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746 Chapter 8: Modifiers
frequencies produce a smoother and more gentle
noise.
Phase—Shifts the start and end points of the
underly i ng wave. By default, animation keys are
setateitherendoftheactiveframerange.Youcan
seetheeffectofPhasemoreclearlybyeditingthese
positions in Track View. Select Animate Noise to
enable animation playback.
Nor mal M odifi er
Select an object. > Modify panel > Modifier List > Normal
Select an object. > Modifiers menu > Mesh Editing >
Normal Modifier
The Normal modifier allows you to unify or flip
the normals of an object without applying an Edit
Mesh modifier .
For example, if you wanted to fly inside of a
procedural object, such as a sphere or a cylinder,
and wanted to retain control over the radius and
number of segments, you couldn’t collapse the
object to an Editable Mesh and m aintain the
procedural nature of the primitive.
Flipping the normals of a sphere creates a sky dome over a city.
Tip: If you are animating the creation of a complex
object such as a nested B oolean or a loft, and you
think the operation mig ht result in inconsistent
faces, apply Normal to the result and turn on Unify.
Tip: The Lathe mo difier sometimes creates an
objectwithnormalspointinginward. Usethe
Normal modifier with both Unify and Flip turned
on to fix "inside-out" lathe objects. The Normal
modifier allows w hole-object manipulations of
normals to be performed quickly without using
an Edit Mesh modifier.
Pat ches
As of 3ds Max 4, patch objects coming up the
modifier stack are not converted to a mesh by this
modifier. A patch o bject input to the Material
modifier retains its patch definition. Files that
contain patch objects with the Material modifier
from previous versions of the software wil l be
converted to meshes to maintain backward
compatibility.
Procedure
To use the nor mal modif ier :
1.
Select an object, then on the Modify
panel, choose Mesh E diting > Normal f rom the
Modifier List.
The object appears to turn inside-out, since
FlipNormalsisonbydefault.
2. If the object has some faces pointing inward
and others outward, turn on Unify Normals to
make all the faces point similarly.
Tip: To flip or unify normals on portions of
objects, convert to Editable Mesh and select
Faces or Polygons. On the Surface Properties
rollout in the Normals group, use the Flip and
Unify buttons.