Wings Users: Cool things you found in wings(that arent to obvious)

[cerreto]

Good call king mob ask and you shall recieve ;)


please feel free to post links to helpful info as well

[pete]

The virtual mirror mode is wicked, Most of you probably know about this one though.
But for those of you that don't it's in the "tools" section..

Tweak mode is cool though KingMob. And I love those shortcuts for grow and shrink selection!

[SheepFactory]

a tip for those who are new to wings:


Wings has one of the most intiutive hotkey assigning system on the planet.

i'll explain the workflow in this example:

say you want to assign the move X , Y , Z to keys Q , W and E.

To do that:

-right click

-highlight move X

-press insert (just tap , do not hold down)

-press Q to assign the move X to letter Q

-repeat for other keys.

Its that simple to assign hotkeys , and once you assign them your workflow will speed alot. I rarely use the right click menu anymore.

hope this helps.

Ali

[cerreto]

A fun tip is to hit u and watch what happens ! Weeeeeeee!!!!

[KingMob]

Sheep:
Yes I gotta sit down and do taht, i think wings would go faster for me then hehe.

Cerreto:

THAT IS FUN!
:buttrock:

never noticed that before.

MORE! MORE! MORE!

[BazC]

KingMob, that's an excellent tip for tweak mode, though you missed a step. You have to go into magnet mode (press 1) before the +/- thing works. It'll be really useful, I've not really played with magnets much and this is a lot easier to use than the standard magnets!

Cheers
Baz:bounce:

[BazC]

I love the virtual mirror, what you may not have realised is that if you freeze the virtual mirror (Not sure freeze is the right command but its there under create and break virtual mirror) it becomes real geometry. I spent ages breaking the mirror and then mirroring again from the face commands!

Baz

[thedaemon]

Hotkeys "2"-"0" cut edges into segments, ie add vertices. I set my tweak to "t" for ease of use. Also, if you dont know, virtual mirror works only on one face, so delete any extra edges if you have them.

ps. Wings3d has an irc room, irc.freenode.net #wings3d come on in a join us. :airguitar

[wasamonkey]

vector moves are cool and magnets are cool but how do you use them t the same time?

well Im gonn tell you
start by right cliking for a standard vector command
once you all set nd ready to right click to start moveing stuff
DONT!
instead hold alt and right click
this brings up a sub menu that used to pop up all the time nd slows down normal vector ops
ah whats this?
there is our friend the magnet

cheers

[xzevlin]

That tweak one is great! You've changed my life forever! I rarely use magnets because I find the interface to them so clunky, but this easy as pie.

[nervous_twitch]

Check out the stuff on the face menu:

bump: takes a face and bumps it out all cool. Doesn't maintain quads though, maybe I'll look into that

lift: pick a face and then one of it's edges and it kinda half extrudes it. I've never used it, but it's there!

put on: really useful too. Pick a face of a model, then pick the face of another model. It will rotate/move your model to be placed on the face of that other model. It's really funny to take a head model and make it fly over and attach to something. Just humorous stuff.

Also, check out the vertex menu. Some fun stuff there too.

The Deform menu especially. Twist, taper, crumple, inflate, and torque are good for doing that random vertex moving that is best done procedurally.

And if you have not looked at AutoUV, you are missing some of the best uv mapping tools around. And they aren't finished yet, not even close!

Be very awestruck my friend.

[Kieguy]

If you haven't yet, try this out... (hope the location of this stuff hasn't changed...I'm running an older .96 version of wings):

Under Edit>Preferences, Miscellaneous (at the bottom unless this is changed in the newwer versions), check on the 'Advanced Menus' option.

The way submenus work is totally changed...and I think you get access to additional options and stuff. Check it out...

[BazC]

I'm on an older version of Wings too but I think the advanced menus are now seperate from preferences but still on the edit menu.

Baz

[dAfTiE]

The advanced menus can now be turned on from edit-->advanced prefs.

[TheFrumpster]

Be very awestruck my friend.
Yeah, I am. I didn't know a lot of this stuff about wings before even though I've been using it for a while.
*runs off to play w/ wings* :beer:

[Jhonus]

Hi hi.

z and x will view the object from the axis of +z or +x, I'm sure you know that. But Shift + z or Shift + x will view the object from the
-z or -x side.

handy for quickly checking out the back or the otherside of your model

[Fuzatron]

Rt-Click the green "geometry" menu bar to hide the tool bar.

...may have been mentioned before(?) But if so, I guess this is a good place to mention it again :)

[BazC]

Select some faces and then press L, it selects all the edges bordering the selected faces, and no it's not the same as changing to edge mode, try it!
Not sure how useful this is but I thought it was cool!

Baz

[nervous_twitch]

It's very cool, you can do wicked selection jumping with it, check it out (this is from Bay Raitt):

Also, I do an insane amount of selection jumping. its uh, er... here try this:

-select a set of faces.
-extrude region twice
-grow the selection once (tap e or hit +)
-hit alt-e to select the edge boundary.
-hit v to select vertices.
-tighten
-hit f to select shared faces
-grow the selection a few times until all the original faces are selected.
-shrink the selection till ONLY the original faces are selected.
-scale the original faces.
-tap v
-tighten smooth the selected points.
-etc etc

Selection jumping... don't know if that made sense or not. but try it, you'll like it. always think one step ahead and you'll notice you start getting faster and faster at it. I'll go for multiple sets of operations without ever actually manually selecting something.

