How to use the poly line tool

[Stiglr]

If you're talking about "cutting a door in the side of a car", then you're trying to cut an existiing shape, not draw a new one.

But, to answer your question anyway:
The poly tool will create the shape at the 0 line of the axis perpendicular to the viewport you draw it in. That's the "depth" if you will. You can then select it and move it wherever you want to put it.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to do, but you may want to get more familiar with the basic 3D concepts before you get too far into it. Frustrating answer, I know... I was exactly where you are now, once. But most of my problems were stemming from trying to build something before I had the basic concepts down.

[jleslie]

I don't want to cut the door, I want to have a polygon "melt" onto the outside surface of the existing model. The current surface is a mish-mosh of all kinds of polygons, I want to frame a new polygon, not fill it, and just paint the lines on the polygon black and have it just sit on the outside of the existing objects. If the melt analogy doesn't work for you, try this one. I want the polyline tool to put down a bead of toothpaste on the outside of the car. it sticks to the outside surface.

For that matter, is their a way to make the polyline thicker/wider? In lieu of these options what is the best way to to get lines onto the vehicle? I mean look at this car:

http://military.discovery.com/techno...er-625x450.jpg

the edge of the door is black, and the body is almost uniform. I'd like to be able to also "paint" the support X's on the door. but the model I have (a conversion from sketchup--> DAE--->FBX-->3DS--> ac3d) it really good, but the polygons that make up the door aren't even close to framing the door. As a result the texture with the texture mapper is all over the place. I can get a nice sand colored texture, but there is no way I'm gonna get the edges for the door.

TIA

- jleslie

[Stiglr]

You could get the visual effect of the x-supports on the door in a couple of ways...

1) You could do it all by texture (including bump mapping to enhance the 3D effect and shading)

2) You can do it in 3D in the model itself. This would involve indenting the door panels in the areas around the "X" shapes, as it actually is on the Hummer. I'd think that would be the way to go on this vehicle. Or for any passenger vehicle, no matter how "organic" and flowing the shape, you can create it faithfully in 3D, given enough visual sources and knowledge of the basic tools.

As for a "raised bead around the door", that's probably best done by having the door properly outlined in 3D, then "chamfering" that outer edge (using some combination of indent and bevel techniques) to achieve the effect. Well, not just the effect, you'd simply create the shape itself. The texture method would be an "effect"

The door outlines themselves are not very complicated shapes, and should be achievable using standard basic modeling principles. And as I said earlier, if you have an established 3D object for the body of that Hummer, you would CUT OUT, rather than DRAW ON, the doors. You simply isolate the doors from the body (even adding hinges, latches, sliding windows, whatever) and make them separate parts, just as they are in real life.

Are you working from a set of 4-views for the Hummer? A side view, a top view, a front view and a back view? For any vehicular object, these kinds of reference drawings should be readily available.

PM me if you'd like to learn more, especially if you have Skype. It's easier to share a screen in Skype and demonstrate these concepts rather than try to describe them.

[Stiglr]

Also said another way, the Poly Line tool is used to create its own discrete objects, not to modify other objects. And it creates flat objects, not contoured ones, so keep that in mind when determining whether to try to use it to create complex 3D objects.

As an example, I create aircraft mainly, and I will use the poly line tool to create a control panel for the cockpit, if I can find a picture of the panel photographed or drawn from a straight-on angle. I would NOT use it for an irregular object like a moulding or a switch with a specific shape. For such objects I'd use a modified primitive (box, circle, sphere, rectangle, disc, etc.) and then use the Knife tool and adding and positioning vertices to "isolate" areas I need to modify further. For example, I'd use those kinds of techniques to "cut" landing gear panels and wells out of the wings, leaving the "doors" separate to display on the landing gear when it's deployed.

[jentron]

Let's create a simple fuselage shape by adding a line, making sure the beginning and ending vertexes are at X=0.

[jentron]

Then we'll switch to vertex mode, select all the vertexes and extrude them (ctrl+e)

[jentron]

The line surface we started with is still there, so switch to surface mode, select the line, and delete it.