Contents


Overview

Help! What should I read first!?

If you are new to Misfit Model 3D, this page and the Using Misfit Model page will be the most useful guides to getting started with Misfit Model. This introduction page is a basic roadmap that explains how to get around in Misfit Model. The Using Misfit Model page will help you get started on creating models. The rest of the documentation is reference material that discusses specific features in more detail.

Note: This documentation is current as of the time it was written, which does not guarantee that it will be current when you read it.

Misfit Model 3D Introduction

Misfit Model 3D is an application that allows users to create and modify triangle based models. It currently supports a variety of 3D vertex manipulation tools as well as texturing and animations. There is a simple lua-based scripting language for model manipulation. There is also a plugin system so that extensions can be written to provide more tools, commands, or model import and export filters.

This overview should give you a basic understanding of how to get around Misfit Model 3D and teach you terminology that will be useful in other sections of the documentation. Once you have finished this section and are familiar with the Misfit Model's layout, you will probably want to look at the Using Misfit Model section to get tips on how to effectively create models.

Currently Misfit Model 3D has its own file format, but can also export models in the Quake MD2, Milkshape 3D, and Wavefront OBJ file formats. Other formats are planned for the future and may be added as plugins.

When you start Misfit Model 3D you will see the View Window. The View Window has a set of viewports that act as a canvas for model manipulation and a tool bar that provides interactive model manipulation features. There can be multiple View Windows, one for each model that is open.

View Window

The View Window is where you modify a model. The View Window has a menu bar, a tool bar, a status bar, and a number of viewports that let you see the model from various directions.

The View Window has a menu bar that allows you to operate on the model in the window's viewports as well as creating new models and opening existing models. The specific contents of these menus may change based on installed plugins.

The Toolbar has a set of tool buttons. The tool buttons select tools that allow you to manipulate a model interactively. For example, you can select the "Draw Cube" tool and then click and drag the mouse in a viewport to create a cube.

There are two types of tools in the toolbar: Creation tools and manipulation tools. Creation tools create new vertices and faces interactively in various shapes such as cubes and spheres. Manipulation tools allow you to interactively change faces and vertices that already exist. Manipulation tools include moving, scaling, and rotation tools. Typically manipulation tools only operate on vertices or faces that have been selected with the "Select" tool.

It is important to note that faces often share vertices. Unselected faces may be modified by changes to vertices that are also part of a selected face. To disconnect faces from each other so that they do not share vertices, use the Unweld vertices command.

Some tools have additional options, which appear in an a separate toolbar. For example, the sphere tool has an option that specifies how many triangles the sphere will be composed of.

The menu bar has several menus that provide other functions to modify or create a model. In addition to opening and saving models, the File menu also allows you to run scripts, merge two model files, and view available plugins.

The View menu allows you to change the number and layout of the viewports in the view window (you may have 1, 2, 4, 6, or 9 viewports). You can force the viewports to show the whole model or selected region by selecing either the Frame All or Frame Selected options, respectively. You can select how to display the model in the othographic and 3D perspective viewports based on four options.

You can also choose how you want bone joints to be displayed (as bones, lines, or hidden) and how you want unloadable textures to be rendered (untextured polygons, or polygons textured with a black 'X' on a red background). Use the Render/Hide 3D Selection option to indicate if you want your selection to be visible in the 3D view.

The Tools menu lists all the available tools. It also includes the Undo and Redo options.

The Primtives menu lists non-interactive operations that modify vertices or faces.

The Groups menu lists non-interactive operations that modify groups, including texturing.

The Animations menu provides functions to manipulate model animations. There are interactive and non-interactive functions provided by this menu.

The Help menu brings you to this ridiculously helpful documentation.

The status bar contains text (on the left side) that describes the results of recent operations on the model. On the right side it shows you how many vertices, faces, groups, and textures exist in the current model. If you have any vertices, faces, or bone joints selected the count will be shown with the selected separated from the total with a slash ('/').

The Viewports in the center of the View Window are where you view and modify a model. There are two types of viewport views: 3D View and Orthographic Views. The view type and direction is indicated in a combo box above the viewport on the left. The field of view is indicated in a text entry box above the viewport to the right of the view direction. Larger numbers mean you can see more of the model canvas (think of the opposite of zoom). Three short colored lines indicate the origin. Each color extends in the positive direction along an axis. The red line extends along the X axis, the green line extends along the Y axis, and the blue line extends along the Z axis.

You can scroll the active viewport by clicking on the arrows in the upper-right corner. The four-way arrow allows you to click and drag the viewport. You can also use the middle mouse button to drag the viewport. You can zoom in and out by using the magnifying glass buttons above the viewport scroll buttons.

The view type and direction can be changed to see the model from various angles. The 3D View is a perspective view. Near portions of the model appear larger, far portions of the model appear smaller. The 3D View may also have visible lighting and texture effects. This view only allows you to view the model. You cannot modify the model from a viewport in 3D mode.

By left-clicking and dragging your mouse pointer you can rotate the 3D view along the horizontal axis or vertical axis. By middle-clicking and dragging you can move the viewport left, right, up, and down. Using the scroll wheel will zoom in or out. The right mouse button has no effect in the 3D View.

The Orthographic Views show the model from one of six directions: Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, or Bottom. These views are a CAD-like projection of the model from the specified direction. These views are not modified by perspective. Two cubes of equal size will always appear the same size in this view regardless of how "far" they are from the viewing plane. Each of the six orthographic views is a canvas view, where you can create and manipulate model vertices and faces. The othrographic viewports may also render the model as a wireframe, solid-flat polygons, solid-smooth polygons, or textured polygons.

The effect of the left and right mouse buttons depends on the tool that is currently selected. The left mouse button is the main tool button and the right button is an alternate button. For example, using the select tool you can select vertices and faces with the left mouse button and unselect them with the right mouse button. By middle-clicking and dragging you can drag the viewport left, right, up, and down. Using the scroll wheel will zoom in or out.

The active viewport (the viewport under the mouse) will have a slightly lighter background color than the others. Some keyboard shortcuts will modify the selected viewport. For example + and - will zoom in and out. 0 (zero) will center the viewport on the origin. The backtick (left quote) will flip an orthographic view to the opposite side (front view will become a back view).

There are two modes for the view window. The default one is the Model Edit Mode. This is the mode you are in when you start Misfit Model 3D and are viewing a model. In this mode changes you make affect the position of polygons and bone joints. The other mode is Animation Mode. This mode is active when you have the Animation Mode Window open. In this mode changes you make affect the current animation frame.


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