Editable Poly (Vertex)

See Editable Poly for information on the Selection rollout settings.

Soft Selection controls apply a smooth falloff between selected sub-objects and unselected ones. When Use Soft Selection is turned on, unselected sub-objects near your selection are given partial selection values. These values are shown in the viewports by means of a color gradient on the vertices, and optionally on the faces. They affect most types of sub-object deformations, such as the Move, Rotate, and Scale functions, as well as any deformation modifiers (such as Bend) applied to the object. This provides a magnet-like effect with a sphere of influence around the selection.

For more information, see Soft Selection Rollout — Editable Poly.

This rollout includes commands specific to vertex editing. Some were available previously from the Edit Geometry rollout; others (marked with the icon) are new in 3ds max 5.

Note: To delete vertices, select them and press the DELETE key. This can create one or more holes in the mesh. To delete vertices without creating holes, use Remove (see below).

Remove—Deletes selected vertices and combines the polygons that use them. The keyboard shortcut is BACKSPACE.

Warning: Use of Remove can result in mesh shape changes and non-planar polygons.

Break—Creates a new vertex for each polygon attached to selected vertices, allowing the polygon corners to be moved away from each other where they were once joined at each original vertex. If a vertex is isolated or used by only one polygon, it is unaffected.

Extrude—Lets you extrude vertices manually via direct manipulation in the viewport. Click this button, and then drag vertically on any vertex to extrude it.

Extruding a vertex moves it along a normal and creates new polygons that form the sides of the extrusion, connecting the vertex to the object. The extrusion has the same number of sides as the number of polygons that originally used the extruded vertex.

Following are important aspects of vertex extrusion:

Chamfer box showing extruded vertex

Extrude Settings—Opens the Extrude Vertices dialog, which lets you perform extrusion via interactive manipulation.

If you click this button after performing a manual extrusion, the same extrusion is performed on the current selection as a preview and the dialog opens with Extrusion Height set to the amount of the last manual extrusion.

Weld—Combines contiguous, selected vertices that fall within the tolerance specified in Weld dialog. All edges become connected to the resulting single vertex.

Weld is best suited to automatically simplifying geometry that has areas with a number of vertices in close proximity.

Weld Settings—Opens the Weld dialog, which lets you specify the weld threshold.

Chamfer—Click this button and then drag vertices in the active object. To chamfer vertices numerically, click the Chamfer Settings button and use the Chamfer Amount value.

If you chamfer multiple selected vertices, all of them are chamfered identically. If you drag an unselected vertex, any selected vertices are first deselected.

Each chamfered vertex is effectively replaced by a new face that connects new points on all edges leading to the original vertex. These new points are exactly <chamfer amount> distance from the original vertex along each of these edges. New chamfer faces are created with the material ID of one of the neighboring faces (picked at random) and a smoothing group which is an intersection of all neighboring smoothing groups.

For example, if you chamfer one corner of a box, the single corner vertex is replaced by a triangular face whose vertices move along the three edges that led to the corner. Outside faces are rearranged and split to use these three new vertices, and a new triangle is created at the corner.

Target Weld—Allows you to select a vertex and weld it to a target vertex. When positioned over a vertex, the cursor changes to a + cursor. Click and move the mouse and a dashed line appears from the vertex with an arrow cursor at the other end of the line. Position the cursor over another, neighboring vertex and when the + cursor appears again, click the mouse. The first vertex is moved to the position of the second, and the two are welded.

Connect—Creates new edges between pairs of selected vertices.

Connect will not let the new edges cross. Thus, for example, if you select all four vertices of a four-sided polygon and then click Connect, only two of the vertices will be connected. In this case, to connect all four vertices with new edges, use Cut.

Remove Isolated Vertices—Deletes all vertices that don't belong to any polygons.

Remove Unused Map Verts—Certain modeling operations can leave unused (isolated) map vertices that show up in the Unwrap UVW editor, but cannot be used for mapping. You can use this button to automatically delete these map vertices.

Weight—Sets the weight of selected vertices. Used by the NURMS subdivision option and by the MeshSmooth modifier. Increasing a vertex weight tends to pull the smoothed result toward the vertex.

Repeat Last—Repeats the most recently used command.

For example, if you extrude a vertex, and want to apply the same extrusion to several others, select the others, and then click Repeat Last.

Note: Repeat Last does not repeat all operations. For instance, it does not repeat transforms. To determine which command will be repeated when you click the button, check the button's tooltip. If no tooltip appears, nothing will happen when it is clicked.

Constraints—Lets you use existing geometry to constrain sub-object transformation. Use the drop-down list to choose the constraint type:

Note: The Constraints setting persists at all sub-object levels.

Create—Lets you add vertices to a single selected poly object. After selecting the object and clicking Create, click anywhere in space to add free-floating (isolated) vertices to the object. The new vertices are placed on the active construction plane unless object snapping is turned on. For example, with face snapping on, you can create vertices on object faces.

Collapse—Collapses groups of contiguous selected vertices by welding them into a single vertex at the selection center.

Attach—Lets you attach another object in the scene to the selected editable poly. You can attach any type of object, including editable meshes, splines, patch objects, and NURBS objects. Attaching a non-polymesh object converts it to editable-poly format. Click the object you want to attach to the currently selected poly object.

For further details, see Attach.

Detach—Detaches the selected vertices and all attached polygons from the poly object, creating a separate object or element. The Detach As Clone option copies the polygons rather than moving them.

You're prompted to enter a name for the new object. Detached polygons leave a hole in the original object when you move them to a new position.

