...what would it be? I downloaded Wings3D and now have a headache from trying to move around in it. It's not exactly intuitive, at least for me. I'm wading through the manual... Is there not a way to enter a three view drawing and convert it to an object? solo

Practise, practise, practise! If that's too obvious then study the meshes of good modellers. I think you'll learn more from that than any amount of tutorials (once you know how to use your app of course!)

To load reference images in Wings use the image plane command on the primitives menu. In case you didn't realise, we have a Wings forum here with lots of very helpful and talented modellers! - Baz

Message edited on: 05/16/2004 15:31

Ooh, just one? Hmmm. Keep an eye on the status bar at the bottom left of the program as this will tell you what options are available and how to implement them.

swishy

In Wings, the default camera mode should be Mirai. Thus... Left mouse button selects. Middle mouse button (a.k.a. scroller wheel) moves camera in and out, and allows rotation of the view. Hitting Q while the camera move is active allows you to pan. Right mouse button brings up selection menus. Menus change based on type of selection or whether anything is selected. Also note that when a menu is active, the function of the other two buttons changes (see status bar that swishy mentioned.) Other camera modes are Nendo and Maya. Nendo is generally what I use when I'm playing with Wings on a Mac because it only has one button. If you're using a one or two button mouse or modes other than Mirai, you'll have to figure out what keyboard/mouse combos make up for the functions normally found in the mouse buttons in normal PC use. Another handy hotkey default to remember is the A-key. If you have anything selected, hitting A will "anchor" the centerpoint of viewing to the same spot. Thus your camera will rotate around that spot. If you want to return your view center to the axis origins, hit the R-key. To make a 4 panel view, just open up three more geometry windows (not graphs). Position each window within the main wings window and right click on the title bar in order to resize them to fit. Set each new window to ortho viewing mode. Then hit X (or shift-X) in one, move to the next hit Y, move to the next hit Z. If using this setup you may want to turn off the menu bar at the top of each pane by right clicking on the window's title bar. Also note when using reference drawings, you'll need to use the ortho mode. This ensures that viewed projection lines are parallel, thus making planar views spot on. Perspective view is good for viewing the model as it would be used and for free session modeling (not directly using a reference.) Oh yeah, have patience. I found Wings to be the most intuitive and fastest modeler to work in. If for some reason that tries your patience, imagine what other modelers where one has to build a mesh point by point would be like. LOL! (But then again, there are some people who like doing things that way.)

Great advise all...I'll be lurking in the Wings forum here shortly... solo

My two cents... "save"! :o) M

My two cents... "save"! :o) M <<< You got that right! Lord knows how many renders in Poser I've screwed up and lost because I didn't save three hours of work then it crashed... Ouch! solo

I didn't know about the right click on the window bar options. Thanks pauljs75! I work on a low resolution so being able to hide the menu bar will really help.

swishy

Drop by the Wings tutorials here, in the Tutorials section..Draculaz has a good one on basic commands (the spaceship one..don't try the robot until later..;)..I have one on intermediate stuff, and Puzzled Paul and others can handle the advanced work..don't feel bad..first time I downloaded Wings..I couldn't even generate a primitive..had to go to the Wings forum and ask..;)

<<Drop by the Wings tutorials here, in the Tutorials section..Draculaz has a good one on basic commands (the spaceship one..don't try the robot until later..;)..I have one on intermediate stuff, and Puzzled Paul and others can handle the advanced work..don't feel bad..first time I downloaded Wings..I couldn't even generate a primitive..had to go to the Wings forum and ask..;)>> I'm digging my way through the menus...I already got frustrated as I could not figure out how to change the view or zoom! Arrgh! It's getting better slowly. I've been to the tuts but it took me a hour to find the "move" command!!!

I was going to say 'Read the manual' but perhaps 'Follow all the tutorials' might be more do-able. Some manuals are not exactly user friendly, and if you are using a Learning Edition, or an older program that was free on a magazine cover disk, then the manual is on screen - either print it out (too expensive) or try and read in a new window (too hard).

The Wings manual is in PDF..though it's not up to date..but then the version number changes every 5 minutes..;) Usually bug fixes, etc. The basic concepts are pretty much the same.
Check my tutorial in the tutorial section here, I've got some tips on how to speed things up. If you have a 3-button mouse, or a wheel mouse, you can click on the wheel or middle button, and go into 'tumble mode'; where the object rotates with your mouse movements..another click stops it. Up and down on some OS's will zoom in and out. The wheel turning will usually zoom in and out. hope this helps.

Thanks, the fog is begining to clear...

get a copy of Amorphium. Its dirt cheap, and its still the easiest SubD modeler around. . .its strange how good it is; much better than Wings IMO; better than LW, better than Max-- not as powerful, mind you. But its the very best place to start, IMO. All the techniques apply to other subD modellers--its just that they're much easier to learn in Amorphium than in more cluttered apps (in Amorphium, SubD is called "Tin")