- Let's look at editing the shape of a spline
and that's going to introduce us to a couple
of really key concepts.
First of all, the difference between a parametric object
and an editable object.
And second of all, the concept of components
which in 3Ds Max are known as sub-objects.
So let's start from a circle primitive
and we're going to customize that
change it to some other shape.
So I'll go to my front view port
and maximize that with alt W,
go to the create panel, to the shapes sub-panel
and let's create a circle, click on circle
and then just drag out,
in the front view port release the mouse
and right click to exit circle creation mode.
With that object still selected.
If we go to the modified panel
we'll see that it has parameters.
It only has a radius.
That's the only parameter, but that is parametric
and non-destructive.
If we save this scene and open it up later
we'll still get a circle.
It'll still have a radius and we can change that at will.
So that's an example of an non-destructive
parametric primitive.
When 3Ds Max saves this scene file.
It doesn't save the explicit position
of every single point on that circle.
It just stores kind of like the recipe or the formula.
It stores the fact that it is a circle primitive.
It's had a certain location and it has certain parameters.
And when we open that scene,
3Ds Max actually rebuilds the circle
using those instructions.
Okay.
Now in order to edit this,
we're going to need to destroy those parameters.
We're going to essentially bake the cake.
We're going to convert this recipe into an actual object
not just the instructions for the object
and that's called making an object editable.
If you're a Maya user,
you might be familiar with the idea
of deleting the construction history.
It's basically the same thing here.
We're going to delete the construction history.
We're going to collapse this parametric object
into something that's directly editable.
The process for that in 3Ds Max,
is to use the right click quad menu.
With that object selected,
I'll right click anywhere in the view port
and in the lower right corner of that quad menu,
we'll see convert to and a bunch of options.
In this case, we want to choose convert to editable spline.
Once we click on that, it's no longer a circle.
Now it's an editable spline and there's no radius parameter
but if we scroll in the modified panel,
we'll see that there are a ton of tools available now.
We can do things like create filets
or create booleans to combine
a couple of different splines together and so on.
The most basic thing we can do
with an editable object is access its sub-objects
or components.
And the components or sub-objects can be accessed
in a couple of different ways.
One would be to go up into this area
known as the modifier stack
and click on the right facing arrow.
That'll expand all the sub-object modes that are available.
We can see, we can choose from vertex, which is a point,
a segment which is the connection between two points.
It's part of a spline or spline.
So we can actually have a spline object
that encloses multiple spline sub-objects.
So for example, a text object might have lots
of different splines within it.
We can access those same sub-object types
from the selection rollout down here.
We can click on a button like vertex
and we can see it's highlighted here.
And also we see that there's a little tiny icon there,
indicating that we're in vertex mode.
We've got a bunch of points or dots.
So in vertex mode, we can select a single point or points
and we can transform them,
for example, using the select and move tool
and just position that in the usual way.
Or we go over to segment mode, click on a segment
which is the connection between two points.
And again, we could transform that in various ways.
In this case, if we chose spline mode
and clicked we would select the entire object
because it has only one spline in it.
The other thing that we want to do very commonly
is to convert different vertex types
or different control vertex types.
Go back into vertex sub-object mode.
And we can just use the selection tool for this.
Just select some vertex
and then we can convert to different vertex types
by using once again the quad menu.
Right click and in the upper left of the quad menu,
we have vertex types
and there's a little checkbox next to Bezier,
indicating that the currently selected vertex
is of the type Bezier,
but we can convert to a different vertex type.
For example, we can choose corner.
And now that's a corner.
And then we can move that around.
We can see that it's got a sharp corner there
but it does actually turn into a curve, over here
and over here, because these points are Bezier points.
If I wanted all straight lines on my object,
I could select all of those sub-objects
and again, right click and convert to corner.
Now I've got corner points everywhere
and straight line segments everywhere.
There's another type that you can use sometimes
which is called smooth.
Select a point, right click and convert to smooth.
And a smooth vertex has a curve on either side,
on the incoming and outgoing sections
but there are no tangent handles.
There's no ability to control the curvature,
in that location.
So if we selected all of these.
Right click and convert to smooth,
if we move one of 'em around,
we'll see that we have limited control
and it's doing funky things
like over here we're seeing some changes to the shape,
way over there.
It's two vertices away and it's still having an effect.
So I don't tend to use smooth points very often.
I do stick with the Bezier points.
So I can drag a rectangular around those,
right click convert back Bezier.
And then for any selected point,
we'll see these green Bezier handles.
That will give us the ability to change the shape.
Okay, that's pretty cool.
Now the Bezier handles
are not really sub-objects themselves.
They're kind of attached to the vertex or vertices
which is an actual sub-object.
And because these tangent handles are not actually
sub-objects or components themselves,
the manipulator or Gizmo does not appear
at the location of the selected tangent handle.
That can actually be kind of a problem.
So for example, we can get into an issue,
where because the move Gizmo is on the vertex itself
and not on the tangent handle.
When we try to, for example click on a tangent handle,
that is in the same location as one of the
transform Gizmo axis,
that transform gizmo is going to take priority.
So, when I click on this tangent handle here,
because it was underneath the transform Gizmo's Y-axis.
I can only move in Y, that's kind of a problem.
I can go back to X and Y by clicking on this bracket
but then when I try to move this point, once again
I'm dumped back into the Y-axis transform constraint.
If you get into this trouble
then my advice to temporarily hide the transform Gizmo.
I can choose the XY bracket
and I'm back in XY transform access constraints
and then just hide the transform Gizmo.
That can be done from the views menu.
Show transform gizmo, just turn that off temporarily.
And now I'm not able to change my access constraints
by clicking on the transform Gizmo, because it is hidden.
All right, you can turn that back on again.
Views, show transform Gizmo.
And finally, there's one more type of vertex
for an editable spline, which is the Bezier corner.
Let's do that, we'll convert.
Right click and choose Bezier corner.
And that is a Bezier point
that has individual tangent handles.
In other words, they're broken
and we can set the tangent handles
separately to one another.
So in this case, I can create a sharp corner there
but have the ability to change the shape of that corner.
Okay, so that's how to convert a parametric primitive
to editable it's how to work with sub-objects.
How to convert different vertex types
and edit them in order to change the shape
of an editable spline.