By Scot Walker (Tallscot) (63.196.104.97) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 01:48 pm:

Modeler

I'm learning LW 7.5 and I'm going through a tutorial - I create a box, press TAB to subpatch, click on the Symmetry button, click on Polygons, then I click on a side of the model and it selects only the side I clicked on. It's suppose to select both sides since I have Symmetry turned on, right?

Also, I'm suppose to be able to create a solid cube where all sides are the same size if I hold down the CONTROL key while I click and drag with the Box tool selected, right? It doesn't work either. When I hold down the CONTROL key while I click and drag with the box tool, I just get a 2D box, and it doesn't constrain it to a perfect square either.

OS X 10.2.3
LW 7.5
Dual G4 500
1 Gig RAM
ATI Radeon 32 meg AGP
ATI Radeon 32 meg PCI
ATI 128 32 meg PCI

THanks for any help.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 02:31 pm:

These functions are all working. You must be used to Adobe applications, as Lightwave does it slightly different.

Creating the box: The control key WILL give you a box with equal sides. Press and hold the control key first and then click and drag in one of the viewports. This will produce a perfect 2D square. Then go to one of the other viewports, press and hold Control, then click and drag, and you'll be left with a perfect cube.

Alternate method: Select the box tool. Then hit the 'n' key and a numeric dialog panel will appear. You can enter exact measurements in this.

The symmetry issue: Your object needs to be centered before you start. Load up your symmetrical object. Turn off the symmetry button. Center your object by pressing the Center button (it's under the Modify tab) or alternately hit F2 to do the same thing. Now switch on the symmetry button. It'll work this time. When you select polygons on one side you'll see that the corresponding polygons on the other side are also selected.

I hope you have a less frustrating day now!

By Scot Walker (Tallscot) (63.196.104.97) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 03:38 pm:

Thank you very much for your response.

I forgot to mention that I'm wanting to create the box in the perspective view, which is suppose to create a 3D box with all sides being equal.

What's funny is the CONTROL key works, but then it doesn't. Strange.

The symmetry works as you have stated, thanks. I noticed that my F2 key doesn't do anything, even though the CENTER command clearly has a little F2 in the label.

I noticed that the symmetry works on the X axis, but not the others.

Again, thanks for your help.

By riki (Suture) (203.109.249.131) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 05:06 pm:

You may have to remap the Center command to the F2 key.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Monday, January 20, 2003 - 05:34 pm:

I'm not sure if the perspective view is the best place to create a symmetrical box. You can do it in the other viewports, and then use the move and rotate tools to position it how you want.

By Scot Walker (Tallscot) (63.196.104.229) on Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 06:25 pm:

Thanks again for the help.

Beam,

The idea is you can create a box with one move by holding down the CONTROL key and dragging in the perspective view, instead of drawing on two separate views. I'm going through "Inside Lightwave 7" by Dan Ablan.

Thanks again.

By Jason Hillon (Tumblemonster) (24.245.0.34) on Monday, January 27, 2003 - 01:34 am:

on a related note, is there anyway to get the knife tool or bandsaw pro (or similar) to work symmetrically? Say, for example, I need to split a band of polygons on each side equally, and then be able to edit them symmetrically?

-j