Now, you'll have to translate the keys to Wings (grow and shrink are + and -), but mostly you have your own hotkeys, right?

[BazC]

That's great nervous twitch! It's going to take some practise before I get into the swing of it though!

Baz

[Primus]

Select all faces, right mouse click, choose tessalate, and quadrify :) Makes quads out of them n-gons for subpatching :D

[tsuru]

When I tried this method out if I took the terminology of "border edges" as the result of pressing L after having a selection of faces it seemed like this was more like ''loop hopping" which wings has hotkeys for : F3 and F4 by default... So you could
1. Select Faces
2. Press L (or your edge loop hotkey)
3. F3 or F4 to desired edge loop (or your hotkeys)
4. vertex selection mode (V)
5. Tighten

if that the case..it's nice cause those are fewer steps

[SheepFactory]

Thanks for that tip tsuru , i didnt know you could hop between edge loops. I love this app. :bounce:

[nervous_twitch]

Oooh, very nice Tsuru. Very fast :thumbsup:

[dAfTiE]

Yup,gotta love the edge loop hopping.Paired with the d key (repeat) or shift+d (repeat w/ input),
it makes for some really quick modelling.
I also REALLY like the intrude tool.
If you find you need to extrude some faces into a model to make it hollow,
and it's not completely square,you'll find yourself extruding and scaling a lot.
Or,just select the faces you need to extrude in,and hit intrude,
and then drag to adjust the thickness of the "walls".

[clacos]

fairly basic, but can easily be overlooked (at least that's what i did) :
when moving free whatever mode (so on the camera plane), watch the status line, there's a combo key (different with each camera mode) that will let you move along Z screen, that is drag perpendicular to the camera plane ( near or far the camera).

Also when moving free, you don't have to end the move to tumble/pan/zoom camera. quite handy to change object position fast.

[Bulldog]

thank you clacos. that helps a lot.

i love your plugins by the way. :D

[DrAdamDinosaur]

Heres an easy one. Pressing the esc key hides and unhides the axis.

[wasamonkey]

dr adam
um you sure you didnt assign esc as a hot key?
axis doesnt have any hotkey by default

[DrAdamDinosaur]

wasamonkey: No, I didn' tset this key up, although I'm not always sure it works. I just loaded up wings to make sure that it worked and the first time I loaded it I had to turn of the toolbar.

[betelgeuse]

Select some or all of the verts in a model and try out the tighten op. Its kind of like smoothing without adding polys. One neat use for this is in giving head models a facelift.

[wasamonkey]

another cool trick for tighten is for making more photoreal models of ppl
if you make your model fairly ripped with lots of definition you can use tighten to make it blend better which is good cause only body builders look like most of us like to model :)

[ambient-whisper]

Originally posted by wasamonkey
another cool trick for tighten is for making more photoreal models of ppl
if you make your model fairly ripped with lots of definition you can use tighten to make it blend better which is good cause only body builders look like most of us like to model :)

though its not too good to tighten teh whole mode. try to use magnet tighten on areas with creases.
if you tighten an entire model too much itll lose its volum shape. so its good to do selective tightening instead.

[rsalonen]

I found this a few minutes ago

If you gonna extrude a face, you can extrude it in another face normal direction. To do this, click the face(s) then go to menu extude, and right click it (don't open it's sub-menu, just right click on extrude)
Now you can select another face on the model, right lick again to execute and now you extrude in that direction.

Another thing is instead of clicking the actual magnet tool when ie. rotating, you press the right button on ie. X and you can select faces to rotate around. I haven't really found out it yet, but play around with it, it really helps if you wanna rotate big areas.

[Jhonus]

Originally posted by Veqtue
I found this a few minutes ago

If you gonna extrude a face, you can extrude it in another face normal direction. To do this, click the face(s) then go to menu extude, and right click it (don't open it's sub-menu, just right click on extrude)
Now you can select another face on the model, right lick again to execute and now you extrude in that direction.

Another thing is instead of clicking the actual magnet tool when ie. rotating, you press the right button on ie. X and you can select faces to rotate around. I haven't really found out it yet, but play around with it, it really helps if you wanna rotate big areas.

Thats so cool.

You can do this with move and rotate too... and you can also constrain the movement of a component to a different component type. Like constrain the movement of a vertice to the direction of an edge.

eg.. you can cut an edge into two, right click on move, change selection to edges, pick the edge the vertice is on, and then move the vertice parallel to that edge.

[rsalonen]

Thanks for the tip krugar.

I just found out another thing with the extrude normal thing.
If you select an edge instead of a face (just switch to edge mode) you can extrude in a edge's direction!
You are also able to select verticles, try selecting a few and see what direction the arrow is pointing.

Geez, I'm getting more in love with this wonderful app, there are new things around every corner :eek:

[KingMob]

this one comes courtesy of wasmonkey on #wings3d


To "snap" verts to one another::

select two verts (or three or whatever) vert

right mouse button to "scale->uniform->" but do NOT left lick it, instead right mouse click it

then select one of the verts you have already selected


then right click and move the mouse (hold shift to get faster results)


only one should move and it should move to the other

Very handy!

[SheepFactory]

Here is one for those of you who want side front and top views.

Now since wings doesnt have multiple viewports most people think you can only model in perspective and never in ortho. wrong!

go to view -> view along -> ....

and assign hotkeys for the axis's

my layout is: (numpad):

4 : x 5 : y 6 : z

1 : x- 2 : y- 3 : z-

now side , front and top views can be reached with the click of a button. This is way faster than anything , try it you'll be in heaven.

