9

856 Chapter 8: Modifiers
Angle—
Allows you to rotate the section relative
to the plane on w hich the underlying spline is
located.
Left: The section is in the default position.
Right: The section is rotated 30 degrees.
Smooth S ection—Provides a smooth surface
around the per imeter of the sect ion that is swept
along the underlying spline. Default=on.
Smooth Pa th—Pro vides a smooth surface along
the length of the underlying spline. This type
of smoothing is useful when for curved paths.
Default=off.
Left: Smoothing the path
Right: Smoothing the section
Rear: Smoothing both path and section
Pivot Alignment—This is 2D grid that helps
youalignthesectiontotheunderlyingspline
path. Selecting one of the nine buttons shifts the
section’s pivot around the spline path.
Note: When none of the Pivot Alig nment buttons
is depressed the pivot point of the section is used
as the alignment point.
Align Pivot—When tur ned on, a 3D representation
of the Pivot Alignment grid appears in the
viewport. You only see the 3x3 alignment grid,
the sec tion and the underlying spline path. Once
you’re satisfied with the al ignment, t urn off the
Align Pivot button or right-click to see the sweep.
Align Pivot grid showing control points (in orange)
superimposed over a duplicate sweep.
Bank ing—When on, sect ions rotate about the
spline path w henever the path b ends and changes
height in the path’s local Z axis. Banking is ig nored
ifthesplinepathis2D.Whenoff,shapesdonot
rotateabouttheirZaxisastheytraversea3Dpath.
Default=on.
Union Intersections—If working w ith multiple
intersecting splines, like a g rid, turn this switch
on to produce cleaner intersections with fewer
artifacts.
Note: Union Intersections takes additional time to
compute the intersections, so leave this switch off if
you don’t have intersecting splines. Furthermore,
this setting will only calculate intersections of