Okay, I want to snap some vertices on a fuselage to the vertices on a wing, without doing any modification to the wing.

I have tried making the wing part of the fuselage and then colapsing the vertices but the wing was deformed when I did this, and it has to stay the same, otherwise other parts of the thing go awry.

I suppose I should use Snap/Vertex, but it doesn't seem to work.  I open the snap box that displays the available snaps, and check Vertex and uncheck everything else, and then try moving the vertices around to the approximate position they should be in.  As far as I know, this should make them "jump" to the nearest vertex, but they don't seem to do it.  Is there something else I should be doing?  Do I have to push some button or turn something else on/off?

HEEEELLLLPPP!!!!!

I think I need more practice with Gmax before I attempt a project.  I guess I'll just have to give up on the current one and go back to school.

Agravation after agravation . . . .

Could you post a screen shot of what you're trying to do?

I've found pictures help a lot in understanding what the problem is and pictures do a great job of showing solutions as well. If I weren't in the middle of a couple major life events I'd sit down and make a simple tutorial on using the snap tool. (The snap to edge tool in all Discreet products is pretty useless IMHO)

The brute force & ignorance way would be to write down the coordinates of the wing root vertices then change the fuselage vertices to fit. 

However this will only work if you have an exact match of vertices either side of the join I'm afraid..... 

Hope that helps a bit.

A.

Well, for this project, since I was a bimbo and didn't FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS I used Mr. Preece's advice and did the stuborn thing.  Only problem is, its gonna take me another two hours to do the tail!  But, since I was a bimbo, I'm getting my just desserts.

I will remember next time, I swear!!!

OK- here's a quick and unrefined tutorial

The set up is similar to Ender Baron's screen shot. I've gone into the properties and turned on the vertice tics so it's easier to see what's going on. I made it so there are different numbers of vertices on the edge of the wing and on the edge of the fuselage.




First grab the line tool, and then create a simple closed spline that has the number of vertices that you want to have in your connector patch. In this example I'll want nine vertices.  It's important that you make this spline in an open area on the viewport, and not on top of other shapes.



Answer yes when it ask if you want a closed spline. With the spline selected, select edit mesh modifier or just convert the spline to an editable mesh.



Right click on the 3d snap button to bring up the grid and snap settings - under options make sure the translation use axis constraints is UNCHECKED



under snaps just select vertice - have everything else unchecked



Now select the connection patch polygon and get into edit mesh, vertice level, with 3d snap ON (hitting the S key will toggle the 3d snap tool on and off) and then click and drag the vertices to the different vertices on the two shapes you want to connect.



I changed the color of the polygon so it'd be easier to tell apart from the other shapes. Work your way around till all the vertices have been snapped into place.



You should end up with something that looks like this



Then it's just a matter of picking either the wing or the fuselage and with an edit mesh modifier on, select attach and then click on your connection polygon and you set.



Then you would repeat the process until you had all the patches you needed to complete the connection. I usually would have 3 or four, depending on how curvered the bottom of the wing is.

Hope this helps.   Gotta go pack.

Felix and others have been helping me with my movie project. I thought it was time for a little tutorial, sort of like pay-back.

This community is at it's best when people help one another.

Okay, I know this is probably posted in some tutorial, but if somebody could give me a quick answer, I would be grateful.

I'm attempting to create the gear structures, but to do that, I must have them in the down position.  The problem is, I don't know how to rotate them to where they need to be.

I have set the pivot to the position I want, but when I rotate it, it doesn't make any difference in the direction the object rotates.  It still spins on the three main axis.

How do I set the pivot so its kinda off-kilter?

The bright blue object is the thing I'm trying to rotate.  You can probably see that it isn't aligned with the grid, and so won't rotate on the right axis.

Here's the object in bright blue:



I rotate it using the rotate tool, but I can't get it to rotate off the regular three axes.  See the gap?


I know I should find a tutorial that specifies this action, but I can't follow anything more complicated than the Moron's Guide to Gmax . . .

Okay.  Configuration issue, this time.  I was working on the H-1 last night and for some reason, today I can't open the file.  When I try, Gmax runs through its loading process and then just before it loads the actual file, it gives me the message "File Open Failed:" and then it gives me the location of the file I'm trying to open.  All other files I have open just fine, but there's something really wrong with the other one.

I do have a few backups, but that one had some things in there that would have to be redone from scratch, and several parts of the aircraft would have to be deleted and redone.

Any thoughts?

No, I haven't done anything to my system or the pathways for Gmax, it just all of a sudden wouldn't open that particular file.

Oh, well, I think I'm going to go ahead and start anew.  Maybe this time it won't look so deformed!

Go figure, the one I wanted wasn't there!   There were three or four from other minor assemblies of the files I merged from, but none from the one I wanted.  Apparently, Gmax just backs up the files IT wants.  Oh, well.

As this is getting into a new topic, I've made the "gmax polyflips" thread.