Creating Objects - 3D for Graphic Designers - page 36

Origin This setting does exactly as you would expect. The position and orientation of your tool snap to
the origin and the world axis.
Parent If object hierarchies are established, this setting will align the tool handles to the center of the
current object's parent item.
Local This setting applies transforms to each connected group of polygons based on their own orienta-
tion. This setting acts much like the Selection Action Center but enables you to transform large, individu-
al selections en masse.
Pivot This setting centers the handles at the pivot point, which defaults to the origin unless the item is
moved or the center has been repositioned.
Pivot Center Parent Axis This setting works like the previous Pivot Action Center but aligns the handles
of the tool to the center of the current object's Parent setting.
In addition to these presets, you will notice drop-down menus for Center and Axis. These menus allow
you to combine any two action centers: one to control the center of transformation, and the other to control
the axis of transformation.
Using Falloffs
Falloffs fade out your tools and let you feather your transformations in various ways. These tools work like
gradients, where one end is normal transformation, and the other end of the gradient is no transformation.
The direction, shape, and slope of the falloff can be customized to fit the need at hand perfectly. The follow-
ing is a list of the available falloffs:
Linear The Linear falloff works in a simple point-A-to-point-B format. Each end can exist anywhere in
3D space.
Cylinder This falloff fades out in two directions from the center to the outer edge. The falloff is projected
along the third axis into space.
Radial This falloff fades off in all three directions.
Airbrush This falloff gives you some simple sculpting ability. Right-clicking and dragging enables you
to set the size of the airbrush. Clicking enables the brush, and dragging “paints” areas where the falloff is
active. Pressing Ctrl/Control while clicking and dragging inverts the effect of the falloff.
Screen This falloff works in a similar fashion as the Airbrush falloff, but the brush is not persistent. Size
is set with the right mouse button. Clicking enables the tool, but dragging will simply use the Transform
tool that is active. Subsequent clicks define a new area of transformation each time.
Element This falloff simply focuses on an individual vertex edge or polygon. The element is highlighted
when the cursor moves over it, and clicking on the element activates the current tool for the selected ele-
ment.
Noise This falloff is based on a simple fractal noise pattern (like Photoshop's Clouds filter). The only
control given is the scale of the noise. This is an excellent method for adding random geometric detail
very quickly.