- [Instructor] The Remove tool of Editable Poly
lets us clean up a model
without actually deleting the surface.
There's a difference between delete and remove.
Delete will actually punch a hole in your model.
If you want to clean up the model,
but keep its general shape, then you'll use Remove.
This is an Editable Poly tool.
So the object should be an editable poly first,
and we can select the object and note
that since we have edged faces enabled with F4
we can see that we've got some extra edges up here
on the top of the wall.
Now they're not really a problem
but it's a good opportunity to illustrate how
the Remove tool works.
I want have to be in a Sub-Object Mode.
To do that.
I'll need to be in Modify Mode.
So I can go up to the Ribbon and click on Modify Mode
and that activates the Modify panel.
Makes it visible.
Then I can go into a Sub-Object Mode.
Let's look at straight-up deletion first.
See how that works.
We can go into polygon
Sub-Object Mode and select some polygon.
And because I have shade selected faces enabled
with the F2 key on the keyboard,
that polygon is highlighted in red.
we can press the Delete key on the keyboard
and that deletes the polygon
and it punches a hole in the model.
That's how the Delete key is going to work
regardless of what Sub-Object Mode you're in.
It's going to punch a hole.
Okay. So let's undo that with control Z.
I want to remove these edges here, not the polygon.
So I'll go into Edge Sub-Object Mode
and select some edge and just illustrate once again.
If I press the Delete key on the keyboard,
I remove or delete that edge,
but I also delete the adjacent polygons
on either side of that edge.
I've actually removed or deleted more than I did before.
Okay. So I'll undo that with control Z.
If I want to remove that edge, but leave the polygon there.
Then I've got tool on the Ribbon.
There's an edges panel
and there's a button on that panel labeled Remove.
You can click on that and now that edge has been removed
and the polygon is left alone.
All right, that's pretty cool.
We can extend this a little bit more
because I actually want to remove all
of these edges in a line here.
I'll undo that Remove Command with control Z
and these edges that are all connected in a line here.
These all constitute, what's known as an edge loop.
An edge loop is a series of edges connected in a line
and the edge loop will terminate whenever that edge connects
with five other edges or four or more other edges.
And that's called a pole.
If I orbit around with Alt + middle mouse,
this corner here is called a pole
because more than four edges meet.
And that's going to be the termination point for an edge loop.
I want to select all these four edges in a loop.
And there's a really easy way to do that.
Just double-click on any one of them.
We'll double-click on this edge
and all four of those edges in that loop are selected.
Okay. So let's try removing those four edges.
Once again click on the Remove button on the Edges panel.
And that looks fine.
At first it looks like we've done what we wanted.
We've removed the edges and we've left the polygons alone
but what's not immediately obvious is
that we've left a bunch of vertices behind
and I call these Orphan Vertices.
And if we go into Vertex Sub-Object Mode
we'll see the points on the model.
And we have these vertices in the middle of those edges
that ran other direction.
So these got left behind and we could manually remove those.
We could select one of them
and press the Remove button on the Vertices panel.
And that cleans that situation up.
But we don't need to do it that way
because we can actually remove all the edges
and their connected vertices at once.
I'll undo those commands with control Z.
Go back a few times
and then go back into Edge Selection Mode.
My edge loop is still selected
and now I can issue kind of a modified version
of the Remove tool by holding down the control key
on the keyboard.
Hold down, control and click on the Remove button.
And that does not only remove those edges.
It's removed those orphan vertices too.
And we can go into Vertex Sub-Object Mode
and verify they're not there anymore.
And that's good.
We don't want those vertices to be there.
If they're not accomplishing some purpose,
they're just increasing the level of detail
or the vertex count for no reason.
'Cause they're not resolving any kind of detail
or curvature in that area.
There's an even easier way to do this
which is a keyboard shortcut.
I'll go back to Edge Mode
and orbit around with Alt + middle mouse.
I've got this other edge loop here I want to remove.
Double-click on that and I can remove those edges
and their connected vertices by holding down the control key
and also the backspace key.
Control + backspace.
And that's the same as control
and clicking on the Remove button.
We can verify this by going back to vertex Sub-Object Mode
and we've cleaned up the geometry here
on the top of that wall.
Okay. That's a really important one.
If you want to remove edges, you're almost always
going to want to remove the associated vertices as well.
Keyboard shortcut for that is control + backspace.