9.5.2

252 • CHAPTER 7
OBJECTS MENU • SPLINES • 253
Create Spline (Curves)
The Spline object allows you to quickly create new splines from scratch. However, for some shapes this
approach can be clumsy and unnecessary. For this reason CINEMA 4D includes spline curves. These are
interactive tools that remain active until you select another tool, such as Move. You can thus create
any number of these splines without the need to select the command each time.
When drawn in a 3D camera view (Perspective, Parallel, Military, Frog, Bird, Gentlemen, Isometric, and
Dimetric), all spline curve tools other than the Freehand spline curve tool draw spline curves in the XZ
plane. When drawn in a 2D camera view (Left, Right, Front, Back, Top, Bottom), all spline curve tools
draw spline curves in the facing plane.
Freehand
You can use this command to draw curves directly in the viewports. Select the Freehand tool, then
click in a viewport and keep the mouse button pressed. You can then draw the Freehand curve for
as long as the mouse button is held down. Releasing the mouse button will end the Freehand spline
creation and the nished spline will appear. (This is especially useful when tracing patterns with a
graphics tablet.)
To add further vertices, Ctrl-click in the viewport. Keep in mind, however, that the vertices will now
be placed onto the XZ plane.
If the start and end positions of the nished curve are positioned close together, the curve is
automatically closed.
Freehand Splines are always created on the camera plane when you work in
the perspective views (Perspective, Parallel, Military, Frog, Bird, Gentleman
and Isometric), not on the construction plane, which is the case for the Bezier,
B-Spline, Cubic, Akima and Linear splines. If you want to draw a spline onto
one plane (XY, ZY, XZ etc.) you should switch to the corresponding view.
Attribute manager settings
Tolerance
This value denes how accurately the spline curve follows the mouse movements. The higher the
Tolerance value, the more rounded the spline will be and the fewer vertices will be generated.