3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [189]
Bridge
The Bridge feature joins two selected Border subobjects with a tube of polygons that connect the two borders. The two selected borders must be part of the same object and need not have an equal number of segments.
Editing Polygon and Element subobjects
Like the other subobject modes, Editable Polys can be edited at the polygon and element subobject level. The buttons for these modes are found in the Polygons and Elements panels. Figure 14.17 shows the Ribbon's Polygons and Elements panels.
FIGURE 14.17
The Polygon and Element subobjects commands are found in the Polygons and Elements panels.
Bevel
The Bevel button extrudes the Polygon subobject selection and then lets you bevel the edges. To use this feature, select a polygon, click the Bevel button, drag up or down in a viewport to the Extrusion depth, and release the button. Drag again to specify the Bevel amount. The Bevel amount determines the relative size of the extruded face.
GeoPoly
The GeoPoly button moves the vertices of the selected polygon to make a regular polygon whose vertices are all equally spaced. The shape of the resulting polygon depends on the number of vertices included in the polygon face.
Inset and Outline
The Outline button offsets the selected polygon a specified amount. This increases the size of the selected polygon or element. The Inset button creates another polygon set within the selected polygon and connects their edges. For both these buttons, a caddy is available that includes the Outline or Inset Amount values.
Flip
The Flip button flips the normal vectors for the selected subobjects. The Flip button is available only in Polygon and Element subobject modes.
Hinge
The Hinge button rotates a selected polygon as if one of its edges were a hinge. The angle of the hinge depends on the distance that you drag with the mouse, or you can use the available caddy. By default, one of the polygon's edges will be used as the hinge about which the section rotates, but in the caddy, you can click the Pick Hinge button and select an edge (which doesn't need to be attached to the polygon).
Extrude Along Spline
The Extrude on Spline button can be used to extrude a selected polygon along the spline path. The caddy includes a Pick Spline button that you can use to select the spline to use. You can also specify the number of segments, the Taper Amount and Curve, and a Twist value. You also have an option to Align the extrusion to the face normal or to rotate about the normal.
Tutorial: Adding a handle to a mug
Creating a cup is fairly easy using the Lathe modifier, but adding the handle is another story. It could be created as half a torus and Boolean connected to the cup, but this example shows how to use the poly modeling features to hinge the handle on.
To add a handle to a mug, follow these steps:
1. Open the Mug.max file from the Chap 14 directory on the CD.
This file includes a simple cup created using the Lathe modifier, and it has been converted to an Editable Poly object. Open the Graphite Modeling Tools by clicking on its button in the main toolbar.
2. Select the QSlice button Edit panel and click in the Front viewport about one-third up from the bottom of the cup, then orient the line to be horizontal and click again.
3. Click on the Cut button in the Edit panel and cut edges into each corner of one of the polygon faces near the bottom of the cup. Then cut another horizontal edge in the middle of the cup. Right-click in the viewport to exit the Cut tool.
4. Select the Polygon subobject mode in the Polygon Modeling panel and click on the interior of the cut polygon just created. Shift-click on the Hinge button in the Polygons panel. In the Hinge From Edge caddy, click the Pick Hinge button and click on the midline edge that was cut, set the Segments to 10, and the Angle to 185,