In the transition from Blender 2.37a to Blender 2.40, many important internal components for object editing have been completely rewritten. These changes have allowed for a new implementation of some existing tools and effects that most Blender users were already familiar with. The following existing tools are now available as part of a new modifier system:
Modifiers:
All of these tools are now available under the Modifiers tab in the edit buttons (F9) and can be applied interactively and non-destructively in any order the users chooses as shown in Fig. 1. This is commonly referred to as a "modifier stack" and is found in several 3D applications.
In a modifier stack the order in which modifiers are applied has an effect on the result. Fortunately modifiers in Blender can be rearranged easily by clicking the convenient up and down arrow icons in the header of the modifer as shown in the top half of Fig. 2. The results are shown in the lower portion with a simple example mesh.
Each modifier has been brought in from a different part of Blender, so each has its own unique settings and special considerations. However, each modifier's interface has the same basic components. These are highlighted in Fig. 3.
Every modifier features a Collapse Arrow (Fig. 3.1) and Name Box (Fig. 3.2), followed by three buttons which control the visibility of the effect in three separate contexts: Rendering (Fig. 3.3), Object Mode (Fig. 3.4), and Edit Mode (Fig. 3.5). Toggling each button determines whether the modifier's result displays in each situation. The Collapse Arrow (Fig. 3.1) hides the modifier's Sub-panel (Fig. 3.13) so that multiple modifiers can be displayed without the need for excessive scrolling in the buttons window. When collapsed, only the modifier Header (Fig. 3.10) is displayed.
The Name Box (Fig. 3.2) can be used to give your modifiers titles, which can make recognizing their functions easier. This will come in especially handy in large scenes with complex modifier setups that feature multiple modifier types.
The Cage Mode (Fig. 3.6) button is used to apply the modifier to the editing cage, which gives a more accurate display of the geometry of a mesh once a modifier has been applied. This displays vert/edge/face positions in their modified locations instead of their original positions. It should be noted, however, that transform operations still act on the original locations of the cage vertices and not on the displayed locations.
To the right of the option to show the modified editing cage are two arrow buttons (Fig. 3.7 and 3.8) which allow you to control the order in which modifiers exist in the stack. Modifiers are evaluated top to bottom in the list. The higher in the list the modifier is, the earlier it is evaluated. This can be very important depending on the application. A great example of a situation in which positioning in the stack is important is the use of the subsurf modifier in combination with the mirror modifier as shown in Fig. 2. The mirror modifier must appear before the subsurf modifier in the list, otherwise the original half of the object gets subsurfaced and *then* mirrored, which has very undesireable results.
The Delete (Fig. 3.9) button does exactly what one would expect. This removes the modifier from the stack entirely.
The Apply (Fig. 3.11) and Copy (Fig. 3.12) buttons have two very different functions despite their proximity to each other. Apply evaluates the modifier as if it were the first modifier in the stack and writes the results into the mesh, in effect "baking" the result of that modifier into the object. The Copy button creates a copy of the current modifier, including its settings, at the bottom of the modifier list.
In this section each of the individual modifiers is given a simple overview. More detailed instructions on the use of each modifier will be available in the Blender documentation in the future. This section is designed to be a guide about the purpose of each rather than an instructional manual on their use.
The Subsurf Modifier (Fig. 4) has the exact same functions as its pre-2.40 counterpart on the edit buttons. The only exception is that the Optimal Button no longer serves the function of applying the subsurf effect to the position of the vertices, edges and faces. This function is now handled by the Cage Mode (Fig. 3.6) button. Now, the optimal draw button removes the extra wireframe lines which display as a result of having additional geometry. This button is especially useful to clarify and speed up the display of densely subdivided meshes.
The Lattice Modifier (Fig. 5) also has the same function as its earlier counterpart. The primary differences between the earlier version and the current implementation is that now the effect can be applied in realtime, while editing, to *any* object type without concern for a parent/child relationship. Instead, one only has to type the name of the lattice object into the Ob: field on the lattice Sub-panel and the modifier takes effect immediately. You can even see the effect on the object inside edit mode using the Cage Mode (Fig. 3.6) button.
