Page 457 - Kitab3DsMax

Chapter 14: Using the Graphite Modeling Tools and Painting with Objects

option makes the surrounding cage visible or invisible. The two color swatches to the right of the Show
Cage option let you set the color of the cage and the selection.
The Iterations value determines how aggressive the smoothing is. The higher the Iterations value, the more
time it takes to compute and the more complex the resulting object. The Smoothness value determines how
sharp a corner must be before adding extra faces to smooth it. A value of 0 does not smooth any corners,
and a maximum value of 1.0 smoothes all polygons.

Caution
Each smoothing iteration quadruples the number of faces. If you raise the number of Iterations too high, the sys-
tem can become unstable quickly. n
The two check boxes in the Render section can be used to set the values differently for the Display and
Render sections. If disabled, then both the viewports and the renderer use the same settings. The smoothing
algorithm can be set to ignore smoothing across Smoothing Groups and Materials.
If the Show Cage option is enabled (at the bottom of the Use NURMS panel), an orange cage surrounds the
NURMS object and shows the position of the polygon faces that exist if NURMS is disabled. This cage
makes selecting the polygon faces easier.
Tutorial: Smoothing an Ice Cube
NURMS can give a general smoothing to an object, which is just what we need to build an ice cube.
To create an ice cube, follow these steps:
1. Use the Create ➪ Standard Primitives ➪ Box menu and drag in the viewport to create a
rectangular-shaped box object.
2. Open the Graphite Modeling Tools by clicking its button in the main toolbar. Then select the
Convert to Poly option from the Polygon Modeling panel in the Ribbon.
3. Select the Vertex subobject mode and drag over the lower four vertices. Then drag inward with
the Scale tool to make the base of the box smaller than the top.
4. Select the Edges subobject mode and drag over all the edges of the box object, and then Shift+click
on the Chamfer button in the Edges panel to open the Chamfer caddy. Enter the values of 1 for the
Chamfer Amount and the Edge Segments and click the Ok button to apply the settings.
5. In the Edit panel, click the NURMS button and set the Iterations value in the Use NURMS panel
to 1. This smoothes all the selected edges, as shown in Figure 14.11.
Relax
The Relax button works just like the Relax modifier by moving vertices so they are as far as possible from
their adjacent vertices according to the Amount value listed in the pop-up caddy. The caddy also includes
an Iterations value, which determines the number of times the operation is performed. You also can select
to hold all Boundary and Outer points from being moved.
Create
The Create button lets you create new subobjects, specifically polygons, by connecting isolated vertices and
border vertices. When the cursor is over a valid vertex, it changes to a crosshair, and you can click to create
a polygon edge from the last clicked point. If no vertices are available, you can Shift-click to create one.
This creates a vertex where you click. Be aware that creating a vertex doesn’t add it to any of the edges, but
the Create button in Edge subobject mode can connect edges to these isolated vertices.

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