 | Drag and Drop a sphere on to an empty scene. |
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| Select the sphere.
When an object is selected in 3D Canvas it is normally highlighted
using a "bounding box". A bounding box is a wire box that shows the
extents of the object.
This is not the only highlighting mode available. |
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| An alternative highlighting mode is the
Operation Direction mode. To enter this mode click
on the main toolbar.
Notice that instead of a bounding box, the selected sphere is now
highlighted using a Direction Map. The Direction Map is
projected on to the sphere in such a way as to show the direction that
Operations will be applied.
As an example, if you were to apply a
 Fill operation the
texture would be directed exactly as shown.
Note that this direction does not only apply to standard Operations,
but also scaling and point/face/edge moving using the edit control,
and the Shift tool.
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| Looking at the sphere from above you can better see
the direction.
In 3D Canvas' standard modeling mode, 3D Canvas guesses as to what
seems to be the best direction to apply an operation. Other modeling
modes are also provided.
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| Click
on the main toolbar to switch to the Screen Coordinates
modeling mode.
Notice that the Direction Map is now oriented differently. 3D Canvas
no longer guesses as to the best direction, but uses the direction you
are looking as the direction to apply operations.
Try viewing your sphere from various directions to see that the
direction is always from your view location. |
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| Other modes are also provided. World Coordinates
mode is always directed along the world Z axis. Model Coordinates
mode is always directed along the model's Z axis.
Possibly the most useful mode is the Face Coordinates
mode. Select this mode and try clicking on the sphere. The orientation
of the operation is set based on where you click on the sphere. |
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| In addition to bounding box highlighting
 ,
and operation direction highlighting
there is a third option.
Texture Wrap preview highlighting mode
will apply a preview texture wrapping. Switch back to standard
modeling mode by clicking
 .
Then on the material palette click
 to select a
spherical texture wrap. Now instead of a direction map we have a
preview of the texture wrap. This is useful to see how the texture
will be applied and if there will be any distortion. |
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| Click
to change to Face Coordinates mode and click
to change to direction highlighting.
Now select the Point and Face Selection
tool 
from the Edit Toolbar. The Edit toolbar is located along the right
side of the 3D Canvas Window.
Hover the pointer over the topmost point, right-click and click
Select ->Faces on the popup menu. This will select all of the faces
that use the selected point.
Notice that the operation direction has been set to be the average
of the facing direction the selected faces. This is a useful feature of the
Face Coordinates mode. While using the Point and Face Selection tool
it uses the average direction of the selected faces as the modeling
direction, not the direction of an individual face. |
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| We are going to make a few changes to this sphere.
Constrain movement on the X and Y axis by pushing
 and
 on the main
toolbar. This will ensure that all effects will only occur along the
current direction (the Z direction).
Now using the XZ scale plane of the Edit
Control, scale until the selected faces are flat. This technique
can be used to flatten any selection of faces on an object. |
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| Now using the XZ move plane of the Edit Control,
shift the faces. Notice that they are constrained to the operation
direction (the Z direction).
This tutorial has covered the capabilities of Oriented Modeling
in very brief detail. The techniques shown can be used to assist in
ensuring that textures are applied without distortion, aid in
unwrapping objects using the Unwrap operation and many other
applications. |
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