Chapter 14 ✦ Working with Meshes and Polys 407

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.

Tutorial: Cleaning up imported meshes

Almost all 3D formats are mesh formats, and importing mesh objects can sometimes create
problems. By collapsing an imported model to an editable mesh, you can take advantage of
several of the editable mesh features to clean up these problems.
Figure 14-11 shows a model that was exported from Poser using the 3ds format. Notice that
the model’s waist is black. It only appears this way because I’ve turned off the Backface Cull
option in the Viewport Configuration dialog box. If it were turned on, his waist would be invis-
ible. The problem here is that the normals for this object are pointing the wrong direction.
This problem is common for imported meshes, and we fix it in this tutorial.

Figure 14-11: This mesh suffers from objects with flipped normals, which makes them
invisible.
408 Part III ✦ Modeling

To fix the normals on an imported mesh model, follow these steps:

1. Open the Hailing taxi man with incorrect normals.max file from the Chap 14 directory
on the CD-ROM.
2. Select the problem object — the waist. Open the object hierarchy by clicking the plus
sign to the left of the Editable Mesh object in the Modifier Stack, and select Element
subobject mode.
3. In the Selection rollout, select the Show Normals option and set the Scale value to a
small number such as 0.1.
The normals will be visible. Notice that some of them point outward and some of them
point inward.
4. With the element subobject still selected, click the Unify button in the Surface Properties
rollout and then click the Flip button until all normals are pointing outward.
This problem is now fixed, and the waist object is now a visible part of the mesh. The fixed
mesh looks just like the original mesh without the ugly black shorts.

Editing Poly Objects

Editable Poly objects are created just like Editable Mesh objects, by converting, collapsing, or
importing them. After an object has been converted to an Editable Poly object, you can work
with its subobjects just like its meshy brother. Many of the buttons found in the Editable
Mesh rollouts work exactly the same for Editable Poly objects. Only the differences are noted
here.

Editable Poly subobject modes

The subobject modes for the Editable Poly are a little different. They include Vertex, Edge,
Border, Polygon, and Element. The Border subobject mode selects all the edges around a
polygon face, which may be more than three. The various subobject modes can be selected
in the same manner as the Editable Mesh.
Before you can edit Poly subobjects, you must select them. To select a Subobject mode, select
the hierarchy element under the Editable Poly object, click one of the subobject buttons in the
Selection rollout, or use the keyboard shortcuts (1-5).
Many of the buttons for the Editable Poly include a small icon to the right of the button that
opens a settings dialog box. These settings dialog boxes allow you to change the settings and
immediately see the results in the viewports. The OK button applies the settings and closes
the dialog box, and the Apply button applies the settings and leaves the dialog box open.
These settings dialog boxes are included next to the Attach, MSmooth, and Tessellate buttons
for all subobject modes and next to many of the subobject-specific buttons such as Extrude,
Bevel, Outline, and Inset.
Another key difference for the Editable Poly objects is the location of their buttons. The
Editable Mesh objects include all their buttons in a single Edit Geometry rollout, but the
Editable Poly objects include all their common buttons in the Edit Geometry rollout and all
subobject-specific buttons is a separate rollout named after the subobject mode, such as Edit
Vertices or Edit Edges.
 Chapter 14 ✦ Working with Meshes and Polys 409

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.

Edit Geometry rollout

The Edit Geometry rollout for Editable Poly objects includes all the general functions that
apply to several subobject modes and that can be used with no subobject mode selected.

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.

MSmooth and Tessellate

Both the MSmooth and Tessellate buttons include new settings dialog boxes, as shown in
Figure 14-13. The MSmooth setting for Smoothness rounds all the sharp edges of an object.
Tessellation can be done using Edges or Faces, and the Tension setting controls how tight
the adjacent faces are.

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.

Figure 14-14: Using MSmooth reduces the sharp edges, and

tessellating adds more editable faces.

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.

Figure 14-15: The Subdivision Surface rollout includes controls for

NURMS subdivision.
412 Part III ✦ Modeling

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.

New The Isoline Display option is new to 3ds max 6.

Feature

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.