:beer:

[ambient-whisper]

i use the same setup in wings as mirai for switching views. dont have to get my hand off the mouse. and the keys are right around my camera tools.

i use X for X-axis...alt+X for its negative view. and so on.

[tsuru]

Sheep: That's still not true ortho though. After doing the view along, or hotkey for it, you'll need to hit the O key (if using default hotkeys) or go View> Orthographic View.

[wasamonkey]

you could possibly assign the ortho key to the same hotkeys you use for the camera angles
if it works (havent tryed it myself)
then pressing the key would take you into or out of ortho
if your out of it just press once
if your in it press the key twice
ya could be better but only if bjorn makes two menu options for ortho and perspective

[Laa-Yosh]

Originally posted by ambient-whisper
though its not too good to tighten teh whole mode. try to use magnet tighten on areas with creases.
if you tighten an entire model too much itll lose its volum shape. so its good to do selective tightening instead.

Hey Ambient, can you describe us what the difference is between Tighten and Tighten Smooth? And should Wings3D have Tighten Smooth as well?

[wasamonkey]

laa-yosh you a wings user now?

I remember you from a few yrs back over on spiraloid
great to see you here

[ambient-whisper]

Originally posted by wasamonkey
laa-yosh you a wings user now?

I remember you from a few yrs back over on spiraloid
great to see you here

i remember Laa-Yosh from such forums as.. "everywhere else"! :)

[Xaint]

Always walkin' on the better way!:lightbulb :thumbsup:

[Laa-Yosh]

LOL Ambient :) Like I would be an admin at 3-4 separate forums, right? :)

I'm checking out Wings nowadays. Laszlo is too busy doing film effects and writing plugins, so it seems he won't be able to properly rewrite Meshtools for Max 5 (I've tried to tip him with more beer to no use).

Also, Wings seems to have some cool features that aren't there in Max so I might switch to it soon. I'd like to see a morph / blend shape stuff added to it though, as it's not possible right now to use it to sculpt facial shapes... you cannot check the transitions.

[ElectricAardvar]

...or do it if your really curious.

CTRL right-click to get into the camera rotation mode, move the camera around a bit, now remove your optical trackball ( I guess you'd need to have one first) and watch what happens. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.:bounce:

[SheepFactory]

<regarding the deleted avatar discussion>

Guys can we keep this thread on topic please ?

Please PM each other for avatar inqueries.


Thanks.

Ali

[Xaint]

Sure! -Oops!:p

So, keep in mind that virual mirrored halves doesn't counted by polycounter. Only when you hit freeze. I sucked upon that , so be warned!

[FBMachine]

Here's a tip I spotted on the official Wings3d forum that I thought was great.
If you want to add multiple edges quickly, select the edges you want to add the edges between ( it can be an edge loop even ), hit a number key ( by default ) to specify the number of edges it will be split into ( ie hitting 3 splits the edges into sections of three ). Now, just hit c ( by default ) and it will connect the verts that were just created by splitting the edges, and you will automagically have a nice set of new edges. Really usefull when you need to create a lot of rows for a certain pattern, like windows on an office building.

Also, if you haven't tried yet, turn on Smart Highlighting in preferences, it puts you in a vert/edge/face mode where you can select any component without having to be in that particular mode. You get put into the regular mode after you select something though, ie selecting an edge puts you into edge select mode, but to get back into the Smart Highlighting mode after that, just hit spacebar, or whatever key you have set up as deselect.

And if you're in Smooth Preview mode ( shift+tab by default ) hitting "w" will show the original cage, and hitting e will toggle between showing all the new edges or showing the original edges after the smooth.
Dan

[betelgeuse]

I know you can grow your selection from the keyboard with the + and - keys, but you can also just hit the mode selection icons over and over to do the same.

[puzzledpaul]

.........and get different results :)

[betelgeuse]

Well, doggone it, PP, you're right! I never stopped to see if there was any difference, but there is. I just assumed they were identical.

[betelgeuse]

Not so obvious virtual mirror tip -
You may find it necessary to freeze your VM from time to time for modeling, and then want to go back to VM later. Instead of trying to select half your model with the marquee and deleting it, you can do this: Before you freeze the VM, select all and make it a new group (Select > new group). Now freeze the VM and go to work. When you want to go back to VM, go Select > Select group. You may have to add to the selection if you added geometry that didn't exist when you created your group. Now you can delete half and re-mirror.

[puzzledpaul]

<< trying to select half your model with the marquee and deleting >>

B - an interesting approach - I've never done this:)

Have you considered using the Select | Store (Recall) Selections, rather than groups, since both commands can be put on hotkeys and thus your selection is only a key press away?

(I use these - but for storing the central edge loop, instead.)

Just a thought :)

pp

[betelgeuse]

Well, (sheepishly) I only did that a couple times when I first started with Wings.

>>Store|Recall Selections

That's why you're the "Spotlight Wings User"!

[HellBorn]

Hmmm...
Why not just select en edge in the middle.
Hit 'L' for Edge Loop , Do a Loop Cut, and delete one half.

