Mesh Objects

Take a look at Figures 2-5 and 2-6 so you can see the list of mesh objects.

What we have here are the following: Circle, Plane, Cube, Grid, Cone, Icosphere, Cylinder, Monkey or previously called Suzanne, Sphere, and Torus.

For our object circle, you can notice that when you look at it in object mode, it looks like just a thin circle line, which is similar to curve objects; but when you look it in edit mode, what you can see are vertices or dots, connecting a line or called edges, to form a circle.

This is how mesh objects are composed. Meshes are composed of vertices, which are the dots highlighted in orange that you can see in the edit mode, edges are the lines that form a face and faces, which are a the triangles or squares that form a mesh object.

In the case of a circle mesh object, it only has vertices and edges.

You can also notice that the plane and the grid have the same look when you view it in the object mode, but you can see its difference in edit mode.

Grid mesh object , unlike plane, is already divided in nine columns and nine rows. It was like a subdivided plane, ready for some basic modeling, like modeling a leaf.

So, what are the object mode and edit mode? Blender has six modes available for mesh objects that can help you ease your modeling process: Object mode, Edit mode, Sculpt mode, Vertex Paint, Weight, Paint, and Texture Paint. In object mode, you can do general modeling like scaling the object and rotating while in edit mode, you can do more modeling like transforming a mesh object from its ordinary form to another form. Take a look at Figure 2-7 to see an example of the differences between these two modes in their functions.

I use both of the Z-axes in scaling the cube. As you can see in our example in Figure 2-8, when you transform an object in object mode, you transform an object as a whole, but when you transform an object in edit mode, you do it by parts of an object (like vertices, edges, and faces).

I’d like to note that these modes are not only for mesh objects. They are also available in other objects, and other objects like armatures have their own modes.

Now let’s proceed to other objects.

Curve Objects

Curve objects are defined by control points and have two modes: object mode and edit mode. Take a look at Figure 2-8 to see the list of these types of objects.

As you can see in Figure 2-8, the circle in curve objects is the same in circle that you can see in mesh objects when you view it in object mode. You can also notice that the circle and nurbs circle here in curve objects look the same in object mode, but you can see its difference in edit mode, how its control points have been structured. It’s the same for the path. You might notice that in object mode, it looks like just a thin line but in edit mode, you can already notice its control points.

Take a look at Figure 2-9 to see how the control points of the curve objects work.

Control points can help you easily transform the curve objects into the shapes you want to create, curve objects especially can be converted to mesh objects by the following steps:

In object mode, left-click (or right-click if your default was changed to right-click) on the curve object or in any space in the 3D viewport like you see in Figure 2-10.

Then, click the convert to mesh and you will see a change of icon in the outliner, which you can see at the top-right corner of your window, which will indicate that your curve object already converted to a mesh object. Take a look at Figure 2-11 to see these icons.

For some, a curve object cannot easily seen in the viewport under object mode because it was just like a thin line. But when you go to the edit mode, you can see vertices that represents the curve object that currently active and you can modify it at the same time, as you can see in Figure 2-12.

So, from edit mode, I press “A” to highlight all the vertices of the object and extrude it by pressing E in the keyboard. You can also highlight the vertices/edges/faces/objects by clicking the Select Box, Select Circle, or Select Lasso from the toolbar as you can see in Figure 2-13.

You can find these tools in both object and edit modes. In order for you to see these drop-downs, you need to hold click on the Select icon as shown in Figure 2-13. You can also access these tools by its shortcut keys: press B for Select Box, C for Select Circle, and L for Select Lasso.

We have different extruding tools in Blender, but we will discuss them separately. For now, let’s focus on the objects.

Let’s now proceed to surface objects.

Surface Objects

Surface objects are also defined by control points and only have two modes: object and edit, but when it comes to its control points, their effect is quite different than in the curve objects. Surface objects have a few options and tools for editing too, unlike the curve objects. Take a look at Figure 2-14 to see the list of these object types.

Just like the curve objects, you can convert the surface object to a mesh object in object mode by going to Object menu ➤ Convert to ➤ Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text. Now, take a look at Figures 2-15 and 2-16 in order to see how you can modify a surface object.

