitting the PageUp or PageDown keys on the keyboard.
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