Modeling: A Million to One - Blender Foundations: The Essential Guide to Learning Blender 2.6 - page 87

Let's tackle the spiral center column first.
Set the 3D cursor away from the objects
you've already created so you have a
relatively clear workspace. Begin in a top
view and add a mesh circle. Drop its
Vertices property in the Tweak Panel
down to 16. You could keep the default
value of 32, but there's no reason for that
amount of resolution. It adds extra
geometry without necessity.

Over in the Properties window, go to
the Modifiers context and add a Mirror
modifier from the Generate column. The
Mirror modifier reflects a mesh around
its center point. Enable the little triangle
mesh button (labeled “F” in Figure 4.31 ).
You can see the effect immediately by
selecting all the vertices of the circle, and
G-key moving them either to the left or right. There are now two versions of the circle in opposing
motion. The one that follows your mouse movements is the original; the one that moves against the
motion is the live copy generated by the modifier.

Figure 4.30 A table.

Note

You can find out which context is which in the Properties windows by hovering your mouse
over the icons in the window header. In the case of the Modifiers context, hovering over the
little wrench icon the header shows the title “Modifiers.”

Figure 4.31 shows the Mirror modifier panel. Let's examine the controls on the modifier's header, which
are common to almost all modifiers. From left to right, the controls are:

● Collapse/Expand: The little triangle allows the modifier to be collapsed into just a title bar. This is
useful when you have an entire stack of modifiers. It can get ugly.
● A—Icon: Represents the type of modifier.
● B—Name: You can give modifiers names. This is useful if you are writing scripts or browsing for
information through an Outliner window.
● C—Render: Determines whether this modifier is considered when rendering.
● D—View: Whether or not the modifier is displayed in the 3D view. For certain modifiers that gener-
ate a lot of geometry, you may not want them cluttering your view and slowing down your display
after you have it set up correctly. Disabling this button skips the modifier in the 3D view.
● E—Edit: Displays the results of the modifier while in Edit mode. Without this enabled, you wouldn't
be able to see the mirrored circle while you are moving it.