As you can see in Figure 2-16, I modify the Nurbs surface by simply toggling something from the properties, which is the one in the yellow rectangle. In the case of Nurbs surface, I toggle Cyclic U in the object data panel for the surface to be closed. The U and the V indicated axes for 2D objects like surfaces so you can control them independently. Take a look at Figure 2-17 to see a basic example of what we can do with a surface object.

You might wonder how come in Figure 2-17, I have many segments or control points in the edit mode compared to previous figures. During the process, I subdivide the segments by going to Segments menu ➤ Subdivide, and it will subdivide the current selected segment/s. What I do to accomplish the abstract model is just by subdividing the segments three times and then scaling and moving the control points.

So now, let’s proceed to the next type of object, which is the metaball.

Metaballs Objects

A metaball, in my opinion, is quite complicated to use. The moment the two metaballs touch or get close to each other, they merge. Unlike our previous examples, metaballs are not defined by vertices (unlike meshes) and not by control points (unlike surfaces and curves). They are defined by a mathematical formula that is calculated by Blender. You can turn this to a mesh object, just like curve and surface, by going to Object Menu ➤ Convert To ➤ Mesh from Meta/Curve/Surf/Text. Metaballs have two modes: object mode and edit mode.

Figure 2-18 shows a list of metaballs.

As you can notice, when in object mode, you can see one ring around the metaballs; while in edit mode, you can see two rings except in cube. You cannot see a ring, whether you’re in object mode or in edit mode. Well, when it comes to cube, its ring is hidden unless you edit something in edit mode, and then you will see these two rings appear. Okay. What are these rings for?

The ring that you can see in the object mode and the outside ring in the edit mode are called selection rings while the inner ring in the edit mode is called influence, which has direct control of the metaball’s stiffness.

You can also use metaballs for modeling like to form an initial shape of your model, streams, or water droplets.

Since metaballs can easily merge or blend to each other, they often work as a family of objects or groups. When it comes to this, you must know that there are already two or three metas (shortcut for metaball) merged together; the base meta is the one who determines the transformation, and resolution has the materials and textures or acts like a parent for the other metas. In order to determine which is the base meta, the one in which its object name is without a number, for example, we have the following: Mball, Mball.001, Mball.002; Mball is the base meta of the metaballs.

In order for me to explain more about metaballs, take a look at Figures 2-19 and 2-20.

You can notice that in our outliner, the first meta has the name Mball.

As you can see, after I add the next meta named Mball.001 and make the two touch each other, when I select the base meta, which is the Mball, it selected the one present in our 3D viewport. But you might also notice that it didn’t highlight the selection ring for the other meta. Let’s try to delete the selected one and see in Figure 2-21 what will happen.

Eh? What happened? Mball.001 remained with only a ring? Now, take a look at Figure 2-22 for more about this.

As I add a new metaball while the ring is in there, you can see that it automatically adds two metaballs. You can think of the rings around the metaballs as a container. If you want to delete the metas because you want to make some changes but you want to add them again, with the same number, just leave the rings there and add metaballs and voila! You will add a number of metaballs easily.

Now, let’s move on to the next object, which is the Text object.

Text Objects

Text objects are objects in Blender to create text. They have two modes: object mode and the edit mode. You can edit the default text of this object in the edit mode only. You can turn this object to mesh just like the curve, surface, and metaballs by going to Object Menu ➤ Convert To ➤ Mesh from Meta/Curve/Surf/Text and convert this to a curve object by going to Object Menu ➤ Convert To ➤ Curve from Mesh/Text.

Take a look at Figure 2-23 to see the actual view of a text object.

The one inside the red rectangle is the cursor, just like when you are typing in a regular document. In editing its fonts, I do it in the object data panel that can be found in the properties section.

Now, let’s proceed to the next object, which are the grease pencil objects.

Grease Pencil Objects

These are objects that can help you for your 2D ideas. Yes, 2D since you can already create a 2D scene or 2D animation in Blender. But depending on you, you can also use this for character modeling or even in designing game assets or game environments. These objects serve as a container of strokes that allow you to draw in a 3D space. These objects have five modes: Object mode, Edit mode, Sculpt mode, Draw mode, and Weight Paint mode.

Take a look at Figure 2-24 to see the list of grease pencil objects.

