Using Glue (Grouping) & Boolean Operations
| Gluing: |
Left-click-hold on the current glue button to bring up the glue panel. |
| Gluing determines the relationship between objects within a hierarchy. These relationships affect how the objects behave in an animation. They also affect how they are exported and imported into another program, such as Bryce. I will leave the animation part to someone else, although I would like to understand how the hierarchies work for import into Poser. The simplest definition of gluing is that it groups objects together. | |
Glue as Child: |
To glue an object as a child, first select the child object, then select Glue as Child, next, use the glue bottle cursor to select the parent object. |
Glue as Sibling: |
To glue an object as a sibling, select any object, then select Glue as Sibling, next, use the glue bottle cursor to select the sibling object. |
Unglue: |
To unglue an object, use the hierarchy arrows to move up and down through the glued object hierarchy until you locate the one you want to unglue, then select Unglue. |
| Moving through hierarchy: |
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| Glued objects can be edited as a whole or you can move through the hierarchy and edit individual objects. | |
| Note: When exporting objects for use in Bryce, the Glue as Child and Glue as Sibling both import as grouped objects (no difference between importing .cob or .dxf). | |
| Booleans: |
Left-click-hold on the current boolean button to bring up the boolean panel. From top to bottom, the boolean operations are union, intersection, subtraction. |
| Boolean Subtraction: | To subtract an object from another, first select the object to be subtracted from, next, select Boolean Subtraction, finally, select the object that will be subtracted with the glue bottle cursor. |
| Note: Boolean Subtractions do not import properly into Bryce when exported as .cob. Instead, export as .dxf then smooth after importing into Bryce. | |
| Boolean Intersection: | To intersect two objects, select either object, next, select Boolean Intersection, finally, select the second object with the glue bottle cursor. |
| Boolean Union: | To join two objects, select either object, next select Boolean Union, finally, select the second object with the glue bottle cursor. |
| Note: Boolean Intersection & Boolean Union import properly into Bryce as either .cob or .dxf. | |
| Boolean Precision: |
Right-click on the current boolean button to bring up the Boolean Precision menu. |
| Copied from the tS3.1 help file
as it explains it better than I could, but the operation should be similar
for tS2: Identity is used for adjusting the tolerance that the Boolean operations will use when performing a Boolean operation. This value is a distance in 1/100 of a millimeter for identifying near-coincident vertices. In general, the default value of 50 should be used, but this sometimes needs to be adjusted to achieve a successful result. If a Boolean operation doesn't work, trueSpace3 may notify you that adjusting this value could allow the Boolean to succeed. [not sure if ts2 will notify you of this as I haven't had the good fortune to have this happen to me] When Delete Edges is enabled, trueSpace3 will attempt to delete unnecessary edges in the objects to be combined. If unnecessary edges are removed, some coplanar faces that may be desired in the final model may be merged together into a single large face. If, after performing a Boolean, some of the faces which had been in the original models disappear in the resulting model, undo the operation, change this toggle and redo the Boolean. |
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| Delete Edges can also be used to remove extra faces, edges, or points from an object after the object has been manipulated in some way (i.e., adding faces, edges, points or after boolean operations). It will also remove any triangulation applied to the object. | |
| To try this out, create a sphere and use the
quad divide or triangulation tool on it (I used both). (If you don't know how to use the quad divide or triangulation tool, take a look at the Subdivisions page.) |
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| Now, create a plane. Move it so that it does not intersect with the sphere in any way. |
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| Select the sphere and right-click on the boolean button. Make sure that Delete Edges is selected. Left-click-hold on the boolean button and choose the Boolean Subtract tool. Click on the plane with the glue bottle and see the result. |
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| On to Point Editing. | |