 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Overview | Camera/Light | Parts | Surfaces | Dummies | Colors |
 |
Surfaces |
|
Each part you want to edit with this editor for the first time, must be initialized.
That means, unused vertices will be deleted and new normals will be calculated
based on the orientation of the polygons and the smoothing angle limit. You'll
get a message that allows you to cancel this action. |
|
 |
Smooth Control The easiest way to manipulate the normals is to vary the smoothing angle limit of all surfaces of the part. Lower values will produce more edges; higher values makes the model smoother, but 3d-modelled details will disappear. The default angle is 60°. In many cases you won't need to do anything more! If you have switched on rendering normals, you will notice, that additional normals will be added to get sharp edges. |
 |
Smoothing Groups If you can't find a smoothing angle limit, that fits to the whole part, you may devide the part into different polygon groups. Each polygon group can be controlled independently using the Smooth Control. Select the polygons you want to group (see "Polygon Selection" above) and click on the button NEW. A new group will appear in the group list. All polygons that belong to the selected group are colored yellow resp. green, if they are selected. If you want to add further polygons to the selected group, select them and click the ADD button. In the opposite way, you can loose polygons from the selected group clicking the LOOSE button. The CLEAR button will dissolve the whole group. You may create up to 64 groups. |
 |
Group Borders Since polygon groups are naturally disconnected from the rest of the model, the borders to all other groups (including the base) are sharp. In most cases this is what you want, if you think e.g. at a front grill that you've separated to get sharp edges. With the first two buttons shown on the left, you can make the borders to the neighbour polygons smooth resp. sharp. The other two buttons allow you to manipulate each edge individually. Select the appropriate tool and move the mouse over the edge you want to make smooth resp. sharp holding down the left button. But note: these tools work only on edges that are borders of groups! |
 |
Polygon Selection Use the arrow tool to select single polygons. You may select several polygons by moving the mouse holding down the left button. With the right button you deselect polygons in the same way. Use one of the frame tools to select all visible polygons inside the rectangle you create moving the mouse. The first one selects only polygons that are completely inside the frame, the second one selects all polygons with at least one vertex inside the frame rectangle. |
 |
Please note: Newly selected polygons will always be added to the current
selection! If you want to make a new selection, you first have to deselect all
polygons by clicking the deselect button! Tip: You can easily select all polygons of a certain group by doubleclicking the appropriate group in the list. |
 |
Polygon Effects As you may know, each polygon has properties, sometimes called "smoothing bits", that tell NFS how to render it. The polygon effect list displays the activated effects of the currently selected polygons. Effects that are assigned not to all of the selected polygons are marked in bright blue. You may switch on and off effects by clicking the appropriate list entry, but be careful with those marked in bright blue! Only if you work on the ":OD" part (driver holding steering wheel), the driver movement checkbox will appear. Similar to the polygon effects, you may switch on and off this property for the selected polygons. NFS editing experts may know, that driver movement is not a polygon effect but a vertex property. That's right, but since there is no vertex editor yet, all vertices of the polygon will get this property. You'll get the standard driver movements, if you assign driver movement to all polygons belonging to the steering wheel and the hands of the driver. Click the TEST button to view the result. |