3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [186]
Quadrify All
The Ribbon's Geometry (All) panel also includes a Quadrify All tool in the pop-up section of the panel, for converting triangles to quads. You have options to Quadrify All, Quadrify Selection, Select Edges from All, and Select Edges from Selection. This is an awesome tool if you like to work with edge loops and edge rings.
Figure 14.12 shows a face model that has been built using triangular faces on the left. Using the Quadrify All command, the face on the right is aligned to much neater rows and columns of four-sided polys. This allows the edge loop features to be used.
FIGURE 14.12
The Quadrify All command greatly simplifies this model, making it easier to work with.
MSmooth and Tessellate Within the Subdivision panel are buttons for smoothing and tessellating the object. Both the MSmooth and Tessellate buttons include caddies, as shown in Figure 14.13. The MSmooth setting for Smoothness rounds all the sharp edges of an object. Tessellation can be done using Edges or Faces, and the Tension setting controls how tight the adjacent faces are.
FIGURE 14.13
The caddies for the MSmooth and Tessellate buttons let you interactively set the Smoothness and Tension values.
The MSmooth button can be used to smooth the selected subobjects in the same way as the MeshSmooth modifier. This button can be used several times. The Smoothness value determines which vertices are used to smooth the object. The higher the value, the more vertices are included and the smoother the result. You can also select that the smoothing is separated by Smoothing Groups or by Materials.
Tessellation is used to increase the density of the faces or edges. When modeling, you may want more details in a select area. This is where the tessellation command comes in. Tessellation can be applied to individual selected subobjects or to the entire object.
You can use the Tessellate button to increase the resolution of a mesh by splitting a face or polygon into several faces or polygons. You have two options to do this: Edge and Face.
The Edge method splits each edge at its midpoint. For example, a triangular face would be split into three smaller triangles. The Tension spinner to the right of the Tessellate button specifies a value that is used to make the tessellated face concave or convex.
The Face option creates a vertex in the center of the face and also creates three new edges, which extend from the center vertex to each original vertex. For a square polygon, this option would create six new triangular faces. (Remember, a square polygon is actually composed of two triangular faces.)
Use Displacement
The Use Displacement tool opens the Subdivision panel, shown in Figure 14.14, when enabled. Using this panel, you can specify the subdivision method that is used and the settings for the displacement.
Cross-Reference
You can learn more about using displacement maps in Chapter 18, “Creating Compound Materials and Using Material Modifiers.” •
FIGURE 14.14
The Subdivision panel includes all the subdivision settings.
Alignment options
A single vertex or two vertices don't define a plane, but three or more vertices do. If three or more vertices are selected, you can use the Make Planar button to make these vertices coplanar (which means that all vertices are on the same plane). Doing so positions the selected vertices so that they lie in the same plane. This is helpful if you want to build a new polygon face. Polygonal faces need to be coplanar. This button works in all subobject modes. The X, Y, and Z buttons let you collapse the current object or subobject selection to a single plane lying on the specified axis.
The View and Grid Align buttons move and orient all selected vertices to the current active viewport or to the current construction grid. These buttons can also be used in all subobject modes. This causes all