• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The selected subobject is highlighted in yellow.

4. Click the Select and Move (W) button on the main toolbar, and drag the center point in the Perspective viewport upward.

Notice how the bottle's shape changes.

Figure 11.6 shows several different bottle shapes created by moving the modifier's center point.

FIGURE 11.6

By changing the modifier's center point, the bottle's shape changes.

Modifying subobjects

In addition to being applied to complete objects, modifiers can also be applied and used to modify subobjects. A subobject is defined as a collection of object parts, such as vertices, edges, faces, or elements.

Cross-Reference

To learn more about applying modifiers to subobject selections, see Chapter 10, “Accessing Subobjects and Using Modeling Helpers.” •

To work in subobject selection mode, click the plus sign to the left of the object name to see the subobjects. Several modifiers, including Mesh Select, Spline Select, and Volume Select, can select subobject areas for passing these selections up to the next modifier in the Stack. For example, you can use the Mesh Select modifier to select several faces on the front of a sphere and then apply the Face Extrude modifier to extrude just those faces.

Topology dependency

When you attempt to modify the parameters of a Base Object that has a modifier applied, you sometimes get a warning dialog box that tells you that the modifier depends on topology that may change. Max is telling you that the surface of the object with that particular modifier is dependent on the subobjects that are selected and if you change the underlying subobjects, you may change the resulting topology. For example, the CrossSection and Surface modifiers build the surface using a set of splines, but if you change the original spline, you can destroy the resulting surfaced object. You can eliminate this problem by collapsing the Modifier Stack.

You can disable the warning by selecting the “Do not show this message again” option on the dialog box or by opening the Preference Settings dialog box and turning off the Display Topology-Dependence Warning option in the General panel of the Preference Settings dialog box. Disabling the warning does not make the potential problem go away; it only prevents the warning dialog box from appearing.

Exploring Modifier Types

To keep all the various modifiers organized, Max has grouped them into several distinct modifier sets. The modifier sets, as listed in the Modifier menu, include those listed in Table 11.2.

You can find roughly these same sets if you click the Configure Modifier Sets button in the Modifier Stack. Within this list is a single selected set. The selected set is marked with an arrow to the left of its name. The modifiers contained within the selected set appear at the very top of the Modifier List.

Cross-Reference

Covering all the modifiers together would result in a very long chapter. Instead, I decided to cover most of the modifiers in their respective chapters. For example, you can learn about the Mesh Editing modifiers in Chapter 26, “Deforming Surfaces and Using the Mesh Modifiers”; animation modifiers in Chapter 35, “Using Animation Layers, Modifiers, and Complex Controllers”; the UV Coordinates modifiers in Chapter 33, “Unwrapping UVs and Mapping Textures”; and so on. This chapter covers the Selection modifiers, Parametric Deformers, and FFD modifiers. •

Object-Space versus World-Space modifiers

If you view the modifiers listed in the Modifier List, they are divided into two categories: Object-Space and World-Space modifiers (except for the selected set of modifiers that appear at the very top for quick access). Object-Space modifiers are more numerous than World-Space modifiers. For most World-Space modifiers, there is also an Object-Space version. World-Space modifiers are all identified with the abbreviation WSM, which appears next to the modifier's name.

Object-Space modifiers are modifiers