The Curve Deform Modifier (Fig. 6) works like its predecessor with the added exception that there is no need for a parent/child relationship between the curve and the object being deformed, and that the effect can be applied to all object types in realtime. As with the Lattice Modifier, one only has to place the name of the curve object into the Ob: field of the modifier to see the effect.
The Build Effect Modifier (Fig. 7) pieces together a mesh one face at a time starting at the frame specified in the "Start" box and ending at the frame which corresponds to the starting frame plus the value specified in the "Length" box. A new addition to the Build Effect is the "Randomize" button which allows the object's faces to be rebuilt at random. A seed value can also be specified to give further different results.
Many modeling tasks involve creating objects that are symmetrical. However there's no quick way to model both halves of an object without using one of the workarounds that have been discovered by clever Blender artists for years. A common technique is to model one half of an object and use ALT + D to create a linked duplicate which can then be mirrored on one axis to produce a perfect mirror-image copy which updates in realtime as you edit. The new Mirror Modifier (Fig. 8) automatically mirrors your mesh along the X, Y, or Z axis which passes through the object center. It then welds verts together along that axis within a tolerance distance you can set via the Merge Limit button. Once your modeling is completed you can either click Apply to make a real version of your mesh or leave it as is for future editing.
The Decimate Modifier (Fig. 9) is a quick and easy way of reducing the poly count of a mesh non-destructively. This is a great demonstration of the advantages of a mesh modifier system because it shows how an operation which is normally permanent and destroys original mesh data can be done interactively and safely using a modifier. Unlike the majority of existing modifiers, the Decimate Modifier does not allow you to visualize your changes in edit mode.
The Wave Effect Modifier (Fig. 10) allows you to set the various parameters for a wave that then propagates from the position specified. The user has the option of adjusting nearly all of the parameters that define the behavior of a wave: speed, wavelength, frequency, phase, amplitude, direction, and origin. It is also possible to set waves of a specific length which ripple and dampen away over the number of frames specified. This can be used to imitate the surface of water, a flag in the wind, or even an oscilloscope.
The Armature Modifier (Fig. 11) is used for building skeletal systems for animating the poses of characters and anything else which needs to be posed. By adding an armature system to an object, that object can be deformed accurately so that geometry doesn't have to be animated by hand. The armature modifier allows objects to be deformed by bones simply by specifying the name of the armature object. For more information on this topic, review the release notes for the new animation system.
Guaranteed to be a favorite among users, the Boolean Modifier (Fig. 12) allows you to dynamically assign mesh objects boolean properties relative to the mesh the modifier is applied to. A simple dropdown menu offers three choices: Difference, Union, and Intersect. Below that, a text box allows the user to enter the name of the object which they desire to have the property specified in the dropdown. Once the two objects come in contact the operation is performed in realtime. It should be noted that this code currently uses Blender's undeveloped boolean system and that a much cleaner and more stable booleans system is in the works.
The Hook (Fig. 13) modifier is only accessible in Edit Mode via the CTRL + H hotkey combination. Vertices must be selected and then the hook can be added. Alternatively hooks can be set using the center of any selected object with the same hotkey combination. The hook modifier allows the user to specify Falloff, Force, and two options to control the origin of the hook influence: Reset and Recenter.
The groundwork has been laid for some extremely exciting tools for influencing and editing objects in Blender easily and quickly. In the future it is possible that many more tools will be available as modifiers. Already discussed are modifiers like displacement, explosion, and bevel. Some discussion is also underway about improving the user interface. In the event that it changes drastically, these documents will be updated to reflect the new work.
Please download and explore the file below. It contains this documention in HTML which can be saved locally from the text editor, and a comment from myself, Chris Burt, about the oscilloscope demo I created to show off the wave modifier. Enjoy and good luck!
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Example Blend file for demo purposes. |