[puzzledpaul]

H - Yep, indeed - this is what I do most of the time
- but having a (complex) loop stored has also been useful many times, generally for situations where I've messed up and using 'L' doesn't get the whole loop.

pp

(sometimes in such cases I've wished that Aim worked as a secondary selection. ie keep loop selected and be able (via modifier key, perhaps) to select an aim point to allow (closer) access to some 'difficult to see' area of the model - this also applying to other general situations, of course - otherwise another use for store / recall :) )

[betelgeuse]

Yeah, I've had the same problem with an edge loop not being completely selected. And sometimes the midline loop can run into areas that I can't see very well on the model even in wireframe mode, so I don't trust it. It seems easiest to me to just select all in VM and make it a group (or stored selection) before you freeze.
Question about stored selections: It appears to me that it does the same thing as making it a new group. Stored selections appear under the Select Group submenu. Aren't they esentially the same?

[puzzledpaul]

<< Aren't they esentially the same? >>

Seems there might be some interesting differences - in some respects.
Store / Recall selection – both of these can be assigned to hkeys.
Can have 4 separate selections (1 for each mode) bound to the same key – so pressing your Recall key in vert mode will only return the selection stored in that mode.

Groups
Can assign New Group to a hkey, but not Select (or any other group headings) Group.
However, the individual (named) selections stored using New Group can each be assigned their own hkey – and – upon hitting that hkey, will be returned to the model, irrespective of the selection mode currently in use.

As regards ‘stored selections’ once made, being ‘one of the team’ – yes, I’d say you’re correct – all well worth further investigation, I reckon :)

This probably also qualifies for the original remit of this thread?

pp

[wasamonkey]

just found this one for approxamating verts on spline surface
so if you use a spline modeler like animation master spatch or hamapatch you might want to read this

or you want to smooth a low res cage without it srinking to much

the difference which im sure most of you know now it that splines go through the points while sub surfaces simply touch the center of the face
in laymans terms :)

there is a tool in wings called tighten
it can be found in the vertices and the object context menus
what it does is aveage the verts, the verts are moved into the same places they would move into if you smoothed the object
this is with a value of 100% when using tighten

but, if we use tighten in reverse we get a surface that is larger
when testing I found that the value for untightening to be -50% not -100% as might be expected

this allows us to bring in a spline object as a very low res cage and maintain its true geometry when it is smoothed
or a very low res cage to keep its shape when smooothed

cheers

[betelgeuse]

Wings and adobe illustrator import tip:
You may or may not know that Wings can import adobe illustrator paths, but did you know that, if you have photoshop, you don't even need illustrator?

You can either draw your path directly in photoshop with the pen tool or you can convert a selection to a "work path" (under the path tab). The selection-to-work path route may require some cleaning up/tweaking.

Once your path is created, you can go to File > Export > Export paths to illustrator. This exported file can be imported directly into Wings.:)

[puzzledpaul]

<< This exported file can be imported directly into Wings >>

If, rather than one shape, the file contains a sequence of cross sections associated with an object, then these X sections can be bridged back together in wings to form a 3D object.

So, if you can find a set of lines drawings (for your object - boat hull, car body etc.....) you've got another possible route available (image plane the other?)

Yes, I have tried this method :)

pp

[dogz]

if this helps,, you could low poly model and go to-file-render-and then click that little box next to the open gl shift r menu and you get a pop up menu.. towards the bottom it lets you control the subdivision level of the model when it renders..but wont affect the geometry you are wotking on ..i find it very usefull for checking how smooth my model will be ..but turn down the quality of the render to draft.. so it renders faster..its the box above the subdivision menu.

[betelgeuse]

Dogz, unless you need more than one smoothing for the render, Shift-Tab (which does a temporary smoothing) is faster, IMO.

[dogz]

//yeah lol...i had an old version and just dicovered the smoothed preview after i downloaded the new version..hindsight is 20/20
:)

[clacos]

when having several faces selection, pressing L key, will select the edge boundaries of the faces region.

Uhm.. probably not clear.. well, just try it. not sure it is cool, but it is sure not obvious :p

[tayse]

I am new to Wings ,I do not know if you people already know this or it is written in manual or somewhere else.

Ctrl+Z = 1 Undo (Undo/Redo)
Alt+CTrl+Z = Multiple Undos

this is also valid for photoshop, actually that's why I wrote it. I know lots of people have been using photoshop for years but they do not know this Ctrl+Alt+Z ,they are using history instead.

[Jozvex]

Wow!

I didn't know that about Wings or Photoshop! Thanks!

[MukMan]

Now with the wonderful new tweak mode, there is something I have discovered. When you enter twweak mode, a dotted box appears surrounding the edge, poly, and points selection icons. Instead of moving everything at once, you can click on one of the icons to only tweak by polys or edges or points. It's a great deal if you have alot of fine details in one spot and don't want to be selectiong the wrong piece.

[actarusprocyon]

I don't know if this is an obvious one but I was happy to find it anyways,when you right-click on the 'cut' tool,it creates a vertex that you can move along it's edge and left-click to finalize the operation...Pretty useful. :)

[Xaint]

Where's that cut tool located?

[puzzledpaul]

edge menu

[actarusprocyon]

I also tried it on many edges but it doesn't work...

Wings calls it 'Slide and Cut'...If anyone cares.

That'd be a nice add to be able to cut and slide several vertice. :)

Also backface culling(or is it already there),right now I'm resorting to loopcut the back part and hiding it...Guess hide Face/Polygon would do the thing.

I guess those would go in the features requests but I'm pretty sure it's been said a million times.

