United3dArtists Archive

Guys I need a little help with extruding

I am currently working on the Spaceship Basic project , I have 4 views Front, Top, Perspective and I am not using the other one so placed the modelling tools there.
I have reference images (Top, and Front), I am currently box modelling against the image, I bring a primitive into the perspective view so I can see it when I bring it in, and then position it in the right position against the Front and Top images.
I want to do some extrusions, in perspective mode - I click on the cube to select it - Right click to go into Point Edit mode - select a face - select the Sweep tool.
Now here is the first question

1/ When I click the Right mouse button in the perspective view the extrusion comes straight from the cube exactly how I want it and can set it to any length etc , if I click the Left mouse button I get free extrusion, but when I go into either the Front or Top view where the images are the Left mouse click works so I can free form but the Right mouse button doesn't work. so it makes extruding against the image very difficult, what am I missing to get the extrusions to come straight ?

2/ I am modelling the engines, the are round, I want to extrude to get the lengths but then I want to extrude equally side ways to increase the diameter of the next section of the engine. At the moment I select the face of the cylinder - click the sweep action - scale the extrusion up to the diameter I want - drag it back to the edge I just extruded from (to create a straight corner) - click the sweep tool and carry on from there. Is there an easier way to do that then the way I do it now?

Thanks in advance

Try toggling between the object and world coordinate system icon. I notice that it changes the orientation of the selection box. Experiment with both as you can always undo changes as you sweep/extrude selected elements.

ok guys I am almost about done with TS, it shouldn't be this hard to carry out a simple task.

When I try to extrude in the Front and Side views only the Right Mouse button works which is free form (not straight), but Right Mouse button doesn't work to give me the straight extrusion.



Edit: I did find a solution, I used the Toggle Navigation buttons at the top of the screen, clicking on the Y axis gave me the straight extrusion that I wanted.
I am going to see if I can set hot keys to these navigation axis..

Edit: I went into the Icon Helper found the Toggle Navigation icons and set the axis to X, Y, and Z, but at the moment only the Z works, I have to mouse click the other 2 axis, but I do have a question, probably a dumb question at that but,
under the hotkey text box there is a Rclick box, what does that do if I select it ?

Rclick can be ignored, as far as I can tell it does nothing except prevent the hotkey from working as expected.
There's nothing in the manual about it.

To set the missing hotkeys for the axis tools, hover over them and press control F1. ( or open Icon Helper )
Set the desired hotkey in the panel.

To save a text file listing all set hotkeys, click the save hotkey list icon, pick name and location where you want the file saved.

Do you have a PDF copy of the manual?

<I do have the manual installed, and access it through the Help - Manual menu..>


That's good, because they can explain things so much better than I can!
I do miss having a paper manual. PDF just isn't the same.

Odd about the hotkeys not saving. They should be pre-set by default during program installation. (See section 2.4.5 in the manual) By chance, is rclick set on the two balky ones?

Once you get them working or modify any toolbars it's always a good idea to save the Config/Layout in the Model side Config Library / Workspace side Layout Library.

On Model side at least, the defaults are all on the left side of the keyboard and once you grok them and can hit them w/o looking it makes it so much easier to work.

Q = Qbject
W = World
E = ScrEen

A = X Toggle
S = Y Toggle
D = Z Toggle

Z = Move
X = Rotate
Y = Scale

Etc.

Dragging on different parts of the widgets also provide the same functions.
If you don't have the cage style widget install it.

OK, I have no idea how I just posted using your username; I was going for a quote and ended up with that.

foff44 wrote:<I do have the manual installed, and access it through the Help - Manual menu..>


That's good, because they can explain things so much better than I can!
I do miss having a paper manual. PDF just isn't the same.

Odd about the hotkeys not saving. They should be pre-set by default during program installation. (See section 2.4.5 in the manual) By chance, is rclick set on the two balky ones?

Once you get them working or modify any toolbars it's always a good idea to save the Config/Layout in the Model side Config Library / Workspace side Layout Library.

On Model side at least, the defaults are all on the left side of the keyboard and once you grok them and can hit them w/o looking it makes it so much easier to work.

Q = Qbject
W = World
E = ScrEen

A = X Toggle
S = Y Toggle
D = Z Toggle

Z = Move
X = Rotate
Y = Scale

Etc.

Dragging on different parts of the widgets also provide the same functions.
If you don't have the cage style widget install it.

Thanks for this info, very helpful, I didn't know there were preset hotkeys, I did try to find them in the manual, but this info has helped and will make modelling a lot easier.

My main computer is in the shop just getting a new case part fitted so I am on my backup laptop, and the hot keys all work ok on this machine.

Once you get them working or modify any toolbars it's always a good idea to save the Config/Layout in the Model side Config Library / Workspace side Layout Library
I don't know how to do this at the moment..

I will go look for the cage style widget and install it as you suggest.

Will give you a heads up when I get my main computer back and see about setting the hotkeys and carry on with my model.

Thanks again

I might also suggest that you take a closer look at Anim8or 3D as the creator Steve Glansville is actively updating the software again after many years of being idle. It has some very awesome extrusion options and is fairly simple to master. It also supports user creatable text based plugin/addon scripts for all kinds of tasks from controller scripts to model export and parametric creation scripts. It's my second favorite modeling software. Truespace, is nice but it seems no one modeling package can do it all. Leroy.

BNG wrote:I might also suggest that you take a closer look at Anim8or 3D as the creator Steve Glansville is actively updating the software again after many years of being idle. It has some very awesome extrusion options and is fairly simple to master. It also supports user creatable text based plugin/addon scripts for all kinds of tasks from controller scripts to model export and parametric creation scripts. It's my second favorite modeling software. Truespace, is nice but it seems no one modeling package can do it all. Leroy.

Hey BNG
I do have Anim8or on this and my main computer, and have played around with it a little, but I found the modelling work flow very cumbersome, it seems you have to do so many mouse clicks to get basic modelling functions done, but then again I may be doing it all wrong, however I will persevere with it but not till I get better handle with TS.

Some of the recent information I have picked up here on these forums has really helped me a lot and given me more incentive to keep banging away as they say.

spacekdet wrote:OK, I have no idea how I just posted using your username; I was going for a quote and ended up with that.

No worries mate : the info is very useful, I am learning TS a lot quicker.

I downloaded the the Cage Style Widget as you suggested ( at least I hope I got the right one) but I notice that it is an RsObj file.
How do I install it, or at least where do I put it ?

again thanks in advance

Glad it's starting to 'click' for you.

Cage info: vi ... =31&t=1410"

Note last line in above post- not sure what version you're running so it may have relevance.

spacekdet wrote:Glad it's starting to 'click' for you.

Cage info: vi ... =31&t=1410"

Note last line in above post- not sure what version you're running so it may have relevance.

I followed that link and fortunately I do already have it installed but the link helped a little more with the explanations,

Ok, I have my desktop computer back , The hotkeys for toggling the axis do not work ( but they all work on the laptop), so for the moment I will just have to use mouse clicks for some tasks ie, toggling the axis.

Update: I went into the icon helper and reset the axis toggle hotkeys by adding the shift key
ie: Shift A = X Shift S = Y Shift D = Z,. now they work.

Now off to do some modelling .

But stick around guys, I have texturing to do next

What happened to this WIP?

Draise wrote:What happened to this WIP?

This is as far as I have got. I am struggling with texturing at the moment, I want to put some really good Sci Fi textures on the model.