Sketching with NURBS Lines

We can quickly sketch the essential defining lines of a character using nurbs lines. One of the big advantages of using nurbs lines over a pencil is the lines can be easily modified without needing an eraser

NurbsLines can use many of the same tools regular nurbs patches use such as the rectangle select tool, enabling us to scale, rotate, translate squash and stretch any region of the sketch just like we can with patches. Also we can duplicate, duplicate mirror, merge and cut using the same buttons we use for patches.

You must be in home mode to add a nurbs line. You can put seamless into home mode by opening seamless, by clicking or by double clicking on the 3d window.

To add a nurbs line, click then click in the 3d window to add the control points for the line. Click the done button to stop adding control points or if you want the line to loop just click the first point and that will complete the task of adding the line for us.

If we don't want to create a non symmetrical line and the mirror button is set to click it which will change the button to indicating non symmetrical mode for adding lines and geometry.

The colour of the new line is determined by the selected colour in the palette. To open the palette first click to go into paint mode before clicking to open the palette.

When a nurbs line is selected in the scene tree window, a control point can be inserted by clicking on the control cage line between 2 existing points while holding down the right control key.

Nurbs lines can be converted to flat patches which allows us to add solid colours to our line drawings. A patch can be created from a single line if the line loops or from 2 lines which can either loop or not. When creating a patch from 2 lines, the 2 lines must match the same number of control points. To convert to a patch first select at least one point in the line/s to be converted and then click

Because Seamless3d is a 3d modelling program there is nothing stopping us from adding 3d objects to our flat sketches.

Line drawings can be imported into a 3d model to be used as a guide.

To import a line drawing, click the file menu button and select import->all nodes from file and then select the guide file.

You can continue to alter the guide's lines after it has been imported by opening the scene tree window and then clicking on any one of the imported nodes and then clicking on the modelling mode button.

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