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Creating Editable Poly Objects

The Create panel has no method for making mesh objects—mesh objects must be converted from another object type or produced as the result of a modifier. Object types that you can convert include shapes, primitives, Booleans, patches, and NURBS. Many models that are imported appear as mesh objects. Most 3D formats, including 3DS and DXF, import as mesh objects.

Note

You can even convert spline shapes to Editable Poly objects, whether they are open or closed. Closed splines are filled with a polygon, whereas open splines are only a single edge and can be hard to see. •

Before you can use many of the mesh editing functions discussed in this chapter, you need to convert the object to an Editable Poly object, collapse an object with modifiers applied, or apply the Edit Poly modifier.

Converting objects

To convert an object into an Editable Poly object, right-click the object and choose Convert To⇒Convert to Editable Poly from the pop-up quadmenu. You can also convert an object by right-clicking the object within the Modifier Stack and selecting one of the convert options from the pop-up menu.

Collapsing to a mesh object

When an object is collapsed, it loses its parametric nature and the parameters associated with any applied modifiers. Only objects that have had modifiers applied to them can be collapsed. Objects are made into an Editable Poly object when you use the Collapse To option available from the right-click pop-up menu in the Modifier Stack or when you use the Collapse utility.

Tip

You can also collapse objects using the Collapse utility found in the Utilities panel. •

Most objects collapse to Editable Poly objects, but some objects, such as the compound objects, give you an option of which structure to collapse to.

Applying the Edit Poly modifier

Another way to enable the mesh editing features is to apply the Edit Poly modifier to an object. You apply this modifier by selecting the object and choosing Modifiers⇒Mesh Editing⇒Edit Poly, or selecting Edit Poly from the Modifier drop-down list in the Modify panel.

The Edit Poly modifier is different from the Editable Poly object in that, as an applied modifier, it maintains the parametric nature of the original object. For example, you cannot change the Radius value of a sphere object that has been converted to an Editable Poly, but you could if the Edit Poly modifier were applied.

Editing Poly Objects

After an object has been converted to an Editable Poly, you can alter its shape by applying modifiers, or you can work with the mesh subobjects. You can find the editing features for these objects in the Modify panel, but the better place to look for the Editable Poly features is in the Graphite Modeling tools.

Cross-Reference

This chapter presents many of the editing features found in the Modify panel. These same features are available in the Graphite Modeling Tool's Ribbon, which is covered in Chapter 14, “Using the Graphite Modeling Tools and Painting with Objects.” •

Cross-Reference

The mesh-related modifiers are covered in Chapter 26, “Deforming Surfaces and Using the Mesh Modifiers.” •

Editable Poly subobject modes

Before you can edit poly subobjects, you must select them. To select a subobject mode, select Editable Poly in the Modifier Stack, click the small plus sign to its left to display a hierarchy of subobjects, and then click the subobject type with which you want to work. Another way to select a subobject type is to click on the appropriate subobject button in the Selection rollout. The subobject button in the Selection rollout and the subobject listed in the Modifier Stack both turn bright yellow when selected. You can also type a number from 1 to 5 to enter subobject mode with 1 for Vertex, 2 for Edge, 3 for Border, 4 for Polygon, and 5 for Element.

The Vertex subobject mode lets you select and work with all vertices in the object. Edge subobject mode makes all edges that run between two vertices available for selection. The Border