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1022 Chapter 9: Surface Modeling
thenewfacestocreateholes,oranimatethenew
faces as separate elements.
Refine Ends—When on, adjacent faces at the ends
of the cut are also divided by additional vertices,
so that the surface stays contiguous. When Refine
Ends is off, the surface wil l have a seam where
the new vertex meets the adjacent face. For this
reason, it’s a good idea to keep Refine Ends tur ned
on, unless you are sure that you don’t wan t the
extra vertices created.
Refine Ends affects only Cut. It does not affect
Slice.
Pol ymes hes
Create or select an object. > Quad menu > Transform
quadrant > Convert To submenu > Convert to Editable
Poly
Create or select an object. > Modify panel > Right-click
thebaseobjectinthestack. >ChooseConvertto:
Editable Poly.
Editable Poly (page 3–933) is an editable object
with five sub-object levels: vertex, edge, border,
polygon, and element. Its usage is similar to that of
an editable mesh object (page 1–996) ,withcontrols
for manipulat ing an object as a polygon mesh at
various sub-object levels. Rather than triangular
faces, however, the poly object ’s faces are polygons
with any number of vertices.
Editable Poly gives you these options:
•Transformor
Shif t +Clone the selection, as
w ith any object.
• UsetheoptionssuppliedontheEditrollouts
to modify the selection or object. Later topics
discuss these options for each of the polymesh
components.
•Passasub-objectselectiontoamodifier
higher in the stack. You can apply one or more
standard modifiers to the selection.
• Use the options on the Interface (page 1–1061)
to alter surface characteristics.
Tip: You can exit most Editable Poly command
modes, such as Extrude, by right-clicking in the
active viewport.
Editable Poly Work f low
Sub-object-specific functions in the Editable Poly
user interface appear on their own rollouts, leaving
the Edit Geometry rollout (page 1–1055) with
functions that you can apply at most sub-object
levels, as well as at the object level.
Also, many commands are accompanied by a
Settings button, w hich gives you a second way to
use the command:
• In Direct Manipulation mode, activated by
clicking the command button, you apply the
command by manipulating sub-objects directly
in the viewport. An example of th is is Extrude.
Note: Some buttons, such as Tessellate, operate
on the mesh immediately, with no viewport
manipulation required.
•
Interactive Manipulation mode is well suited
to experimentation. You activate this mode
by clicking the command’s Settings button.
Thisopensanon-modalsettingsdialogand
places you in preview mode, where you can set
parameters and see the results immediately in
the viewp ort. You can then accept the results by
clicking OK, or reject them by clicking Cancel.
You can als o use this mode to apply the same or
different settings to several different sub-object
selections in a row. Make the selection,
optionally change the settings, click Apply, and
then repeat with a different selection.