Tutorial: Modeling a tooth

If you’ve ever had a root canal, then you know how much pain removing a tooth can cause.
Luckily, modeling a tooth isn’t painful at all, as we see in this example.
To model a tooth using NURMS, follow these steps:
1. Select Create ➪ Standard Primitives ➪ Box, and drag in the Top viewport to create a Box
object. Set its dimensions to 140×180×110 with Segments of 1×1×1. Then right-click and
select Convert To ➪ Editable Poly from the pop-up quadmenu.
2. Click the Polygon icon in the Selection rollout to enable Polygon subobject mode. Then,
select the Top viewport and press B to change it to the Bottom viewport. Then click the
box’s bottom polygon in the Bottom viewport.
3. Click the Select and Scale button (R) and scale the bottom polygon 10%.
4. Drag over the entire object to select all polygons and click the Tessellate button once
to divide the polygon into more polygons. Then select Edit ➪ Region ➪ Window (or click
the Window/Crossing button in the main toolbar) to enable the Window selection
method, and drag over the bottom of the Box object in the Left viewport to select just
the bottom polygons. Click the Tessellate button again.
5. Select the Vertex subobject mode in the Selection rollout and, with the Ctrl key held
down, select the vertices at the center of each quadrant. Then move these vertices
downward in the Left viewport a distance about equal to the height of the Box.
 Chapter 14 ✦ Working with Meshes and Polys 413

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.

Figure 14-17: Deleting vertices also deletes the

adjoining faces and edges, but Remove maintains
the mesh.

Extrude, Weld, and Chamfer

The Extrude, Weld, and Chamfer buttons all include a settings dialog box that lets you inter-
actively see the results of different settings. The Extrude settings dialog box includes options
for setting the Extrusion Height and the Extrusion Base Width. The Weld settings dialog box
includes a weld Threshold value and displays the number of vertices before and after the
welding process, which is very useful to check if a weld was successful. The Chamfer button,
which is enabled in Vertex, Edge, and Border subobject modes, lets you cut the edge off a cor-
ner and replace it with a face. Using the settings dialog box, you can interactively specify a
Chamfer Amount.

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.

Remove Unused Map Vertices

The Remove Unused Map Vertices button removes any leftover mapping vertices from the
object.

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

Tutorial: Building a beveled pyramid

The Egyptians were pyramid masters, but modeling a pyramid is too easy because it is one of
the primitives. Instead, we look to the Aztec civilization for a pyramid example that has sev-
eral flat terraces on the way to the top. This gives you a chance to practice working with an
Editable Poly object.
To create a multi-stage pyramid from an Editable Poly object, follow these steps:
1. Select Create ➪ Standard Primitives ➪ Plane, and drag in the Top viewport to create a
Box object. Set its dimensions to 100×100 with Segments of 1×1. Then right-click and
select Convert To ➪ Editable Poly from the pop-up quadmenu.
2. In the Selection rollout of the Modify panel, click the Polygon subobject button and
enable the Ignore Backfacing option. Then click the object in the Top viewport to select
the topmost polygon.
Notice at the bottom of the Selection rollout that only one polygon is listed as being
selected.
3. In the Edit Polygon rollout, click the Bevel settings button and enter a Height value of
20 and an Outline Amount value of –5. Then click OK to close the dialog box.
This makes the top polygon smaller than the bottom polygon.
4. Click the Tessellate button three times.
This divides the top polygon into 64 separate polygons.
5. While still in Polygon subobject mode, hold down the Ctrl key, click the four middle
polygons, and then click the Grow button in the Selection rollout until all but the out-
side row of polygons in the Top viewport are selected.
The bottom of the Selection rollout lists 36 polygons selected.
6. Click the Bevel settings button in the Edit Geometry rollout again, enter a value of 20
for the Height value and –5 for the Outline Amount value, and click OK.
7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 two more times to complete the pyramid.
Figure 14-18 shows the completed pyramid.

Editing edges and borders

Edges are the lines that run between two vertices. All buttons that work with edges are
located in the Edit Edges rollout. Most include the same functionality as those covered in the
Editable Mesh object.
Editable Poly objects do not need the Face subobject because they support polygon faces.
Instead, they have a Border subobject. The Border subobject is polygons without any face
and edges on all sides that are actually holes within the geometry.
416 Part III ✦ Modeling

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.

Editing Polygon and Element subobjects

Like the other subobject modes, Editable Polys can be edited at the polygon and element sub-
object level. The buttons for these modes are found in the Edit Polygons and Edit Elements
rollouts.

Outline and Inset

The Outline button offsets the selected polygon a specified amount. This increases the size of
the selected polygon or element. The Inset button creates another polygon set within the
selected polygon and connects their edges. For both these buttons, a Settings dialog box is
available that includes the Outline or Inset Amount values.
 Chapter 14 ✦ Working with Meshes and Polys 417

Retriangulate and Flip

The Retriangulate button automatically computes all the internal edges for you, and Flip
Normals flips the normal vectors for the selected subobjects. The Flip button is available only
in Polygon and Element subobject modes.

Hinge From Edge

The Hinge From Edge button rotates a selected polygon as if one of its edges were a hinge.
The angle of the hinge depends on the distance that you drag with the mouse, or you can
use the available settings dialog box. In the settings dialog box, shown in Figure 14-19, you
can specify an Angle value and the number of segments to use for the hinged section.

Figure 14-19: The Hinge Polygons From Edge dialog box

lets you select a hinge.

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.