In empty object, if you look at it in both object mode and edit mode, by default, you can see it as literally an empty object. It shows our definition of a grease pencil, an object that serves as a container for strokes since when you go to draw mode and draw something on it, that’s the time you can see something in the empty object unlike in the stroke object and monkey object. But wait, if you notice in Figure 2-24, for the stroke and monkey, you can see a line inside the black stroke of the two objects.

Let’s take a closer look at the line in Figure 2-25, by using edit mode.

As you can see in Figure 2-25, the line that is in the black strokes are the points, well, not vertices since this is not yet a mesh, and these points help to modify the strokes. See an example of it in Figure 2-26.

As you can see in Figure 2-26, I modify the monkey object using the transform tool. I just modify its eyebrow by moving and rotating it, and the same with its mouth. Also, I transform its mouth and eyes by scaling them. But the most important thing is that I’m able to transform it by selecting the points. You cannot transform parts without the points like the forehead in the monkey. Okay, for a better explanation, take a look at Figure 2-27.

As you can see in Figure 2-27, the ones that have been extruded are those in the sides because they were the ones with the points. The one in the middle, or the orange one, are a fill color for monkey that can be found in the object data panel under the properties section.

Okay. Let’s now proceed to the next object, which is the armature.

Armature Object

Armatures are for characters. You used it for posing and of course for creating animation. These objects have three modes: object mode, edit mode, and pose mode. Take a look at Figure 2-28 to see how this object looks.

You can only use this object for making poses animation. Games have characters. If you want to create your character and be the one to rig it, or have the bones for its animation, you can learn more about this armature object. Its tools lie mostly in pose mode and in the object Data panel under properties. It has a few tools in edit mode like extruding the bone.

Take a look at Figure 2-29 to see some basic modifications for the armature.

As you can see, I just simply use extrude and the minimum of the rotate tool for modifying the armature or the bones. And yes, its shape is just like that.

Let’s now proceed to the next object, which is the lattice.

Lattice Object

Lattice objects only have object mode and edit mode. They have only basic editing tools. Then, what is the use of this object?

Lattice consists of a three-dimensional non-renderable grid of vertices, and its main use is to apply a deformation to the object it controls with a lattice modifier. The lattice should be scaled and moved to fit around your object in object mode. Take a look at Figure 2-30 to see how the lattice object looks and how it works.

There aren’t many available tools for editing or modifying lattice objects. Okay. You may ask, if this is for editing an existing object such as meshes, curves, surfaces, texts, and particles, why not just directly edit or modify those objects in edit mode instead of using the lattice? Well, here’s a reason you will consider using this. If your mesh object already has many vertices, it will be hard for you to modify it, especially if you only want to modify just a part of it. So here is the lattice to help you just select the part of that mesh and modify it smoothly. It can also allow you to edit multiple objects in a scene since objects are allowed to use the same lattice. It’s just like a container.

So now, let’s proceed to the next object, which is the empty object.

Empty Objects

Empties. Literally empty objects but they have a purpose. They might have no volume and surfaces, and just a single coordinate point with no geometry, but they have their own uses. Depending on the empty object characteristics, they have their own purposes. Some of them are useful for animation while some are useful for reference.

Empties can serve as transform handles too. They can also be parented to other objects, which gives you the ability to control a group of objects easily. They can be used as a target for constraints like bone. Lastly, they can also be used in an array modifier to help you move only one object by using this as the offset and to other modifiers like mirror, wave, displace, etc.

Don’t forget: since they don’t have volume or surfaces to edit on, they only have the object mode.

Take a look at Figure 2-31 to see the list of empty objects.

So, how do each of these empty objects work? Let’s take a look in Figures 2-32 and 2-33 to see how empty objects work.

I add the image by first adding an empty image, then going to the Object Data panel in Properties ➤ Image ➤ Open.

I used an array modifier for this example. I add the array modifier in the cube, then set it to empty in the object offset as you can see in number 3. As you can see in our example, in numbers 4 and 5, the plain axes affect the size of the added cube from the array modifier. As I scale the plain axes, the cube also scales down.

Plain axes, arrows, single arrows, circles, cubes, spheres, and cones are all empties that can be used in arrays, constraints, animations, and objects parenting. Their only difference is the effect on the base on their structure or how it can help you make your project easier than the other one. For example, the arrows can help you create a 360-degree camera effect easily by parenting an object to it, then animating the empty itself.

