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378 Chapter 5: Creating Geometry
Common Spring Parameters group
Diameter—The overall diameter of the spring, as
measuredatthecenterofthewire.(Thediameter
of the wire itself has no effect on this setting.)
Tu rns—The number of full 360-degree turns in
the spring.
CCW/CW—Specifies w hether the coils of the spring
arecounterclockwise(CCW)orclockwise(CW).
Automati c S egments—Choose this option to force
each turn of the spring to contains the same
number of segments, a s specified in the Segs/Tu rn
spinner. Thus, if you increase the number of tur ns,
the number of seg ments also increases.
Segs/Turn—This spinner lets you specif y the
number of segments in each 360-degree turn of
the spring.
Manual Segments—When this option is chosen,
the length of the spring contains a fixed number of
segments, no matter how many turns in the spring .
Thus, as you increase the number of turns, you
must manually increase the number of seg ments
to maintain a smooth curve.
Segments—This spinner lets you specify the total
number of manual segments in the spr ing.
Smoothing—Provides various methods of
smoothing the object. The options here work the
same as those in the
Torus primitive (page 1–175) .
•
All—All surfaces are smoothed.
•
Sides—Smoothingrunsalongthelengthofthe
wire, but not around its perimeter.
•
Segments—Smoothing runs a round the
peri meter of the wire, but not along its length.
•
None—No smoothing is applied.
Renderable—When on, the object appears in the
rendering; when off, the object does not appear.
Genera te Ma pping Coords—Assigns mapping
coordinates to the object. D efault=on.