Transform subdivision models

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The individual Move, Rotate and Scale tools work in the X, Y and Z directions.

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And it's the same with the Transform manipulator.

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So I'm gonna have a look at how we

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can work in the directions determined by the geometry instead,

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by looking at the Adjust Manipulator option for the Transform tool.

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And by using the Transform CV tool with the Slide and NUV options.

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And I'll start with that.

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I can access Transform CV from here on the palette

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or here on the marking menu

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or over here on the Control Panel shelf

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and the space bar displays the puck

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which looks very complex, but I'm just going to stick with Move

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and then it defaults to XYZ, but I'm going to use it for Slide

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and for NUV

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or in fact, just for N which is the normal direction.

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So I'll choose that

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and then I'll pick this edge loop

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and click on the Transform CV tool

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and then clicking and dragging the left mouse button

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displays these blue arrows and moves the CVs outwards and inwards.

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And you can see from this view that that would

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have been hard to achieve in the XYZ directions alone.

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If I want to keep going,

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this has got an embedded pick mode in the center

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and it's currently set to CVs

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and the tool is still active so I can just click and drag on the next CV

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and just keep going,

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adjusting individual CVs in the normal direction.

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So in the center of the puck, I can switch the selection to Edge Loops,

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Faces, or just Edges.

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So I'm gonna pick Edge Loops

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and I'll also switch to the Slide mode.

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So the next click I do will select the whole loop

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and apply the Slide arrows

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and these point in the directions of the control cage edges.

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So if I drag one colored arrow,

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then they all travel along the edge directions.

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And this hardly changes the shape at all.

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But it does let us reposition the CVs along this side.

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And when I have a complete edge loop with a simple quad layout,

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then I get these chevrons that let me twist or angle the row of CVs.

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And because edge loops are set here for selection, then I can click on the next one

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and this one has a star point here, so it's got an extra arrow color

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and some different edge directions.

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And then I can click over here.

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But this time, I don't want to move this vertex in the edge loop.

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So I can always override the built in selection

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by picking the CVs I want first and then selecting the tool afterwards.

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So some people use this for all of their

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CV transforms and they'll use the XYZ setting,

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the Move, Rotate and Scale and this Sensitivity setting.

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But the key ones for subdivisions are just Move, Slide and Move Normal.

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So you can keep it simple

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or you can get a similar result with the Transform Manipulator.

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So if I just pick this edge loop at the front of the hood

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and then choose Transform,

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if it's set to Pivot, you can switch to Global

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to get the manipulator onto the geometry,

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but it's not necessarily in the most useful location.

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So with Global, you get this Adjust Manipulator button.

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And if I select it, I can move the manipulator freely

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or if I click on the geometry,

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so I'll just pick this face,

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it moves the manipulator to the center and

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adjusts the orientation to match the face direction.

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Or if I click on this edge, it gets centered and oriented to the edge direction.

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And I can keep adjusting it

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and Ctrl-snap it to this corner

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and all the time it keeps that orientation.

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So then you have to remember to come over here and switch back to the Transform mode.

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And I'll often use space bar for that.

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And now the Transform manipulator is working like a Slide

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and the scaling is working nicely towards the center line.

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So with these two tools,

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you can move vertices in geometry directions as well as in the X, the Y and Z.