[sketchyjay]

Originally posted by tsuru
When I tried this method out if I took the terminology of "border edges" as the result of pressing L after having a selection of faces it seemed like this was more like ''loop hopping" which wings has hotkeys for : F3 and F4 by default... So you could
1. Select Faces
2. Press L (or your edge loop hotkey)
3. F3 or F4 to desired edge loop (or your hotkeys)
4. vertex selection mode (V)
5. Tighten

if that the case..it's nice cause those are fewer steps

I was trying this out and discovered if you select a bunch of faces then hit L it selects the edges that border the selected faces. Try it.

Very cool!

Jay

edit: oops already mentioned.

[sketchyjay]

So you can box select groups of verts, edges or faces, I jsut discovered that if you hold Ctrl whole box selecting it DeSelects. Or click individual elements and it automaticly deselects instead of going into select/deselect mode depending on what is/isn't selected. This makes box selecting a million times more useful to me.


jay

[jmcalpin]

install yafray and wings will automatically see it and add to the list of renderers under teh file menu.

just remember to add lights to the scene or you won't see anything.

The Lights also get an additional set of yafray options under the properties right click menu.

here is a thread on it.



yafray in wings thread (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70057)

jay

[betelgeuse]

This is definitely not obvious in Wings, but is something everyone wants to do sometimes frequently. That is, to move a vert along an edge to which it is attached. There is no "move along edge" command, but there are at least 2 easy ways to do this. See this thread over at Wings forum (http://pub161.ezboard.com/fnendowingsmiraifrm3.showMessage?topicID=626.topic) .

[angelique2]

this one also explained in "wings wishes" -but it should really be here (and so that Google can pick it up ! ).......hint;- ..if you have TROUBLE ,PROBLEMS or DIFFICULTIES with HOTKEYS or KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS in WINGS3D....................... before you do anything stupid:blush: .............check that you havent got caps lock on

[angelique2]

this one i just found when again i was thinking of " wings wishes " .....i was thinking " wouldnt it be nice if you could add /subtract/save- loads of selections ....the way you can groups ? ".....and guess what ? ....you can do EXACTLY THAT ! ....you just call the selection a group and name it . When you want it again - just use "select by group " .....i missed this because i am used to thinking of groups as being polygons .....but in Wings it can mean anything ......so you can store not just four - but as many selections as you like !......AMAZING !

[Commiekeebler]

wow nice thread. my head hurts... from boggling too much! Thanks all, please keep 'em coming!
:love:

question: do you people define hotkeys for move-rotate-scale in their various iterations (x,y,z, uniform, normal, last, etc) or do you just use tweak instead? that's a lot of hotkeys to define, seems like, and for four different modes. where would one put them??

(looks to numerical keypad... "heeeey! nine keys 1-9... coincidence? I think NOT!")

Well anyhow, maybe the most experienced users wouldn't mind sharing their own private defined hotkey lists...

[Fuzatron]

Sorry if this is not what you are asking. But you can define the same hotkey for all modes..... Like define rotate x in edge mode - then go to point mode and define it again using the same shortcut key.... Hope this makes sense, and I didn't miss your point :)

[Commiekeebler]

You kinda did miss the point. But not entirely.

I realize about the four different modes and how to define the same keys for each one.

But that's a lot of keys to define. The question is... is it worth it though? Do you find yourself using those keys or forgetting about them just the same?

I'm new to this program and interface, so I'm wondering which functions get used the most. I thought that move x y z, scale x y z and rotate x y z would be it, but maybe not?

So you tell me. Please! Which keys are you hitting most often, and why?

[thedaemon]

I press "t" lots, I have tweak set to it. and I press "shift+tab" a good bit. and.... e,f,v,b for selection modes. "c" to connect edges/verts. That's almost all the shortcut keys you really need. :)

[gurubvin]

yes it is worth the time assigning them to hotkeys. this way u can stay in perspective mode and still work quickly. it also allows you to rotate and scale, unavailable with tweak.

the hot key assignment is a few threads down. i didn't realize it at first, but hotkeys are quite advantageous to workflow. and the way wings is programmed allows for a very nice hot key set up.

[big10p]

Simple but no one's mentioned it yet so I will...

You can deselect everything by clicking on a space in the tool bar. Good for when modeling in lazy mode with one hand in pocket/holding drink and you can't be bothered to move hand from mouse to press spacebar.

[Xtrude]

big10p, I never noticed that as I never have the toolbar showing, but yes indeed, it deselects when clicked on, how about that :)

[pauljs75]

When doing a tabbed entry, you can now perform certain mathematical ops. Not sure when it came out, but I know it works with 0.98.20.c

So instead of having to type it in a calculator, and then enter the result in wings - you can now just type the operation into wings. :applause:

[vef]

Making holes.... via bridge...

say ya had a cube with 3x3 quads on each side... select the center quad on one side, and center quad on the opposite side and then color them with the blue hole material.... then while these are still selected do a bridge... now just do a ring selection on the inside edges of the new hole, hit 3 and c, now select the blue and assign default color and whoila, new hole.... :)

[ThomasMahler]

Okay, here's a tip that's not directly connected to Wings, but guys: USE YOUR MOUSE!

A lot of people are working with a cool Logitech Mouse but don't really use them to full extent. One thing to know: If you've installed the logitech drivers for your mouse, you can remap the whole thing.

Now here's the thing: you can assign keystrokes to your mouse buttons. So, you're able to have some very, very cool hotkeys directly on your hand.

For example: I invoke the Tweak tool with the tip of my index Finger, call the slide tool with the button beneath my mouse wheel, adjust magnets influence area with two buttons on my thumb and call a geometry graph with the button near the middle of the mouse.

I assigned keystrokes to these buttons that I'd NEVER use on my keyboard (CTRL+#, ALT+CTRL+#, etc.), so that I still have a lot of hotkeys on my keyboard to assign to cool things.

You'll love that, believe me.

[rebo]

great tip Thomas Mahler

[CyaNn]

yop community

I find wings this week end and try to modelate with it.
Very greate tool ! ! ! ! ! :o :o
For uv mapping, it's ths most quikly tool I known.
And I found a tips.

To unfall cylinder, select all faces except top on bottom faces
Go to UVmapping window and set on Edge mode
Go to 3d viewport and set on Edges mode
select on edge on ths cylinder
on UVmapping window right click and cut.....
On object mode Unfall, and that all...... :o :o GREAT ! ! ! ! !

sorry form my poor english..... (I'm French)

So the think I don't found is to rotate camera around selection, realy important for body modeling.
and Edge modeling, is it possible ????

Someone can help me????

[StephanD]

Select a vertex,edge or face and push 'A' to aim on it,the camera will now focus on this element.

[CyaNn]

Haaaaaaaa THANKS Stephan, you're my saver......... :bounce:

And for edge modeling ..... ????? someone have an idea ??????

[CyaNn]

well I seen my question is stupid..... :banghead:
Edge modeling is impossible, because mesh hole is impossible...... hmmmm

New tip I found, right click on default material on outliner, select edit Material..... and set it's alpha to 50%....
So on shadered view you can work see through mesh to view reference image.

Now I want to know how make invisible a part of mesh to select any point on the interior.
With _hole material, it render it with hole, but cannot select through.
With alpha on default material, it the same thing
And with invert normals, it's not realy easy to evaluate volume.

Somone has an idea please...... ???? :lightbulb

[CyaNn]

Okay new tip.
To delete edge properly

First delete edges

Second menu / Select / by / vertice / 2 edges
puis delete points.

It work well and dont explode perpendiculars edges. :rolleyes:

[bcgreen]

In an earlier post, it was mentioned that Wings3D does not have multiple viewports, but it does.

Just go up to the "Window" menu and select "New Geometry Window"...you can add as many as you'd like.

Bryan

[bcgreen]

Sorry...accidentally posted twice

[AdamAtomic]

If you want to get clean viewport snapshots and your mesh has a lot of _hole_ material applied to it, you can simply slide the Opacity of the _hole_ material down to 0.0 to have it disappear during working mode.

[thedaemon]

Now I want to know how make invisible a part of mesh to select any point on the interior.
With _hole material, it render it with hole, but cannot select through.
With alpha on default material, it the same thing
And with invert normals, it's not realy easy to evaluate volume.

Somone has an idea please...... ???? :lightbulb

haha, yeah, zoom inside of the model and select the things you want to. not a good workaround, but the only plasible one I know.

[pauljs75]

A relatively new feature that came out in .28-.29 is the "hide faces" feature. I believe that will allow you to select through an object.

Hole is more intended as a workaround for the purpose of exporting meshes. It allows wings to create objects that might otherwise cause them to violate the rules of winged edge topography.

And to see the faces again, you'll have to select show-all from the object menu - not the faces one.

I hope that helps. :thumbsup:

[Phrenzy84]

some great stuff here, read all the way through, but incase this hasnt already been mentioned, but for your component hotkeys, if you are Verticies and then hit the Vertex hotkey then it will grow from that point, same with edge and polygon, so you dont need an extra hotkey for growing the selection.

[dAfTiE]

some great stuff here, read all the way through, but incase this hasnt already been mentioned, but for your component hotkeys, if you are Verticies and then hit the Vertex hotkey then it will grow from that point, same with edge and polygon, so you dont need an extra hotkey for growing the selection.
Hitting the component selection key to grow will not grow the same way as hitting the + key.
Both are usefull,but I use the + key most of the time.

[insect666]

Great thread! Keep on adding new stuff, everyone!

Don't think this is an official feature, but you can use two perspective viewports to speed up your workflow. The trick behind this is that tweak mode works per viewport. By having one viewport in tweak mode and the other in non-tweak-mode you have access to both sets of features at the same time. You can:

1. use multiple selections in tweak mode. let's say you need to move 4 vertices in tweak mode, you do the following: select 3 of them in the non-tweak-mode viewport, hit the 4th one in tweak-mode viewport (don't release lmb) and drag it = all 4 vertices are dragged.
2. Add geometry in non-tweak-mode. Cut edges, extrude faces, etc. etc. geometry additions show up in tweak viewport instantly.
3. Use any non-tweak-mode tool without having to jump between tweak and non-tweak modes.
4. Do selection jumping in non-tweak viewport and move those selections in tweak viewport (you have to deselect one element in non-tweak and drag that element in tweak to move exactly the same selection set).
5. I'm sure there's more stuff to discover. Tons of combinations become available. Some of them might lead to a dead end (crash) though.

Though... Word of caution: Don't forget to save, since in case of a crash (for example: if you want to move several faces at once by using method 1, wings shows an error; vertices and edges work ok) wings resets all of your manipulations, including geometry addition, to where you last activated the tweak mode. You probably know that after you exit tweak mode and undo - all changes made during tweak mode are undone at once. Have in mind that in this case the geometry additions performed during tweak mode become part of the tweak. Be careful, otherwise you can loose alot of work.

