Transparency?

[Jide]

is there a way to Lock an object to prevent you from modifing it by accident?

Yes, from the geometry graph. It's the lock icon.

This incidentally is your workaround ;)

[JPGargoyle]

Originally posted by negative9
I'm having problems modeling to a background image in Wings 3D.

I collapsed a cube, assigned it a Transparency "Material", and turned on the "Shading", and thats good, but when I select the transparent object it goes solid (default: Green on a hover over, Red on a select, and white on a tweak - all solid), and I can't see what the hell i'm doing.

I'm fairly new at Wings3d, and love it so far, but how does anybody produce a good "Reference Model" if you cant see your reference?

Is there a workaround...transparency settings for highlight/select colors ect...

Well, the way I do it is turning the object I'm working with into wireframe mode. It still gets solid if you select the whole object, but to manipulate vers and edges is great.

Even with some faces selected it helps because the rest of the object is wireframe.


Originally posted by negative9
Also is there a way to Lock an object to prevent you from modifing it by accident?
Yes there is.
Go to Window | Geometry Graph and you will open the Geometry Graph window, which as a list of all your objects and 3 icons ater each of them.
An eye to display/hide the object
A LOCK to lock the object as you want, preventing it from being selected
and a piramid to switch between wireframe and solid representation of your object.

I hope this helps ;)

Since I found the Geometry Graph, it turned to be one of the most usefull helpers I use while modeling in Wings.

Best regards.

[waterhycinth]

umm... one quick question also...

wireframe mode

how do i turn this on?

[JPGargoyle]

Originally posted by waterhycinth
umm... one quick question also...



how do i turn this on?

You can press 'w' to toggle wireframe on/off or you can click on the piramid icon (after the lock icon) in the Geometry Graph window.


Best regards.

[waterhycinth]

well, I haven't looked in the Geometry Graph window... but thanks for the advice..:applause:

[negative9]

Thanks for the replys everybody.

I seen the Geometry lock setting (once), but I forgot where, how, and wheather it was in this program I had seen it in (dozen installed).

JPGargoyle, I have to give it up for you...your posts are detailed enough for for people trying to hack there way into learning 3d from the ground up. Your tutorial on UV Mapping was superb! Though I'm not at the level of having model to do that to yet, I still played with it.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solved: "w" for wire frame-mode
And: Window | Geometry Graph > Select the lock icon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//negative9//

[waterhycinth]

awesome!!!! :buttrock: you all rule... i just looked at wireframe:drool:....hehe i'm going to like 3d much better now...also i'm learning some cad stuff :shame: , but it's nothing compaired to this stuff.... here you have no boundaries...there you have tons of boundaries......rock on you 3ders.:buttrock:

sorry but two other questions :shrug:
1. negative9 you mentioned that JPGargoyle's UV Mapping tut helped you out a bunch... could some one point me in the direction of that? sorry for being such a newb...hehe i owe all yall big time...just name it...seriously:applause:

2. can you dock the geometry graph window and outliner window somewhere on the page? or even lock it to stay in a certain place?
thanks all of yall that put up with me...hehe

[JPGargoyle]

Originally posted by negative9
JPGargoyle, I have to give it up for you...your posts are detailed enough for for people trying to hack there way into learning 3d from the ground up. Your tutorial on UV Mapping was superb! Though I'm not at the level of having model to do that to yet, I still played with it.


Thank you very much! :D

I'm glad I could help.

I just know how it was for me, many times thinking that I wasn't going to be able to do things or find my way through some tool just because it looked like it was too complex for me.
Now that I'm beginning to explore Wings3D and starting to get results, I'm just glad to share what I learn (still a beginner though) to see if others can overcome those "hard points" we all find on early stages.

UV-Mapping was something like that.
I thought that it was too difficul, that I wasn't going to understand it but decided to give it a try. When I achieved some results, I was really happy and thought that I could at least show what I've done.

Thanks for your kind words :beer:


Best regards.

[JPGargoyle]

Originally posted by waterhycinth
sorry but two other questions :shrug:
1. negative9 you mentioned that JPGargoyle's UV Mapping tut helped you out a bunch... could some one point me in the direction of that? sorry for being such a newb...hehe i owe all yall big time...just name it...seriously:applause:
Well, I just posted a thread showing how I've uv-mapped a low-poly version of my car. :D

You can find it here: My car ... in Wings ;) (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52743)
I'm planning on doing a REAL ;) detailed tutorial on uv-mapping with wings as soon as I get my web site up and running, so don't expect too much from this one. Its just a "how I did it" tut ;)


Originally posted by waterhycinth

2. can you dock the geometry graph window and outliner window somewhere on the page? or even lock it to stay in a certain place?
thanks all of yall that put up with me...hehe
Sorry, but if there's a way of docking the GD window I havn't found it yet. :shrug:

Thanks for the nice words :D

Best regards.

[dAfTiE]

You can't really dock the windows,but here's what I do:
I open one extra geometry window,and then resize it and put it in the upper righthand corner.
then I create an outliner and a geometry graph and place them side by side,
right under the outliner and geo graph.Then I just resize the main geom window,
pull it to the left and middle click the titlebar to "fit all".
Wings will remember this layout the next time you start it up.

