Lesson 2: Faces and Duplicates

This lesson will concentrate on making faces and duplicates in order to prevent and remove hidden facets. Hidden facets are those that are not seen and increase the models file size. The UR series as well as many other games that deal with 3D models runs so much smoother without the extra verticies.

Step One:
Renaming the cylinder. First, go to the "Groups" tab and highlight the name "Cylinder03" (Note: the number of your cylinder may vary) using the mouse.

Step Two:
We will name this group "side of chair." Type that into the text entry box and click the "Rename" button. Throughout this course we will be calling names and making faces. Kind of like elementary school isn't it?

Step Three:
Now let's select this entire group. We are selecting it so we may make a duplicate.

Step Four:
With the "side of chair" selected, you can duplicate it one of two ways. Either press the CTRL + D keys simultaneously, or using the mouse, click "Edit" on the task bar and then click on "Duplicate Selection."

Step Five:
Now we have a duplicate made. Notice that it occupies the same space as our "side of chair." (Note: the number of your duplicate may not be 15). The duplicate is the one that is highlighted in red (the one that is selected).

Step Six:
We want to shape the dupicate, but really can't do it with the "side of chair" occupying the same space (otherwise we will be accidently shaping both of them). With the duplicate still selected, click on its group name (Duplicate15) and click "Select." This will deselect our duplicate. Then click on the group name, "side or chair" and select it. With the "side of chair" selected, click on "Hide." This will hide our "side of chair" and the duplicate will be the only visible item remaining.

Step Seven:
We will now scale this object to 60% from its Center of Mass. First, click on the duplicate's group name and select it. Then click on the "Model" tab and click on scale. Notice at the bottom there are value entry boxes for X, Y, and Z. Enter ".6" in each of these boxes. With the object selected and the ".6" values entered, click the "Scale" button that is just to the right of the Z value entry box.

Step Eight:
With the duplicate scaled, we can now unhide the "side of chair" to see what effect our scaling step did. Go to the "Groups" tab, click on "side of chair" and then click on "Hide." Now we can begin shaping the duplicate so that it becomes the actual seat and backrest of our chair.

Step Nine:
Using the shaping procedure described in Lesson One, begin shaping the duplicate. (Note: it may be easier to hide the "side of chair" once again to ensure that you don't change it accidentally)

Step Ten:
Assuming that you didn't get frustrated and start all over (like I did when doing this step for this tutorial), the reshaped duplicate should look similar to the picture below.

Step Eleven:
We need to move this duplicate into position so we can make faces (not funny faces, we can do that without this tutorial). First "Select" the duplicate using the procedure described in Step 3. Then click on the "Model" tab and choose "Move." Isolate the Y and Z axis by clicking on them (they should be white).

Step Twelve:
Looking at the "Front" view panel, move the duplicate in the X axis using the mouse until the right side of the duplicate is even with the left side of the "side of chair." (Note: it doesn't have to be perfect because the next step will make it that way)

Step Thirteen:
With the duplicate in position click on "Select" (vertex) on the "Model" tab and select the verticies in the center of the two objects in the "Front" or "Top" view panel. Now that these vertices are selected, click on "Vertex" on the task bar, scroll down to "Flatten" and choose X (Alternate method: Ctrl+Shift+X). This will align the left side of the "side of chair" and the right side of the duplicate perfectly. This is a necessary step before we start making faces.

Step Fourteen:
Before we start making faces, let's hide the verticies that we do not want to be effected. "Select" (vertex) the right side of the "side of chair."

Step Fifteen:
Hide the selected verticies by clicking on "Edit" on the task bar and scrolling to "Hide Selection" (Alternate method: Ctrl+H). This will hide those verticies.

Step Sixteen:
Repeat the procedure in Step 15 for the left side of the duplicate.

Step Eighteen:
With the right side of the "side of chair" and the left side of the duplicate hidden, we can now start making faces. Click on "Face" in the "Model" tab.

Step Nineteen:
Here's where everyone messes up. Making faces is a simple operation. And because it's so simple, people screw it up (myself included). When you are making faces, you are basically connecting 3 verticies. It is important to know which side the face will be facing because only one side of it is visible. In the figure below, we are looking at the "Front" and "Right" view panels. This means that the face that we will be creating is facing away from us (opposing). Here is a simple rule for keeping things straight. When the face you will make opposes the view, select your verticies in a clockwise direction. When the face faces you, go counter clockwise.
This face will be opposing, so we will click on vertex 1, then vertex 2, then vertex 3. This creates one small facet that faces away from us in the "Right" view panel. To finish the remaining faces, click on the remaining verticies in the following in order:
3-4-1
3-5-6
4-3-6
5-7-6
6-7-8
8-7-9
9-10-8
10-9-11
10-11-12
11-1-12
11-2-1
Tedious work isn't it?

Step Twenty:
With the last face created, now click on "Edit" and scroll down to "Unhide All" (Alternate method: Ctrl+Shift+H).

Step Twenty-One:
We can now examine the faces that we have created.

Step Twenty-Two:
Now that the faces for the inside section of our coaster chair is done, let's rename Mr. duplicate using the procedure described in Steps 1 & 2. For our purposes we'll call it "seat and backrest."

Summary:
This lesson concentrated on:
1. Renaming groups.
2. Selecting and duplicating groups.
3. Resizing a group.
4. Shaping a group.
5. Aligning and flattening objects and verticies in a particular axis.
6. Selecting and hiding verticies and groups.
7. Creating faces.
In the following lessons, we will use these techniques and introduce some more in order to complete our coaster car. Once the model has been built, the next step will be designing a single texture map and texturing the car.

Coaster Car 101: Lesson Three - Faces (Cont.) & Snapping Verticies