Note that you can drag and drop images into the scene to get these references into Blender.

There is another object next to empty, which is image, but it acts exactly like image empty so I will skip it and go to the next one, light objects.

Light and Light Probe Objects

As its name suggest, light objects give light to the scene. On one hand, we only have object mode for this type of object, and you can only edit some basic data from it through the object data panel in the properties, though you can do some scaling, moving, and rotating too. Light probes, on the other hand, record lighting information locally to light the scene using indirect lighting. Eevee used them as support objects.

Take a look at Figure 2-34 to see the list of light objects to see how they work.

You can see in Figure 2-34 how these light objects differ from each other by their effects. Not only that, they also differ when it comes to the strength of their light. For example, if you gave a sun light 10 watts (you can do this in Properties ➤ Object Data Panel ➤ under Sun ➤ Strength), the output is too bright; but if you gave that value of strength to area, you will not see its effect – just like our example in Figure 2-35.

This is because the sun lamp has a multiplier to account for the distance of the actual sun from the Earth and since the lighting system, especially in cycles, is physically accurate, you’d have to set the sun lamp to more than 1,000,000 and place it hundreds of thousands of miles away in the 3D world for it to be accurate.

Now let’s take a look at Figure 2-36 to see a list of light probe objects.

Light probes are made for Eevee engines and more for photorealistic rendering. Reflection planes are for flat surfaces like mirrors. They calculate reflection maps for reflective surfaces. Reflection cubemap is similar to reflection plane but for curving shapes like sphere and cubes. Though Eevee already has screen space reflection to do the task, these objects can help in some case scenarios since screen space reflections have its limits too. Irradiance volume acts differently. It calculates indirect lighting and shadows rather than reflection.

Take a look at Figure 2-37 to see how reflection cubemap works.

First stop, I make the material for the sphere a glass or a reflective one by setting its roughness to 0, transmission to 1, and changing its color to white in the material panel in properties. You can also do this in the node editor. Next, I select the sphere by holding Shift + S, so the shortcut for selection for the snapping will appear, and choose Cursor to Selected. Then, I add the reflection cubemap by pressing Shift + A, then go to Light Probe ➤ Reflection Cubemap. The result will not appear right away. You need to bake the cubemap by going to Render Properties Panel in Properties Editor ➤ Indirect Lightning ➤ Bake Cubemap only as you can see in Figure 2-38.

Take a look at Figure 2-39 to see how the reflection plane works.

Its process is the same as reflection cubemap. You need to bake it in the indirect light section in the render properties panel at the properties editor to make it work, but there’s a little difference. If in the reflection cubemap, you will turn the color of your mesh to white, here you will darken the color of your mesh to make it look like a mirror. Since the concept of a mirror is a transparent glass covered by something darker at its other side, you will make your mesh color darker. Even though I already baked my reflection plane, nothing appears on the first picture. In order for me to be able to see the effect, I need to adjust its scope by adjusting the value of its distance in Properties ➤ Object Data ➤ Probe ➤ Distance as you can see in Figure 2-40.

Before we proceed to the next object, let’s see how the irradiance volume works in Figure 2-41.

In this example, I used a spotlight to be the source light with 50,000 watts. You can see in Figure 2-41 that irradiance volume gives a softer look at your scene compared to the one without irradiance volume. You can notice the changes, especially in the shadow, and how brighter the scene becomes. It calculates all of the light paths and the reason it looks softer and brighter is that it takes bounce lighting into account, which Eevee doesn’t naturally do.

I’d like to note that this is for Eevee engine only!

Now, let’s proceed to our next objects, which are the camera and speaker.

Camera and Speaker Objects

Camera is for capturing the scene you created for rendering purposes. For modeling, you can take it also as an object to help you see if your objects are in their right place. For animation, of course it has a vital role. You cannot create an animation (just like a film or movie) without a camera.

Speaker is for audio, obviously. It provides sounds in the 3D viewport.

Both the camera and speaker only have an object mode. Camera, by default, has already been set once you open your Blender or a new Blend file.

Figure 2-42 shows how these look.