The reason for doing this is as follows:
1. you have easy access to the lock,hide and mode icons for all objects
2. you can set the smaller window to smooth preview while modeling in the big one to see how things will look smoothed...
3. While in tweak_s,you can use certain commands in the smaller window,while the big one is in tweak_s mode.
the ones I've found that are really usefull are :
Select edges and connect/cut them,let's you tweak the new edges/verts without leaving tweak :)
You can loopcut a model and enable virtual mirror without leaving tweak...
You can select multiple edges/faces/verts to either tweak all at once,
or to set a mask for tweak_s,which feels much faster in the seperate window,
rather than using the tweak_s multiselection feature.
4. you can set up yout camera in one view,and then keep it,
while you can use the other one for setting up lighting and stuff like that,and then render the small one.
Pretty good substitute for a "remember camera translation" type command.

It's just a much better workflow for me...try it sometime...especially the tweak_s stuff...
You can stay in tweak for pretty much the whole time and don't have to leave it every time you need to add some verts,
or whatever.
Anyways,hope this helps a little...
Sorry for the longwinded post,sleep deprivation is starting to kick in :)
-dAfTie

[JPGargoyle]

That's cool dAfTiE!

I have to try that.

Until now I have allways used just one geometry window.
That's mainly because my pc at home is running with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 (it's best for my eyes cause my monitor sucks :P).

The other reason is my pc has low processing power (PIII 500).
Is'nt it too heavy to have 2 geometry windows open, being one in smooth preview?

Best regards.

[waterhycinth]

wow that's some cool stuff that you can do with two windows... thanks for the tips soo much:applause:

[S3D]

Yup, this little app sure does allow one to simply and efficiently box on... :)

Very good tips shared here in this thread...

Listen, I have a question regarding... how do things work with multiple monitors? Does anyone here run with dual monitors and if so, care to shed any light on the topic?

thanks...

ok, one more... Tweak_S... what is the skinny on this... hwo does it work... what difference does it offer than the basic Tweak... would someone care to elaborate further ?

[dAfTiE]

Tweak_s tweaks faces,edges,verts and bodies as well :)
It has axis/plane restriction,multiselection,and masks :)
So you can say tweak yer char,but lock,say,the ear verts (or faces),
so they don't move.Masks can slow down stuff quite a lot tho,
especially if you get large areas to mask out.
Here's the link...click the tweak_s link to get taken to the help page:bounce:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/clacos/

Thanks clacos! :beer: :beer:

[negative9]

dAfTiE, that is great stuff!, and will difiantly take my thoughts in a new direction for workflow, anyway to get a pick of your layout?

On Tweak_S, I've read the page(s) on the plugin...installed it but I can't seem to figure out how to get it to work!

I'm new to these concepts (3d ect), and sometimes words just mash into a confusible mush.

I'd love somebody to do a graphical tutorial on Tweak_S (amongs thousands of other things, but well start there).

-- Not that I'm illiterate, but learning visual concepts are best taught in a visual medium. --

//negative9//

[puzzledpaul]

No time for pix, but a brief synopsis.

Tweak_s is basically a deluxe version of standard tweak, with the following differences. (a simplified overview)

Allows tweaking of edges and faces as well as verts.

Tweaking can be constrained to XYZ axes or 2D axial planes

Allows tweaking of multiple elements.

Parts of the model can be 'masked' so they are unaffected (or locked) during manipulation. (especially useful during magnet ops?)

Using Tweak_s
Once invoked, without selecting any further option, select a single element (LMB) and move that element – movement takes place on a plane parallel to the screen.

Holding down Cntrl whilst dragging the selected element (along an axis) will (temporarily) constrain movement to that axis – even if you’re viewing the scene in perspective. (Releasing Cntrl will return you to unconstrained tweaking)

Alternatively, set an axis or plane constraint via the constraint menu (obtained by using Cntrl + RMB). Using this option not only takes you into a ‘constraint mode’, it also offers you the chance to constrain your actions to 2D axial planes – something not available with the temporary option.

Multiple elements can be selected for tweaking by using Shft + LMB. Once the selection is confirmed, tweak as before – you have an option to regain your selection, should you tweak it to the wrong place – you won’t have to manually re-select all the elements again.(Recall seln via menu on Cntrl+RMB)

The masking option allows you to define a piece of geometry as a ‘mask’. Whether this ‘masked’ piece of geometry is allowed to move or locked then depends on whether it is set to be a positive or negative mask. (Use Shift + LMB first to select the area to mask)

These individual features can be combined (and used with magnets, as per standard tweak) of course.

Try using it with some simple models / primitives – and make sure you read the info line carefully. Tuts might help, but using it (as with Wings itself) is a far better option imo. :)

Dunno if this'll help - but it might.....

pp


Some further info re screen planes on the ‘view’ page here.

www.geocities.com/paulthepuzzles/aardvarks.html

[JPGargoyle]

Hey puzzledpaul:

Excelent stuff you got on your page man! :applause: :applause: :applause:

I'm gonna spend lots of time doing the tuts on your page for sure!
Going to learn A LOT :bounce:

You've got stuff there I didn't even thought was possible to do with Wings.

Keep up the good work.

-------------------------------
JPGargoyle assigns puzzledpaul the status of Wings3D Guru :bowdown:
-------------------------------


Best regards :beer:

[waterhycinth]

hey dAfTiE that's an awesome way to do the layout of wings....hehe i think i may do four screens on there and then have a smoothed one with the outliner and the geometry graph below that one....hehe i LOVE wings

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