Introducing the viewport
- 2 types of viewports: orthogonal (eg: top, front, right, etc), and perspective
- orthogonal: useful for measuring/certain commands
- perspective: realistic view of form
- only one viewport current at a time
- double click viewport name to maximize/minimize
- various viewing modes are available by right clicking viewport name (shaded, wireframe, rendered)
- 4 viewport layout can be customized by dragging
- 4 viewport layout can be reset by clicking the small icon at the top of the screen
- the command line provides feedback as you work > if the program freezes check the command line (use escape key to exit a command that is in progress)
Navigating viewports with pan, zoom, rotate
- it’s important to constantly change your view to understand what’s happening with model
- orbit your view by holding and dragging right mouse button
- pan: shift and right mouse button
- zoom: roll middle mouse button (or hold control and right mouse button while pushing or pulling mouse)
- zoom selected (brings front and center, and makes selected item the center of rotation)
- keyboard shortcut: zs (zoom selected) … zsa (zoom selected all viewports)
Gumball
- turn on and off with button at bottom of screen
- move – can be single axis by dragging on the arrows, or dual axis by dragging the small colored box
- scale – scale 1d, or scale uniformly 3d by holding shift and dragging a gumball handle
- rotate – regular or…
- it is useful to be able to line things up with grid (ortho)
- hold shift to constrain to ortho
- reset orientation of gumball by clicking white button on the widget and then selecting “align to cplane” or “align to world”
Misc
- turn off osnaps, ortho, and grid snap
- use lasso left, lasso right to select
- ctrl z to undo
Parthenon
- Use rotate command in front, top, and right viewports
- undo: CTRL Z
- redo: CTRL Y
- copy: CTRL C
- paste: CTRL V
- commands that can by typed into the command line:
- invert
- hide
- show
- lock
- unlock
- lasso left to select all touching
- lasso right to select only things within
Prof Meiser’s links for day 1 intro: