MilkShape Basics
10) Setting up your Workspace

Setting Up Your Workspace As with most 3D modelling packages, Milkshape has several ways of viewing your model in progress. It is possible not only to customise each viewport by setting it's point of view and it's render state, but also the size of the viewport. Arrange your screen as you feel you work best.

Select Windows/Viewports and then the setup that you prefer:


3 Window (2 Left, 1 Right)


3 Window (1 Left, 2 Right)


4 Window


It is also possible to have the editing tabs column on the left or right. When the program starts up, they are on the right as a default. If you select Window/Control Panel/Left, then it will switch sides. Naturally selecting Window/Control Panel/Right will switch it back again:


The text window at the bottom of the screen is also optional. Select Window/Show Message Window to deactivate it and again to re-activate it.


Finally, it is possible to activate Window captions that have coordinate dialogues and a drop-down menu for each viewport allowing you to quite quickly change the viewpoint of the port. Select Window/Show Viewport Caption


Your viewports will now look like this: With the boxes at the top.


Once you have set up your desired layout, you can then customise individual viewports.
It is possible to switch between viepoints in the viewports. If you have the Viewport caption activated then simply click the drop-arrow on the menu in the top-left corner of the viewport:


By selecting any of the viewpoints in the list, your viewport will change to that viewpoint. Clicking 'Front' will present you with an elevation of your model from the front. 3D shows your model in 3D view. If you don't have the Viewport dialogue activated, then you can simply right-click in the viewport and from the menu that appears, select 'Projection', and you will then get the same list to choose from:


Aside from Projection, there are other options on the menu to choose from: The first batch are rendering options: WIREFRAME - this sets the viewport to render all objects in it as a wireframe mesh. FLAT SHADED - This will render the object as solid and with it's facets clearly visible. SMOOTH SHADED - Similar to FLAT SHADED but the edges of the facets are blended in so that the whole model appears to have one continuous smooth surface. TEXTURED - If your model has a texture applied then the model will be drawn as a solid object with the skin texture drawn on it. Before it has been skinmapped, your model will simply change colour. If no texture is applied then it will appear similar to SMOOTH SHADED.

NOTE: The above options are only available in 3D view. Non-3D views can only be viewed as wireframe.

The next two options are gizmo commands. SHOW AXIS - switches the xyz gizmo in the centre of the screen on and off. SHOW GRID - switches the grid on and off.

The final two options are viewport settings. CENTER VIEW - will centre the viewport if you have dragged it off-centre. MAXIMISE - draws the selected viewport at full screen size.

VIEWPORT CONTROLS

The view can be zoomed by holding down the shift key and the left mouse button and dragging the mouse vertically. This will not work if the 'Select' button under the 'Model' tab is activated.

The view can be 'panned' or 'dragged' by holding down the CTRL key and the left mouse button and moving the mouse. In 3D views, holding down the shift key and the left mouse button will rotate the view in a 360 degree arc in all directions. This cannot be done in non-3D views.

LOADING MODELS

There is at present only five ways of importing model meshes into Milkshape:
MS3D - Milkshape's native format
Half-Life SMD - The files that are exported from MAX and used to create MDLs MDL - the final form of file that Half-Life uses in the game. MD2 - Quake2's model format. Wavefront OBJ - Actually not sure about this one. Lightwave?

I understand that 3DS (not MAX) and ASC (ascii) importing may be implemented in later versions.

To load in a model, simply go to File and select either 'Open' or 'Import'. 'Open' only allows you to access 'MS3D' files. 'Import' allows you to open files of the other kind listed. The model should appear on the screen in your viewport. The 'Merge' option under Files allows you to import another MS3D file into your current project. This is handy for importing skeletons or seperate model parts.

CREATING A PRIMATIVE OBJECT

Usually the first port of call for making models from scratch. It is possible to generate primative objects as a starting point in Milkshape. Using the tools under the 'Model' tab:

Sphere

A basic sphere made up of grided squares (two triangular faces). The ammount of vertical segments ('stacks') and horizontal divisions ('slices') can be adjusted by altering the 'Stacks' and 'Segments' values before drawing the sphere:


For example, The default value is set to 6 'stacks' and 12 'slices'. Here we see an example of such a sphere:


Now if I set the stacks to 12 aswell, we can see that there are still the same ammount of segments around the sphere but from bottom to top, there are now twelve segments instead of 6.