What’s left now are the objects related to Force Field Objects, which are Force, Wind, Vortex, Magnetic, Harmonic, Charge, Lennard-Jones, Texture, Curve Guide, Boid, Turbulence, Drag, and Smoke Flow, but I decided not to discuss much of it since they are more for animations and simulations, and it takes more pages to discuss these objects effectively.

Now, we’re already done in our introduction and we’ll proceed to our main dish, which is about the modeling tools, which can be found in modeling workspace; and features of Blender that can help you create a game asset or game environment. I’ll be discussing this along with a sample project so it will be more fun for everyone. After all, examples are great ways of teaching.

Extrude Region

Extrude region tool, which you can use by holding shift + spacebar + E in your keyboard, is used to extrude freely in any axis, whether there are vertices, edges, or faces. Take a look at Figure 2-44 to see it works.

There are two things that I’d like to point out in this tool: the plus and the white circle around the plus. Okay. Let’s start with the white circle. When you select something to extrude, like, as for our example, the face, the plus and the white circle will automatically appear as an indicator that you can already extrude that part. When you place your cursor in the white circle, you will extrude in a different axis where the plus sign is facing just like you can see in Figure 2-44 in numbers 5 and 6. It changes the direction of your extruding. Now, let’s talk about the plus. When you click and drag using the plus mark, you will extrude that part in the axis where it was pointing. If you wonder what is the basis of the plus mark, it follows the facing of the normals of your objects. Take a look at Figure 2-45 for you to know how to enable seeing the normals of your objects and to see how it works together with the extrude tool.

Let’s now discuss the tool that you can see together with extrude region. When you click the triangle, you will see a drop-down menu with a list of four tools including the extrude region. The other three are extrude along normals, extrude individual, and extrude to cursor. Let’s start with extrude along normals.

Extrude Along Normals

This tool will only extrude along the axis facing by the normals of the selected part to be extruded. Unlike the extrude region, there is no option of being redirected. Take a look at Figure 2-46 to see how it works.

You can see in images 3, 4, 5, and 6 that after I select the two faces, they extrude together. You can also notice that the arrow in image 4 looks like it is in the center. This is because in extrude along normals, its computation for extruding is based on the selected elements’ local normals. You will understand this more after discussing the next tool, which is the extrude individual where the output is opposite to this tool. This tool has a shortcut key of Shift + Spacebar + 9.

Note that if you press Shift+ Spacebar + 9 all in a quick succession, it will actually enable the tool push and pull, but if you press Shift + Spacebar and then pause for the menu and press 9, it will take you to extrude along normals.

Extrude Individual

As I said above, its output is opposite of the extrude along normals. It extrudes each individual face along its normal. Yes, only for faces. Not for vertices, not for edges. And this can also access by holding Shift + Spacebar + 0. Take a look at Figure 2-47 to see how this tool works.

As you can see, at first, if you only select one face, it looks similar with extrude along normals; but if you select more than one, that’s the time you can see its difference. This is because, as its name suggested, it extrudes individually.

Extrude to Cursor

This tool extrudes vertices, edges, or even faces toward where your cursor is or where you click your cursor. Take a look at Figure 2-48 to see how it works.

You notice that the duplicate or extruded part is located at the place where your cursor is. Okay. I guess this can be used if you want to create a small object with some base mesh, but you don’t want to use the particle system and you just want to randomly spread it in the scene. That’s what I’m actually thinking when I want to give an example on how this tool works. You can use it, too, for getting rough forms for modeling and sculpting, like for body shapes or hair. You can select a group of faces and then just click away, and it can help get organic shapes using some scaling and grabbing or rotovating. Also, this tool is one of the few tools that doesn’t have settings.

Inset Faces

This tool inserts new faces to selected faces. For this tool, even you are able to select edges, unless it doesn’t form a face, it will not work. For example, if you just select three edges, this will not work since four edges are equivalent to one face. Okay, take a look at Figure 2-49 to see how this tool works.

In order to achieve this kind of output, after you select the place you want to have your new face inserted, you need to first click the yellow arrow, or press I in the keyboard, and drag it to the center.

Bevel

This tool cuts the edges to create a bevel effect to your objects. Unlike inset, this works with vertices, edges, and faces. Take a look at Figure 2-50 to see how it works.

This tool helps smooth the edges of your object, which is necessary for a realistic look since we all know is that there is no perfect cube or rectangle in real life.

Loop Cut

This tool cuts the mesh with a loop. You can also slide the loop before you make the cut. Take a look at Figure 2-51 to see how it works.

Once you choose the loop cut tool , whenever you position your cursor in the mesh, the loop will already position itself where your cursor is, just like in image 1. Just like in image 2, when you want to slide the loop before you make the cut, you need to drag it by holding the left mouse button. Note that when you drag the loop, it will only be dragged between the two cuts where it was located so before you slide the loop, make sure you already positioned it in the place where you wanted it to be placed. Also, as you can see in image 2, when you slide the loop, you will see a black arrow with two heads facing both sides. This indicates that the loop is being dragged, and also this arrow shows which direction the loop can slide on.

Just like extrude, there is another tool that can be seen together with loop cut. It is the offset edge loop cut.

Offset Edge Loop Cut

This tool is dependent. Yes. Dependent with loop cut. It will not work without a loop cut. As its name suggested, it offsets the edge loop slide. What it does is when you already have a loop cut, it will create a loop cut from a loop cut. Not that clear? Okay. Here’s a visual representation. Take a look at Figure 2-52.

Based on Figure 2-52, we can say that these tools make the loop cutting easier. Since as I mentioned earlier, in loop cut, when you already choose to slide a loop, it will only slide in between two cuts. So, if you want to have a cut in the opposite side, you need to make another loop. As you can see here, in images 2 and 3, when we already drag the loop from the center, it creates two loop, where one is one going to the top side and one to the bottom side. And because these two loops are dragged together, at the same time, they are the same sizes.

Knife Tool

Of course, the knife tool is used to cut mesh. You can say it is applicable if you want to add vertices or edges randomly or the way you just wanted to. Take a look at Figure 2-53 to see how it works in actual use.

When you activate the knife tool, your cursor will turn into a knife, just like in image 1. When you start slicing your mesh, unless you press enter, just like you can see in image 2, the slicing will not stop.

Bisect Tool

Together with the knife tool is the bisect tool . For this tool, you need either edges or faces to be selected. Yes, this is not applicable if you only have like one vertex selected. Take a look at Figure 2-54 to see how it works.

Image 1 in Figure 2-54 shows the error you will encounter when you just select one vertex and use the bisect tool. When you use this tool, first you will select the part where you want to bisect and then select the portion or part by holding and dragging your cursor just like you can see in image 3. You can notice from images 4–6 that there is this yellow arrow and a blue circle around it. The yellow arrow helps you slide the loops or edges created by the bisect tool, and the circle helps you change the position by rotating it.

Poly Build Tool

In version 2.80, you just need to click and create three to four vertices, and then press the F key to create a face using Poly Build tool. In version 2.82, which I’m currently using for this book, what we have for this tool is that you need to at least have a mesh object, and the easiest one is a plane, then click one edge of it and drag it out. After you drag it out, it will form a new face. But wait, there is also an indicator when you can drag it out and form a new face. Take a look at Figure 2-55 to see how the new setup for the Poly build tool works.

The blue color in the edge that you can see in Figure 2-55 indicates that you can already drag it and create a new face. I’d like to note that this tool is more for retopology.

Spin Tool

This tool extrudes selected vertices in a circle around the cursor indicated in the viewport. To use this tool, you must at least have an existing vertex or vertices that it can extrude. Take a look at Figure 2-56 to see how it works.

The blue curve with the plus sign at the endpoint of it is used to spin your selected elements. What you can see in image 2, the gray circle that surrounds the sphere, indicates the spinning you are currently doing. After you’ve done the extruding and spinning, two arrows will show: a green one; and a red one, which you can use to move the extruded part created by the spin tool. The red arrow is for the X-axis and the green arrow, of course, is for the Y-axis.

Spin Duplicates

Spin duplicates is the same as with Spin tool. It also have a blue curve that you use for spinning and a gray circle that when you do the spinning, shows the green and red arrows after you’ve done extruding and spinning, and it also has the same output. So, what makes it different? It duplicates the data of the main objects or elements. There is no figure for this one since the output will be the same as the spin tool.

Smooth Tool and Randomize Tool

The smooth tool flattens angles of the selected vertices. You can see a yellow arrow to selected elements when you use it. You can say this is more useful when you already have many vertices and you want to make your object smoother.

