Aartform Curvy 3D

Object Properties Panel

The object properties panel lets you choose maps to paint on and edit different aspects of your model.

Controls

Here is a labled diagram of the Object Properties Panel.

Object Organisation

Object Name and Object Layer help you organise complicated scenes and models. Together with the Groups Panel and the Layers Panel they let you select, group and hide objects easily. LMB click on the name to change it, LMB drag to choose a layer for the object.

Image Maps

Right Click on an image map to load an image in that slot.

Left Click on an image map to set it as the Active Image - this is the image that will be painted on in the 3D views.

A little lock symbol appears when an image is loaded from disk (Locked Image). When you start painting on the image an unlocked copy is made, you can not accidentally overwrite a saved image by painting.

Hold down the LMB and drag to choose from currently loaded maps. If you choose an unlocked image, the map will be shared between all the objects that use it - so if you paint on an unlocked map, all the objects that use the map will be effected.

Some map types have additional sliders that effect how they are applied. In particular Curvy Displacement and Bump Intensity scale the effect of their respective maps, and Smooth Intensity applies a smoothinf effect to the whole model. It is best turn this off by clicking right at the left of the slider before painting, this speeds up painting updates.

Model Resolution

Curvy lets you change the level of detail of your model at any time without having any permanent side effects. So you could sculpt a high resolution model, drag the resolution slider down to 100 triangles while you set up a complex scene, then drag the resolution back up to 32,000 before saving your final image - all without loosing any detail in your object.

At low resolutions you can drag the resolution slider. At high resolutions it is quicker to click on the slider to set it.

Rendering Options

Drag with the LMB on the white Options: text to turn on and off various render modes.

Fog allows your object to use a smooth graduation of alpha transparency values. With fog turned off, alpha has a hard edged effect, with fog turned on alpha subtly blends your object in front of other obejcts in the scene. This effect is useful in conjunction with the alpha slider on the Current Material Panel and alpha channels in you base image map and base lightmap.
Glow makes your object bright and see through - useful together with Fog to make beams of light.

Double Sided makes the rear faces of a loft visible, and the inside of a line or lathe object visible. For Line and Lathe this is turned off by default because you rarely need to look inside them.

Exact Input

Right click on the Sliders to type in an exact value.