- [Man] One of the innovative aspects
of the 3ds Max software design is the concept
of the modifier stack.
We can layer effects with a metaphor similar
to that of a 2D image processing program, like Photoshop.
I've got a monitor stand we created in the previous movie.
I can select that
in the view ports
and in the modified panel,
we see that we've got a base level of a box,
that's the base object,
and then a taper modifier applied
above that in the modifier stack.
We're going to add a bend
and we're going to apply that above the taper.
So when we add a modifier it is placed directly
above the currently selected position in the stack.
We can move modifiers around later when we want to.
By default a modifier is created
above the currently selected level.
If I select the box base object
and then add a modifier,
it will be added above the box
but below the taper.
I'll add the bend above the taper.
So I'll select taper.
And from the modifier list,
pull down, choose bend.
We need to give it some value for the bend angle,
so increase that.
And we see that it's not bending in any useful direction.
We can orbit around in the perspective view alt
and middle mouse
and see that it's actually created a corrupt object
that's crashing into itself.
We just want to change the bend axis
and or the bend direction.
And just like the taper modifier in the previous movie,
we want to align the modifier axis
with the length of the object
and that happens to be the Y-axis.
So I'll set the bend axis to Y.
And now it is bending in the Y-axis
but it's bending in the wrong direction.
It's bending in this case,
looks like in the X-axis.
We want to rotate the effect
and that's done by changing this direction parameter.
We can click and drag on that and see what happens.
And it looks like if I give that a value of 90 degrees
then it's going to be bending in the direction that I want
which is actually the world in objects, Z-axis.
Just like the taper modifier,
we have limits for the bend effect.
I only want the bend to be constrained
within a very small area.
I want most of the object
to be straight and linear or flat.
So I'll turn on limit effect
and we'll adjust these values.
Let's leave the lower limit at zero
and increase the upper limit.
And as soon as we increase that,
we start to see something happen on our screen.
All right, cool.
So let's give this an upper limit of five centimeters.
So again, the bend is going to be in a very small area.
Now having done that,
we can adjust the angle.
Let's play with that.
We can see we're getting a pretty cool effect there.
Let's set the angle to 100 degrees.
We also want to move the bend gizmo.
And the effect that will have will be that less
of the object will be flat on the floor or table here.
And the bend will happen in a different location
and that will sort of stretch this arm up.
So let's go into the bend gizmo sub-object.
So open up the bend modifier, select gizmo,
and let's go over to the left view
and right clicking that view
so we don't lose our selection.
And then click and drag in that left view's X-axis
which corresponds to the world's Y-axis.
Drag that over and we're seeing
that we can actually change the shape just
by moving that gizmo around.
So let's give that a numerical value too.
We'll set the bend gizmo position
to value of 10 centimeters in Y
and then we can exit out of gizmo sub-object mode.
So this is pretty much what I want.
Let's just talk about operation order for a second.
These modifiers are going to be applied
in the order from the bottom up.
That's why it's called a stack.
And the order that they appear here is going
to radically affect the end result.
We can change that order to illustrate.
If I click on the bend modifier
hold down the mouse button and drag,
I'll get a blue line
whenever my cursor hovers between two modifiers
or between the base object and a modifier.
Say we bring that bend
and drop it down above the box
but below the taper.
Release the mouse
and we get a radically different result.
We can see if we orbit around
with alt and middle mouse,
it's completely changed the shape.
So that's just to illustrate
that the order of operations is very important.
What's happening here is the box is being bent
and then tapered,
instead of the other way around.
I can move this back up again,
just once again click and drag and drop.
And we restore back to where we were.
On very rare occasions,
sometimes if you do this,
change the order of operations,
you may find when you try to restore the order
that you get a program error
and you don't see the result
that you saw previously.
Again that's very rare
but I would advise actually saving your scene
before moving modifiers around.
Okay, that's the basic concept of the modifier stack.
These are effects that can be layered on top of one another.
In the case of these parametric deformers,
any changes that we make
in the modified panel are non destructive and reversible.
For example, we could go back
into our taper modifier
and adjust the taper amount.
Maybe set that to a value of two exactly.
And that's how to layer parametric deformers
in the modifier stack.