The randomize tool, as its name suggests, randomly arranges selected vertices. Just like the smooth tool, it also has the yellow arrow to a selected element when you use it.

Take a look at Figure 2-57 to see how these two tools work.

You can see in Figure 2-57 how the smooth tool changes the mesh object from having rough edges to a mesh object with smooth edges. With the randomize tool, you can see how it randomly scaled out the face selected.

Edge Slide Tool and Vertex Slide Tool

The edge slide and vertex slide have the same function and settings. The difference is that the edge slide, as its name suggests, affects the edge; while the vertex slide affects the vertex. So let’s take a look at Figure 2-58 to see how these two tools work.

As you can see in Figure 2-58, they have the same output and same function, but as you can clearly see, even though I selected an edge to slide for the vertex slide tool, it shows how it affects the vertex by showing the previous position of the vertices that have been dragged.

Shrink/Flatten Tool

This tool simply shrinks or flattens the elements along the direction of the normal. It is like the transform tool, which is part of the general tool, since when you select just a face and apply it, it looks like you’re just moving the face; but when you select the whole mesh, it appears like you are scaling the whole mesh. The transform tool can scale, move, and rotate an object. In my opinion, the difference between the transform tool and the shrink/flatten tool, aside from shrinking/flattening can’t rotate any elements; it is specific to modeling unlike the other one. However, the transform tool can be used in other workspaces. Another difference between the shrink/flatten tool and transform tool is its settings. It has a proportional falloff option and offset.

Push/Pull Tool

If the shrink/flatten tool is like the move tool, the push/pull tool is like the scale tool. It pushes or pulls the selected elements. It also has the same settings as the shrink/flatten tool.

Take a look at Figure 2-59 to see how the shrink/flatten tool and the push/pull tool work.

As you can see in Figure 2-59, both the shrink/flatten and push/pull tools have a yellow arrow with a round head. This arrow indicates where your Normal is pointing. The settings will not appear unless you already dragged the selected item. Just like in our example, you cannot see the settings when I click the face. But after the application, when I have flattened the cube for shrink/flatten and scaled in for push/pull, its settings appear. That’s only the time you can play with the proportional falloff – if you enable proportional editing and other settings they have.

Shear Tool

Now we have a shear tool . This tool shears selected items along the horizontal axis of the screen.

When you select the shear tool, there are arrows pointing to different axes appearing on the selected elements to modify. When you click and drag the head of this arrow, which looks like the letter X, the selected element is sheared to the axis, toward the Y-axis, or even in the Z-axis; it depends on which direction the X arrow head is pointing to. You can also change the direction by changing the offset value and axis in its settings

Take a look at Figure 2-60 to see how this tool works.

As you can see in Figure 2-60, we have three arrows connected to each other, and the arrow head looks like the letter X. Each arrow head represents two axes. The arrow with the yellow-orange head represents the X-Y-axis; the arrow with the pink-violet arrow head represents the X-Z-axis; and the arrow with the green-blue arrow head represents the Y-Z-axis.

To Sphere Tool

Let’s talk about the to sphere. This tool moves the selected vertices outward in a spherical shape around the mesh center.

Take a look at Figure 2-61 to see how the to sphere tool works.

As you can see in Figure 2-61, after I dragged out the selected vertices, it formed a spherical shape. You cannot appreciate its function if you only selected three vertices in line with each other, or two faces in line with each other. Since it forms a spherical shape, it is best when you select vertices, edges, or faces that you will make in a form of a circle.

Rip Region Tool and Rip Edge Tool

The rip region is only applicable with vertices while the rip edge tool is applicable to both vertices and edges. When you use rip edge in faces, you cannot see its effect. It only moves the face. Rip regions rip polygons while the rip edge rips the vertices. Also, rip region extends the vertices and automatically connects them to other vertices while rip edge extends the edge and cuts or rips it out from the mesh.

Take a look at Figure 2-62 to see how these tools work.

Now, we’re going to proceed to the last part of this chapter: a sample project with a discussion. For this one, we’ll go for creating a game asset for a game environment rather than a whole game environment so we can at least discuss more with fewer pages. After all, you cannot create a game environment without the game asset.

So, now, let’s start the fun!