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FIGURE 14.26

The Paint Deform tools are used to sculpt an object's surface with gradual changes.

Shift/Shift Rotate/Shift Scale

The Shift tool lets you drag all subobjects within the brush radius, and all subobjects within the falloff radius are moved to a less extent. You can control the brush size and falloff in the Options panel, or you can press and hold the Ctrl key and drag to alter the brush's radius. The Shift+drag changes the brush's falloff indicated by the inner white circle.

The Shift Rotate and Shift Scale brushes are used to rotate and/or scale all the vertices within the brush's range.

New Feature

The Shift Rotate and Shift Scale brushes are new to 3ds Max 2012. •

Push/Pull

The Push/Pull tool also has Size and Strength values, but it is different in that the brush follows the surface of the object. Dragging over an area pulls the vertices within the brush's radius outward, and holding down the Ctrl key pushes the vertices inward. The Shift key relaxes the area under the brush.

Relax/Soften

The Relax/Soften brush removes any extreme changes in the surface such as hard edges of a cube. The Alt key lets you relax the surface without changing its volume, and the Ctrl key causes the surface to revert to its previous state.

Flatten and Pinch/Spread

The Flatten brush pulls any bends out of the mesh causing the object to be working into a flat plane. The Ctrl key causes the object to revert to its previous state, and the Shift key accesses the Relax/Soften brush. The Pinch/Spread tool causes vertices to be pulled in closer to each other, and holding down the Alt key has the opposite effect and pushes them away.

Smudge, Noise, and Exaggerate

The Smudge tool pushes the surrounding vertices away from the center of the brush. Dragging over the same vertices multiple times moves them each time. Holding down the Alt key causes the vertices to be moved only along the surface and not to be moved along the normal. The Noise tool randomly moves the vertices about to create a random noise pattern. The Exaggerate tool pushes vertices farther in the current direction to emphasize the details.

Constrain to Spline

If you want more control over the precise surface area that is changed using the Paint Deform tools, you can select the Constrain to Spline option and use the Pick button to select a spline near the surface area to change.

New Feature

The Constrain to Spline feature is new to 3ds Max 2012. •

Revert

At any point, you can use the Revert tool to gradually change the object back to its last saved point. You can set a save point by clicking the Commit button, which looks like a green check mark. The Cancel button (a red X) removes the recent changes from the object.

Using the Selection Tools

The next tab offers several additional Selection tools. These tools make it possible to locate specific subobjects by looking for certain criteria such as concavity, normals, and symmetry. Figure 14.27 shows the panels for this tab.

FIGURE 14.27

The Selection tab includes panels for selecting specific subobject selections.

Selecting Tops, Open, and Non-Quads

The first three tools in the Selection tab are the Tops, Open, and Non-Quads tools. The Tops tool selects all vertices resulting from the extruded sections. This quickly lets you grab all extended sections and extend or reduce them as needed. The Open tool selects all open borders, and the Non-Quads tool finds all polygons that consist of trios or more than four corners. This is a valuable tool when working with edge loops.

Note

The Non-Quads option is only available when the Polygon or Element subobject mode is selected. •

Copying and pasting selections

The Stored Selection panel lets you copy a selection of subobjects into two available stores. These copied selections can be restored at any time by clicking the Paste button. Additional buttons let you combine the two selection stores, subtracting one from another and getting only the intersecting selection