To draw the Sphere, place the pointer on the screen where you want the Sphere's centre point to be, then click and hold down the left mouse button. Drag the mouse pointer to where you want the Circle's outer edge or 'radius' to be and release the left mouse button. You will see the sphere grow from the initial click point to your current pointer position as you drag.

Box

A six-sided cube of variable dimensions Box has no parameters, simply click and hold down the left mouse button in the viewport where you want the initial corner of the box to be. Drag the pointer to where you want the diametrically opposite corner to be and release the left mouse button. You will see the box grow as you drag the mouse.

Geo-Sphere

Another form of sphere, but this time made up of triangular faces that interlock to give the surface of the sphere a much less faceted look, resulting in a smoother looking sphere. Here we see only one parameter: 'Depth' This determines the ammount of triangles in the sphere. Setting the parameter to 1 gives us a fairly simple geosphere:


However, setting it to it's maximum level of 3, gives us a highly complex geosphere:


NOTE:It is possible to input a value up to 9 but only values 1 to 3 will have an effect. Drawing is done the same as the standard sphere, by clicking and holding the left mouse button at the desired centrepoint and then dragging to the desired radius of the sphere. The sphere will grow as you drag.

Cylinder

The cylinder is a peculiar beast. Like the sphere, it also has 'stacks' and 'slices' and the values work the same way. However, drawing the sphere can be done two different ways. Either way the cylinder will always draw with it's ends facing up and down. In a vertical view (front, back, left, right), you position the pointer where you want the one corner of the cylinder to be (I say corner because obviously it looks like a rectangle on the screen), and then holding down the left mouse button drag the pointer. The Cylinder will grow as you drag. The diameter of the cylinder is scaled uniformly as you drag left or right and the height is set by the distance you drag vertically. In top or bottom view, the cylinder is drawn as a circle that scales uniformly as you drag the mouse pointer left or right and the height is set automatically.

MESH EDITING TOOLS

There are several tools for moving,scaling and rotating your selected vertexes or faces. They are also under the 'Model' tab:


The key thing to remember about these tools is that they will ONLY work on selected vertexes or faces. IF you wish to affect your whole model then the whole model must be selected. ALSO these tools will only work in non-3D viewports.

SELECT

This is the tool you use to literally select the vertexes, faces or groups. You use it by drawing a selection box around the vertexes or faces that you want to affect. To draw a selection box, click on the screen to set your initial corner and, holding down the left mouse button, drag the mouse and a box will appear and grow as you drag. Any vertexes or faces inside the box when you release the mouse button will be selected and light up red. NOTE: faces will only be selected if at least one of their corners is inside the box. An alternative way to select faces is individually: If you set the select option to 'Face' and uncheck 'By Vertex' then you can select individual triangles by clicking in them.

Now it's possible that you selected a few vertexes or faces that you did not want. If that is the case, hold down the SHIFT key and the RIGHT mouse button and drag a smaller box around only the unwanted faces. They will deselect, leaving the others still selected. It is possible you didn't get all of the vertexes/faces that you wanted. If tis is the case, hold down the SHIFT key and the LEFT mouse button and drag a box around the extra vertexes/faces that you want. It might take a few goes to get it exactly right. How do you set it to select faces or vertexes? Well when the Select button is active, you will notice a parameters box lower down:


Where it says 'Vertex' ringed in red, if you drop the menu down by using the arrow on the end, you will see three options: Vertex, Face and Group. Set to vertex, only vertexes will be selected on your mesh. Set to Face, only Faces will be selected on your mesh. When set to group, then a whole mesh sub-group will be selected if at least one of it's faces is included in the selection box. You needn't concern yourself with this right now. Groups come into it much later on during the skinmeshing tutorial.

Okay, so it's time to do unspeakable things to our selected vertexes. The three tools that will allow you to do this are the Move, Scale and Rotate tools.

