recess or carving into a mesh

[Patrick Martin]

Hi,
How do you carve a recess into a mesh with any of the 3d tools? it is easy to build or add to a mesh but I don't see how to cut into the mesh.

Patrick

[aurick]

In the Draw palette, you change from ZADD to ZSUB or ZCUT.

A quick way to switch from ZADD to ZSUB while in edit mode is to just hold down the ALT key. When you release it, you will return to ZADD.

Also, the program by default draws with a soft edge. You can make it sharp by modifying the graph in the Transform palette. The more of the graph is filled with white, the sharper your edge will be. (In other words, click an edge point near the center of the graph and drag up and to the left to get a really sharp edge, or down to the right for a really soft edge.)

[Stonecutter]

Thanx for asking the question, Patrick, and a big thank you to Aurick, :tu: for the Graph tip!

[aurick]

You're welcome. Another nice thing that you have control of in the Transform palette is the Noise slider. This affects your graph by adding spikes to it, which allows you to create some serious roughness when you edit.

I recommend adjusting the graph, first, and then adding noise. The graph gets pretty hard to edit after the noise has been added.

A soft edge with high noise will result in smooth bumps. A hard edge with high noise will give you very sharp bumps. (This setting is used with RGB only to create the iris for Pix and Southern's eyeball tutorials -- where I learned this "secret" in the first place.)