I've found out that this speeds up work by quite a bit after you know what to look out for. Best used on two monitor setups, but works just as well on one.

[JoeCosman]

here's a pretty sweet one. and maya 7 lifted it right from wings!!(okay, not sure about that one, but it was a pleasant similarity when I compared the two)


Unfold sometimes overlaps your mesh and turns it into spirals, etc...

you can unfold a mesh again if you have at least two vertices selected on your UV map.

if you have an area you want to keep, select it's verts and they will be pinned when you perform another unfold.

keep doing this(and add those verts to a group for quick recall) and you'r mesh will practically unfold itself.
-JoeC

[CyaNn]

haha, yeah, zoom inside of the model and select the things you want to. not a good workaround, but the only plasible one I know.

Hello hello

I've discover it exist a hide faces on faces contextual menu :bounce: and a show all on object contextual menu.
So now I can eliminate temporarly the front mesh to work through.

I've test some another modeler, and I think wings is yesterday the faster I've test. :love: :love: :love: wings3d..... long life to wings3d :thumbsup:

[alitadellopo]

please i'm sort of a newby and i need to place a reference image in wings, does anyone have the slightest idea of how to do it?

[Ran13]

R-click menu -> Image Plane

[pauljs75]

Need to get rid of translucent "hole" material faces for shaded/smooth preview?

Easy cheesy!
Go to the outliner, and right click the hole material. Select by material.

Now it should be in face mode with all the "hole" faces selected.
Now right click in the main geometry window. Select hide faces.

Check your shaded view or smoothed preview. Guess what? No ugly "hole" material faces.

To undo the hiding, simply select all the affected parts in object mode. Then select "show all" via right clicking the main geometry window.

[LoTekK]

Need to get rid of translucent "hole" material faces for shaded/smooth preview?

Easy cheesy!
Go to the outliner, and right click the hole material. Select by material.

Now it should be in face mode with all the "hole" faces selected.
Now right click in the main geometry window. Select hide faces.

Check your shaded view or smoothed preview. Guess what? No ugly "hole" material faces.

To undo the hiding, simply select all the affected parts in object mode. Then select "show all" via right clicking the main geometry window.
A better (imho) way is to edit the hole material and set its opacity to 0% ;)

[LoTekK]

double post

[pauljs75]

That'd work too. :shrug:

[steveblake]

I love this program. Even with a fair amount of experience of Maya, Lightwave and Max modelling tools I'm still compelled to return!

It may be common knowledge but yesterday I discovered that with the edge loop (L) and edge ring (g), you can limit the edge selection by highlighting the beginning and end of the required loop(s) first..

[RUSirius]

I did a search and could not find this listed anywhere so sorry if it's been mentioned before :)
Rotate component around center:

-Highlight component
-RMB for menu
-RMB on rotate
-V (to select vertex) pick center of rotation
-RMB to execute
-Rotate

I hope that's clear as I'm not great at directions :D

This program NEVER ceases to amaze me.

[puzzledpaul]

Some stuff on vector rotate :)
(Other examples of use all over the site...)

http://www.geocities.com/paulthepuzzles/aavectors.html

Edge loop / ring - also possible to grow / shrink these (see Select | Edge Loop) and using Shft+L returns the faces contained within a complete edge loop boundary.

btw - also well worth checking what's in Select | By ... options as there's some useful stuff there and generally hot-keyable.
pp

[WmH]

haha, yeah, zoom inside of the model and select the things you want to. not a good workaround, but the only plasible one I know.

Another possible workaround...

You can select through a model by first holding down the ctrl key and dragging simply release the control key before releasing the mouse (so it selects rather than deselects the enclosed points) This selects everything within the selection rect. Easiest to do in vertex mode but will work in any mode. (for hidden/back face or edge selections I just select vertexes and then switch to face or edge and hit - (minus) which leaves just the faces bounded by the vertex selection or the edges connecting the vertexes) For non continuous or irregular selections (or if you also select unwanted vertexes) just make multiple selections/deselections using the control key

[Dann-O]

Well one tool I use from time to time and when I do it is such a time saver is the intrude command. I have not seen anything like it in another program.
Also the mirror tool. Works great you can smooth in mirror there is no seam if done right you can even extrude along the centerline.

Tools I like too are some of the vertex deform tools Vertex deform inflate. And the fact you can just select a number of verticies and perform this action. I have found many uses for it. Other vertex deform tools twist and particualrly taper are great too. Especially since in wings you do not have to do the entire mesh just select the area you want to do it. Used it on my avitar just narrowed down the nose without doing it to the entire head. I find most other modelers have these deform tools but you have to do it on an entire mesh.

Example of a way I use vertex deform inflate. I am making a character and dissolve two faces to extrude the arms well they will be sqaure so I select the new face and then vertex deform inflate and there it is nice and round. Rest of the mesh remains the same.

[Optigon]

Here's a tip for aiming the camera at a specific point while keeping a selection.

Say if you had a bunch of faces selected and you needed to re-aim the camera.

Enter Tools|Connct Mode, rotate your model, press 'A' on the point you want to aim at then exit Connect Mode pressing the Right Mouse Button or ESC.

Your selection returns but the camera remians aimed at the point you just chose!

