MX

Turning extrudes on and off
Extrude on/off
Once a shape or other object has been extruded, there are only limited modifications that can be made
to the original object with the extrusion in place. For example, if you've extruded a shape, it's not possible
to then edit that shape in the Shape Editor Tool
because it's no longer a simple 2D shape that you can interact with. However, using this control you can
temporarily turn the extrusion off, so that you can see and modify the underlying object using other tools,
before turning the extrude on again. After making a modification and turning the extrusion on again the
extrusion is re-applied to your modified 2D object, with all the same 3D attributes that it had when you
turned off the extrude.
Note that in some cases if you dramatically change the form of the object while the extrusion is turned off
(such as changing it to a completely different type of object), the 3D extrude attributes you applied may
not be preserved. In such cases you should be able to use Paste format/attributes to copy the
attributes from a copy of your original extrude before the modification. See Copying styles: Paste
attributes
.
Extrusion depth
The easiest way to adjust the depth of an extrusion is to simply click and drag on it, as described above.
However, you can also use the slider on the left of the Extrude Tool InfoBar to adjust it. Make sure
that Extrude depth
is selected in the dropdown list to the left of the slider (this is the default setting) and then use the slider to
adjust the extrude depth. The current extrude depth is shown in a numeric field to the right of the slider,
and you can also enter extrude depth values directly into that field to set an exact extrude depth.
Bevel Type & Size
The bevel type determines the profile of the extruded side of your 3D shape and of its edges and
corners. By default it's set to rounded which gives a flat side with rounded corners. The bevel type
dropdown list contains a large selection of different bevel types you can choose from. You can adjust the
size of the bevel using the slider to the right of the bevel type list. To the right of the bevel size slider is a
numeric field showing the current bevel size and you can enter exact bevel sizes into this field.
An alternative shortcut to adjust the bevel size is to drag on the side of the 3D object holding "Ctrl" (while
in the Extrude Tool
).
Lights
Lights on/off
You can adjust the lighting of your shape in 3D space by turning on the lights. There are 3 lights, each of
which can be given their own color and position in 3D space around the 3D shape.
Page 945