9

MeshSmooth Modifier 727
infinite number of iterations. The topology is still
controlled by the number of iterations.
Parameters rollout > Surface Parameters group
Applies smoothing groups to the object and
restrict the MeshSmooth effect by sur face
properties.
Smooth R esul t—Applies t he same smoothing
group to all faces.
Sepa ra te by M ater ia ls—Prevents the creation of
new faces for edges between faces that do not share
Material IDs.
Sepa ra te by Smoothi ng G roups—Prevents the
creation of new faces at edges between faces that
don’tshareatleastonesmoothinggroup.
Settings rollout
Settings rollout > Input Conversion group
Opera te On Faces/Polygons—Operate On Faces
treats every triangle as a face and smoothes
across all edges, even invisible edges. Operate On
Polygons ignores invisible edges, treating polygons
(like the quads m aking up a box or the cap on a
cylinder)asasingleface.
Keep Faces Convex—(Available only with Operate
On Polygons mode.) Keeps all input polygons
convex. Selecting this option causes non-convex
polygons to be handled as a minimum number of
separate faces, each of w hich is convex. (Turn on
Display/Weighting group > Display Control Mesh
to see what’s happening here.)
"Convex" means that you can connect an y two
points in the polygon with a line that doesn’t go
outside the polygon. Most letters aren’t convex.
In the capital letter "T," for example, yo u can’t
connect the upper-left corner to the bottom with
a str aight line without going outside the shape.
Circles, rectangles, and regular polygons are all
convex.
Problems that can occur with non-convex faces
include the fact that changes in the geometry of the
inputobjectcanresultinadifferenttopologyfor
the MeshSmooth result. For inst a nce, in a box, if
youdragoneofthetopcornersacrossthemiddle
of the top face, the box becomes non-convex.
MeshSmooth would then see this as two triangles
insteadofonequad,andthenumberofpointsin
the result would change.
If you need to make sure your output topology is
stable,turnthisoff.Ifyouhavealotoflettersor
other non-convex faces in your mesh, however,
you’ll probably want it on.
Settings rollout > Update Options group
Sets manual or render-time update options, for
situations where the complexity of the smoothed
object is too high for automatic updates. N ote that
you can a lso set a g reater degree of smoothing to
be applied only at render time, on the Subdivision
Amount rollout.
Always—Updates the object automatically
whenever you change any MeshSmooth settings.
When R enderi ng—Updates the v iewport display of
theobjectonlyatrendertime.
Manually—Tur ns on m anu al updating. When
manual updating is selec ted, any settings you