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366 Chapter 5: Creating Geometry
Scale Control Point —
Scales the value of one or
more selected control points with respect to 0. U se
this function when you want to change only the
deformation amounts of selected control points
while maintaining their relative ratio of values.
•Dragdownwardtoreducevalues.
•Dragupwardtoincreasevalues.
Ins ert Contr ol Point —This flyout contains buttons
for inserting two control point types.
Insert Corner Point—Click anywhere on a
deformation curve to insert a corner control point
at that location.
Insert B ezier Point—Click anywhere on a
deformation curve to insert a mo dified Bezier
control point at that location. The tangent handles
of the Bezier control point are set to maintain the
shapeofthecurvebeforethepointwasinserted.
If you are not sure which type of control point
you need, or if you change your mind, you can
convert the point to another type by right-clicking
thepointandselectingthetypefromtheshortcut
menu.
Both Insert Control Point buttons put you in
insertion mode. Right-click or choose another
button to exit the mode.
Delete Control Point—Deletes selected control
points. You can also delete selected points by
pressing the DELETE key.
Reset Curve—Deletes all but the end control points
and sets the curves back to their default values.
Bevel Type—This flyout, available only in the Bevel
Deform ation dialog, lets you choose Norma l,
Adaptive Linear or Adaptive Cubic as the bevel
type. For more information, see
Deform Bevel
(page 1–361)
.
Deformation grid
TheareaintheDeformationdialogthatdisplays
the deformation curves is called the deformation
grid. This grid charts the value of the deformation
along the length of the path.
These are the main g rid components:
Active a rea —The light-colored area of the g rid
defines the first and last vertex boundaries of
the path. The ends of the deformation c urve lie
on each boundary and cannot be moved off the
boundary.
Horizontal lines—Mark deformation values on
the vert ical scale. The follow ing table lists each
deformation curve type and the meaning of the
deformation values.
Deforma tion Type Defor mation V alue
Scale
Percentage
Twist
Rotation A n gle
Teeter
Rotation A n gle
Bevel
Current Units
The thick horizontal line at 0 represents the
deformation value at the loft path.
Vertical lines—Mark levels of the path. The levels
displayed var y with the Adaptive Path Steps setting
on the
Skin Parameters rollout (page 1–353) .
IfAdaptivePathStepsison,levelsaredisplayedat
all path vertices and shape locations.
IfAdaptivePathStepsisoff,levelsaredisplayed
only at path vertices.
Path ruler—Measures the length of the path. The
valuesontherulermeasurepercentagealongthe
path. You can drag the path ruler vertically in the
Deformat ion dialog.
Deformation cur ves—Yo u c a n s e e o n e o r t w o
curves in the Deformation dialog, based on the