Seamless Navigation

Opening the Main Menu (F10 Menu)

Move the mouse to the top left corner of the 3d window or press F10

Toggle Wire Frame Mode On/Off (space bar)

Click

The shortcut key (Space bar) works if the 3d window is the selected window.

Toggle Background Colour (ctrl+B)



Click

This command is usefull when it is hard to see dark triangles on a black background or vice versa.

The shortcut key (Ctrl B) works if the 3d window is the selected window.

Changing the View Position

Left click anywhere in the 3d window (except for directly over a vertex or a control point) and drag

Zooming In and Zooming Out

Mouse wheel. This works so long as the mouse pointer is not over the scene tree window.

Alternativly click

Or use the keyboard while the 3d window is selected:

press the key that has + sign on it (can be from the num pad) to zoom in
press the key that has - sign on it (can be from the num pad) to zoom out

Changing the View Orientation

Right click anywhere in the 3d window and drag

To quantize (in right angle amounts) the view orienation click

Changing the View Orientation to Preset Orientaions

Click to set the view orientations to:

Changing the View Orientation at a Right Angle Offset to the Existing View

Click

This does not set the view orientation in absolute amounts (it does not quantise the existing view), instead it sets the offset relative to the existing view. This is useful for creating a "complementary view" for the existing view which is a right angle (90 degree) offset to the existing view.

If a vertex is visiable from 2 view orientations, each one a "complentatry view" to the other we can tug a vertex in 3 diemnsions with maximum effecinacy using only these 2 view orientations.

Changing the View Orientation from a Near Orientation to an Exact Absolute Orientation (Quantize the View Orientation)

Click

If you have for example a near left view orientation, clicking this button will make it exactly a left view and if you have a near birds eye view, clicking it will make it it exactly a birds eye view.

Opening the Scene Tree Window and the Control Panel

Click

Scrolling the Scene Tree Window

Use the mouse wheel while the mouse is over the over scene tree window or use the scroll bar to the right of the scene tree window.

Selecting a Part

Click on the part node in the scene tree or select a vertex that is owned by the part you wish to select.

Selecting a Vertex

Left Click on the vertex. The selected vertex is marked by the red dot. If the vertex belongs to a blue part the vertex can be draged to modify he vertex's position. To prevent the mouse accidently dragging the vertex, hold down the control key.

Selecting a Triangle/Triangle Edge

When ever a vertex is selected so too is a triangle. The selected triangle is marked by the red, green and blue dots. Selecting a triangle by clicking a vertex that belongs to it is not a reliable way to do this because one can not be sure which triangle will get selected if the vertex is shared by more than one triangle. To select a triangle reliably, left click on the triangle while holding down the Alt key.

Clicking closest to the desired edge within the triangle while selecting the triangle will cause that edge to be the selected edge.

If any of the selected triangle's vertices are clicked on, the selected triangle will always remain selected. (as opposed to a neighboring triangle that may share the vertex being clicked on). This behavior can make it easy for selecting a specific vertex for a triangle when the vertex is very close to another vertex. Use of this is made when joining the mid lips together in the immediate avatar demo while taking care not to join the upper and lower lips to each other.

Centering the View Position to the Selected Vertex

Click  

Centering the View Position to the Pivot Point

Click  

This works for the slected Part or if a RingBuild node is selected it applies to the location of the selected ring.

Collapsing and Expanding nodes

To collapse all the decendents of a node click to the left of it.

To expand all of the decendents of a node click again to the left of it.

Hidding and Showing Parts

Often triangles from other parts make it hard to edit the triangles in the part we want to work on. To solve this problem parts can be hidden in the 3d window by double clicking on the Part node's icon in the scene tree window. The scene tree window shows a hidden part by showing the icon as a dash as shown in the following example for the part DEFined as pelvis.

 clicking on the dash will return the node back to it's visible status

 

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