Optigon

[puzzledpaul]

Richard - good catch :) ... I started suggesting a change in Aim implementation several yrs ago to cope with this sort of situation. A good workaround in the meantime.

pp

[Optigon]

Sometimes in Wings we are forced to either remember the distance between to points, or run off to find a pencil to write it down.

Often this is needed when when using Scale to set the length of an edge. Doing this requires knowledge of this formula (Length you want * 100 / Length you have) and quite obviously the two "Lengths" mentioned in the forumla. Lengths based on the geometry of the model are shown in the Status Bar when two vertices are selected.

However, unless you are really good at remebering two several digit numbers, often with decimals, you are going to need a pencil and paper because Wings can't copy and paste things like this because of current limitations in the SDL library.

Well here's a workaround for keeping that length handy, within eyeshot, and without rumaging for a pencil and paper ;)

1. Go to the Windows menu in the Menu Bar and select the Console.
2. Select the two points that represent the length of the 'single edge' you want to record.
3. Then in the Menu Bar go to Select | By | Shortest Path (either one)
4. The length is now writen in the Console, and can easily be copied (typed) into the Tab Entry Dialog Box, without having to reference a piece of paper.

Note that the Console can be opened and closed without losing data.


Re: Re-aim

Thanks Paul :)

If you need to re-aim at a Face or larger selection of geometry in any selection mode , go into Absolute Snap, make a selection, re-aim the camera and press ESC to go back to your original selection. This is more liberal than the Connect Mode work around, and the blue dot tells you where you are aiming ;)

Optigon

[puzzledpaul]

Interesting bits of sneakinesses :) ... just a couple of comments.

<< Select | By | Shortest Path (either one) >>

<< Console >>

<< Absolute Snap >>

Since all of these are hotkey-able, if someone was intending doing a lot of the associated actions, then assigning hks would probably be worth considering?

Re the re-aim stuff - certainly well spotted, but, being an old dog I'll probably stick to what I've already been using for this - Store / Recall selection on hks :)

But good to have a choice...

pp


edit
Just a reminder, I suppose ... if the edges / distances to be scaled to a specific dimension are parallel to an axis ... then just use Scale Absolute and enter the relevant figure?

[Optigon]

This exploits a behaviour I've noticed in Wings for selecting Edge Loops and Edge Rings. Occasionally this behaviour can be annoying, but once you are familiar with it, you can use it to your advantage. :)

Wings doesn't officially support partial edge loop selection but here is a work around.

The following techniques use a cube smoothed four times.

Selecting a Partial Edge Loop
1. In edge mode select the "head" and "tail" of the partial edge loop.
2. Click Edge Loop in Menu Bar|Select|Edge Loop|Edge Loop, or use the appropriate hotkey (L).
3. Only the edges that connect the "head" and "tail" will be selected. In the situation where the loop goes all the way around an object, Wings will always selects the shorter path. Also note that pressing Edge Loop again will select the entire loop.

Selecting a Partial Edge Ring
1. In edge mode select the "head" and "tail" of the partial edge ring.
2. Click Edge Ring in Menu Bar|Select|Edge Ring|Edge Ring, or use the appropriate hotkey (G).
3. Only the edges that between the "head" and "tail" will be selected. In the situation where the ring goes all the way around an object, Wings will always selects the shorter path. Also note that pressing Edge Ring again will select the entire ring.

Advanced Loop Selection
The selection behaviour displayed by Wings in the above examples can be used for making regional loop selections as well. First, think of the heads and tails as "stops". If you layout a series of stops defining the corners (two edges in an 'L' shape) of a region, you can complete the loop by pressing Edge Loop until the loop is complete, or holding down the hotkey until the loop is complete. You have to press Edge Loop more than once because Wings connects each of the stops in succession.

There are limitations or quirks to the described behaviour above. You will get different results if your stops are placed with one end on a vertex with other than four corresponding edges. You should note that the continuing to press Edge Loop when selecting a region does not result in completing the edge loop all the way around our smooth cube. This loop selection behaviour can be cumbersome at times, but using it to your advantage expands the possible applications of what you might have thought was a single use tool :)

Arigato Paulsan, but these are not "sneakinesses", it is Wings Fu! :)

[soundboy]

I found that if you select multiple objects, then select "Rename" from the right-click menu, you'll get a nice little window where you can rename all of the obects right there instead of having to go one by one. Saves a bit of time if you like to keep stuff organized.

[CyaNn]

nevermind.... error of myself

[fazillatheef]

I am a blender user and started using wings recently

I sucessfully did an organic model ,but now stuck with an inorganic model

this is my situation




http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3981/modelad2.jpg


how can i delete faces?

how to merge vertices?

[pauljs75]

I am a blender user and started using wings recently

I sucessfully did an organic model ,but now stuck with an inorganic model

this is my situation




http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/3981/modelad2.jpg


how can i delete faces?

how to merge vertices?


Shouldn't such a question be a new thread? I'm not sure how it relates to the topic of this one.

Anyhow, if you care to know how to start, dissolve all the faces inside the "U". If you want more info on where to go from there, start a new thread.

[fazillatheef]

There was some problem with the server when I posted the question,
I couldnt make a thread ,so i thought i dont have rights to start a new thread .And thats why I thought of making a post. But that post too didnt display because of the same server error..

Yesterday when I logged in I saw the thread and the post that I made ,but i dont know how to delete what I have posted.