These knife-like tools let you subdivide the poly mesh along a plane (Slice) or in a specific area (Cut). Also see Full Interactivity.

Slice Plane—Creates a gizmo for a slice plane that you can position and rotate to specify where to slice. Also enables the Slice and Reset Plane buttons.

If snapping is turned off, you see a preview of the slice as you transform the slice plane. To perform the slice, click the Slice button.

Split—When on, the Slice and Cut operations create double sets of vertices at the points where the edges are divided. This lets you easily delete the new polygons to create holes, or animate the new polygons as separate elements.

Slice—Performs the slice operation at the location of the slice plane. Available only when Slice Plane is turned on. This tool slices the poly just like the “Operate On: Polygons” mode of the Slice modifier.

Reset Plane—Returns the Slice plane to its default position and orientation. Available only when Slice Plane is turned on.

QuickSlice—Lets you quickly slice the object without having to manipulate a gizmo. Make a selection, click QuickSlice, and then click once at the slice start point and again at its endpoint. You can continue slicing the selection while the command is active.

To stop slicing, right-click in the viewport, or click QuickSlice again to turn it off.

Cut—Lets you create edges. Click at the start point, move the mouse and click again, and continue moving and clicking to create new connected edges. Right-click once to exit the current cut, whereupon you can start a new one, or right-click again to exit Cut mode.

You can use vertices, edges, and polygons as the endpoints of a cut. The mouse cursor changes in appearance to indicate which type of sub-object it's pointing to.

MSmooth—Smoothes the selection using the current settings. This command uses subdivision functionality similar to that of the MeshSmooth modifier with NURMS Subdivision, but unlike NURMS Subdivision, it applies the smoothing instantly to the selected area of the control mesh.

MSmooth Settings—Opens the MeshSmooth Selection dialog, which lets you specify how smoothing is applied.

Tessellate—Subdivides the selection based on the Tessellation settings.

Tessellation is useful for increasing local mesh density while modeling. You can subdivide any selection of polygons. Two tessellation methods are available: Edge and Face.

Tessellate Settings—Opens the Tessellate Selection dialog, which lets you specify how smoothing is applied.

Make Planar—Forces all selected vertices to become coplanar. The plane's normal is the average surface normal of the selected vertices .

Tip: One application for Make Planar is making a flat side on an object. Normally, you would use a contiguous selection set. If the selection includes vertices on various parts of the object, the vertices are still made planar, but with distorting effects on the rest of the geometry.

View Align—Aligns the selection to the plane of the active viewport. In the case of orthographic viewports, this is the same effect as aligning to the construction grid when the home grid is active.

When aligning to a Perspective viewport (or Camera and Light views), the vertices are reoriented to be aligned to a plane that is parallel to the camera's viewing plane. (Perspective viewports have invisible camera planes.) In these cases, the selection is not translated but only rotated.

Grid Align—Aligns the selection to the current construction plane. The current plane is specified by the active viewport in the case of the home grid. When using a grid object, the current plane is the active grid object.

Hide Selected—Hides any selected vertices.

Unhide All—Restores any hidden vertices to visibility.

Hide Unselected—Hides any unselected vertices.

Lets you copy and paste named selection sets of sub-objects between objects. Start by creating one or more named selection sets, copy one, select a different object, go to the same sub-object level, and then paste the set.

Note: This function uses sub-object IDs, so if the target object's geometry differs from that of the source object, the pasted selection will probably comprise a different set of sub-objects.

Note: For more information, see Named Selection Sets.

Copy—Opens a dialog that lets you specify a named selection set to place into the copy buffer.

Paste—Pastes the named selection from the copy buffer.

Full Interactivity—Toggles the level of feedback for the Slice and Cut tools, as well as all settings dialogs.

When turned on (the default), the final result is always visible as you use the mouse to manipulate the tool or change a numeric setting. With Cut and QuickSlice, when Full Interactivity is turned off, only the rubber-band line is visible until you click. With Slice Plane, the final result is visible only when you release the mouse button after transforming the plane. Similarly, with numeric settings in dialogs, the final result is visible only when you release the mouse button after changing the setting.

The state of Full Interactivity doesn't affect changing a numeric setting from the keyboard. Whether it's on or off, the setting takes effect only when you exit the field by pressing TAB or ENTER, or by clicking a different control in the dialog.

Show Cage—Toggles the display of the orange cage that covers half the mesh when working with an editable poly to which the Symmetry modifier is applied, and for which Show End Result is turned on.

Use these controls to assign the color, and illumination color (shading) of selected vertices.

Color—Click the color swatch to change the color of selected vertices.

Illumination—Click the color swatch to change the illumination color of selected vertices. This lets you change the illumination without changing the vertex's color.

Alpha—Lets you set specific alpha values of selected vertices. These alpha values are maintained by the pipeline and may be used in conjunction with vertex color to provide full RGBA data for export.

Color/Illumination—Determines whether to select vertices by vertex color values or vertex illumination values.

Color Swatch—Displays the Color Selector, where you can specify a color to match.

Select—Depending on which radio button is chosen, selects all vertices whose vertex color or illumination values either match the color swatch, or are within the range specified by the RGB spinners.

Range—Specifies a range for the color match. All three RGB values in the vertex color or illumination must either match the color specified by the color swatch in Select By Vertex Color, or be within plus or minus the values in the Range spinners. Default=10.

See Subdivision Surface rollout for information on the Subdivision Surface rollout settings.

See Subdivision Displacement rollout for information on the Subdivision Displacement rollout settings.