Go Back   AC3D Forums > General > AC3D General
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 16th March 2005, 10:49 AM   #1
wsimike
Junior Member
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 22
Default Selecting faces and Extruding

Hello all..

I tried searching the forums for this, but couldn't nail down any results that answer my questions..

I'm a sort of returning user to AC3D... I'd tried it in the past, but for some reason (I forget now) didn't continue to use it.. In any case, I've come back to it and love the intuitiveness of how it works.. really quick and easy to create the kind of objects I need (low-poly for a game)..

However, there are two key things I'm running into that seem odd to me.

1. The surface select tool seems to have a mind of its own. I created the basis for a wall.. a 3x3 rectangular box, basically. I tried to select the top 3 faces, from the top view, to bevel them. For some reason, it selected the top left-most and right-most faces fine.. but would select the bottom middle face, as though the top face wasn't there. I tried turning off "select backfaces" - didn't make a difference. I tried changing to the bottom view and voila, I could now select the *top* middle face.. from the bottom view.. but I couldn't select it from the top view, no matter what I did.. I'm gonna say that's gotta be a bug, because it's completely inconsistent with the normal behavior. I can select two top faces fine... but not a third?

2. Extruding seems to selectively retain hidden faces. I extruded a few different surfaces in creating the basis for the same wall described above.. For some reason, two of the surfaces retained the face I originally selected to extrude, leaving a "hidden" face in the geometry. Other surfaces I extruded from did not do this. Again.. a wierd glitch in the functionality..

If someone could explain to me how this is happening and, perhaps, how to get around or avoid it.. I'd appreciate it! I'm loving everything else about the program so far, just need to figure out those two issues...

Thanks!
wsimike is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 16th March 2005, 11:54 AM   #2
semar
Junior Member
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 14
Default

Hello wsimike,

I've experienced something like that and I think I've understood the cause.

When you want to select a surface, it should be correctly faced toward you. If happens that you select a surface behind the one you want, I bet it's because you have built that surface with the poly tool - that is, clicking each vertex with the mouse.

If that is the case, you should pay attention on how you design the shape.

If you watch the tutorial about how to build a car, you may notice that the car shape is designed from right to left.

I mean, if you draw a box from left to right - that is, vertex clockwise - you do see a surface later, but it's facing wrong !

Each surface should be drawn anticlockwise, so it will face correctly, and will be also correctly selected from the active view.

For the extruding question, it's the same topic. When you extrude, say from the front view, you'll notice that if you drag the mouse to the right, the extruding block becomes black, while if you drag to the left, that block is drawn in grey. For me, the gray one is the one which 'works' - that is, the surface selection is fine with each ortographic view.

Hope it helps,
Sergio.
semar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 16th March 2005, 12:26 PM   #3
wsimike
Junior Member
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 22
Default

Hi there, Semar,

Actually, this is happening with a mesh that was built with the "box" tool. No flat or hand-made polys involved at all. I created the box, scaled it then selected one face, extruded twice (to give me the 3 columns).. then did the same with the top and bottom faces. Doing the top and bottom faces is when the problem occured. Could select the left and right faces from the top view, but had to go to the bottom view to select the middle one. Really odd.

The hidden faces resulted from extruding those top and bottom faces. Actually, they're another example of the faces not being selected correctly. I only found out about those hidden faces because I was trying to select the new faces I'd just extruded and instead it "clicked-through" the new faces and was grabbing the faces I'd originally selected to extrude (I hope that makes sense :-).. Again even while in top view.

Perhaps it's some quirk in how AC3D handles extrusions?

Thanks for the feedback/suggestions though...

Quote:
Originally Posted by semar
Hello wsimike,

I've experienced something like that and I think I've understood the cause.

When you want to select a surface, it should be correctly faced toward you. If happens that you select a surface behind the one you want, I bet it's because you have built that surface with the poly tool - that is, clicking each vertex with the mouse.

If that is the case, you should pay attention on how you design the shape.

If you watch the tutorial about how to build a car, you may notice that the car shape is designed from right to left.

I mean, if you draw a box from left to right - that is, vertex clockwise - you do see a surface later, but it's facing wrong !

Each surface should be drawn anticlockwise, so it will face correctly, and will be also correctly selected from the active view.

For the extruding question, it's the same topic. When you extrude, say from the front view, you'll notice that if you drag the mouse to the right, the extruding block becomes black, while if you drag to the left, that block is drawn in grey. For me, the gray one is the one which 'works' - that is, the surface selection is fine with each ortographic view.

Hope it helps,
Sergio.
wsimike is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 16th March 2005, 01:11 PM   #4
Andy
Administrator
Professional user
 
Andy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 4,563
Default

You need to understand the extrude settings that show when the 'extrude' button is down.

There's a large section in the manual with lots of pictures on this.

When selecting, use a click to select a single 'nearest' item and a drag to select everything inside the drag rectangle.

Andy
Andy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 19th March 2005, 06:03 PM   #5
wsimike
Junior Member
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 22
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Colebourne
You need to understand the extrude settings that show when the 'extrude' button is down.

There's a large section in the manual with lots of pictures on this.

When selecting, use a click to select a single 'nearest' item and a drag to select everything inside the drag rectangle.

Andy
Hey there...

Just came back and noticed this post.. You helped out with that. I didn't notice the check-boxes before. Everything's fine now, though.

Great program! It's proving very efficient to use.
wsimike is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:02 PM.


AC3D Forum
(C) Inivis Limited 2020