MOVE

Quite simply, you click in the desired viewport and drag the mouse. The selected Faces/Vertexes will move in that direction corresponding with the mouse pointer. It is possible to restrict the movement and also manually type in movement parameters for exact repositioning. At the bottom of the Tools rollout panel when the Move button is active, you will see three X,Y and Z buttons accompanied by corresponding type-in fields.


In the image shown, all three X,Y and Z buttons are activated. If you deactivate any of them, movement in those directions will be restricted. For example if I deactivate the Y button then I will not be able to move my selected vertexes/faces vertically in the front or side views. It's worth mentioning at this point that the three directions are as follows: X is left to right, horizontally Y is vertical Z is back and forth horizontally. This is constant in every view, for example, in 'Front' view X would be horizontal movement whereas in 'Left' or 'Right' view Z is horizontal movement. This might take some getting used to so experiment a bit. Above each button is a field that will allow you to manually type in the ammount by which you wish the model to move. Positive numbers will move the model in one direction and negative numbers will move the model the opposite direction. In X positive numbers move the model to the right ('front' view) and negative numbers will move the model to the left ('front' view). In Y positive numbers move the model upwards ('front' or 'side' view) and negative numbers move the model down (front and side views) In Z positive numbers move the model forwards (down in 'top' view) and negative numbers move it backwards (up in 'top' view).

Confused yet? Well, I've made this little illustration to help a bit...


NOTE: any manual type-in adjustments will not take effect until the button alongside the fields is clicked.

SCALE

It is possible to resize your mesh not just universally but in different directions. Using the 'Scale' tool as it is, you can scale selected vertexes/faces in two directions: Holding down the left mouse button and dragging left and right will scale the selected vertexes/faces horizontally. Dragging up and down will scale them vertically. The effects will vary depending on which view you are using. As with movement it is also possible to restrict the direction that you scale in by deactivating the X,Y and Z buttons at the bottom of the tools rollout.


The same rules apply to the buttons and the manual type-in fields that do to the MOVE tool (see above). However, in the manual type-in fields the values are different. Here we see that the default values are 1.0 instead of in move where they are 0.0. 1.0 represents the actual scale of the selected vertexes/faces. If you were to set the values to 0.5 then they would scale in the relevant direction to half their current size. On the other hand If the fields were set to 2.0 then they would become twice their current size. NOTE As with Movement, the manual type-in fields will not have any effect until you have clicked the button alongside. What we also have here which is new is the ability to set the centrepoint from which the selected objects are scaled. You will notice above the X,Y and Z buttons, three radio boxes entitled: 'Center Of Mass', 'Origin' and 'User Point'. Depending on which is checked, will depend on the effects of your scale. 'Center of Mass' means that the scale will radiate out from a common centre to your selected vertexes and faces. 'Origin' is the pink,yellow and blue gizmo at the centre of the screen. where the three coloured lines converge is the absolute centre of your workspace. This is known as the, 'Origin'. If the 'Origin' box is checked, then the scale will radiate from the Origin point. 'User Point' means that the scale will radiate from the point at which the mouse pointer was when you clicked the mouse button down. This point is set regardless of where you drag the mouse to.

ROTATE

It is possible to rotate selected vertexes/faces. Hold down the left mouse button and drag vertically. The actual direction of rotation depends on the view that you are currently using. As with all of the above tools, it is possible to restrict the direction of a rotation and it is also possible to manually type-in rotational data for absolute accuracy. This time, however, the data in the fields is in degrees of rotation so the values go up to 360 before the selected vertexes/faces perform a full rotation. Once again the Rotate tool has three centre point options: 'Center of Mass', 'Origin' and 'User Point'. They dictate the point around which the selected vertexes/faces will rotate and they have the same properties as those listed under the Scale tool.

TIP: If you have 'Auto Tool' checked then the tools buttons will automatically switch between Select and the tool you are using every time you click the left mouse button.

Well, that's it. I haven't mentioned the 'Vertex', 'Face' and 'Extrude' buttons because they will be used extensively in the modelling tutorial.