Editors

Edit Mode

Edit the metaball itself: every header menu, tool, sidebar tab and context menu of Edit Mode.

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5.1

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Metaball › Edit Mode: every menu, tool, sidebar tab and context menu of this mode, on one page. Use the panels on the right to jump between the regions.

The Metaball menu just exists for Metaball objects.

Transform submenu

To Sphere

Shapes a selection of Meta elements into the shape of a sphere. The calculation happens with the object origins.

Usage

Select the elements, activate the tool, then drag the mouse in the 3D viewport. In the header you will read the current factor then. Which tells you how close you are towards the sphere shape. This also works with meta elements in the same way.

Last Operator To Sphere

Entry	What it does
Factor	The factor to transform the selection into a shape form.
Mirror Editing	Enable mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Entry	What it does
Proportional Falloff	Adjust the falloff methods.
Proportional Size	See and adjust the falloff radius.
Connected	The proportional falloff gets calculated for connected parts only.
Projected(2D)	The proportional falloff.

Shear

Shear shears the selection.

In Object mode this tools requires to have more than one object selected.

The shear tool works along a imaginary 2d plane. The shear axis controls if the items are sheared along the x or the y axes of this plane. This is the plane along which the transformation happens. You can shear along the x or the y axis of this plane.

To make things even more complicated, the orientation of this imaginary plane is defined by the Axis and Axis Ortho items below.

Last Operator Shear

Offset

Adjust an offset.

Axis

Defines one axis of the imaginary shear axis plane.

Axis Ortho

Defines the other axis of the imaginary shear axis plane.

Entry	What it does
Orientation	Choose the orientation for the shear action.
Mirror Editing	Enable mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Entry	What it does
Proportional Falloff	Adjust the falloff methods.
Proportional Size	See and adjust the falloff radius.
Connected	The proportional falloff gets calculated for connected parts only.
Projected(2D)	The proportional falloff gets calculated in the screen space. Depth doesn't play a role. When it's in the radius, then it gets calculated.

Bend

Bends the selection. You need more than one meta element.

Push/Pull

It pushes or pulls the object positions relative to the center of the selection.

In Object mode this tool requires to have more than one object selected.

Last Operator Push/Pull

Entry	What it does
Distance	Adjust the distance of influence of the tool.
Mirror Editing	Enable mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Entry	What it does
Proportional Falloff	Adjust the falloff methods.
Proportional Size	See and adjust the falloff radius.
Connected	The proportional falloff gets calculated for connected parts only.
Projected(2D)	The proportional falloff gets calculated in the screen space. Depth doesn't play a role. When it's in the radius, then it gets calculated.

Warp

Warps a selection between two defined points. This also works with Metaballs. You need more than one metaball element.

Last operator Warp

Entry	What it does
Warp Angle	The strength of the warp effect.
Offset Angle	An offset angle to bend side-wards.

Min

The start point.

Max

The end point.

Randomize

This tool allows randomizes the positions of the selected meta elements.

Last Operator Randomize Transform

Entry	What it does
Amount	Adjust the amount.
Uniform	The uniform offset distance.
Normal	Align the offset direction to the normals.
Random Seed	The seed value for randomization.

Move Texture Space

This tool relies at the move tool. With the difference that it moves the texture space instead of the object. It has also a very special use case, and just works with a material with a Texture Coordinate / Generated node. And requires to have the shading at Material or Rendered to see a result in the viewport.

In the viewport you will see the UV cage in black color. In the header you will see the values for the current position of the UV cage.

Note that once done and applied, there is no way to reset the UV cage back to zero. When you repeat the operation, then the values will start at 0 again. Even when the UV cage is already offset.

Last Operator Move

Move

Adjust in which directions you want to transform.

Orientation

Choose the orientation.

Mirror Editing

Enable mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Entry	What it does
Proportional Falloff	Adjust the falloff methods.
Proportional Size	See and adjust the falloff radius.
Connected	The proportional falloff gets calculated for connected parts only.
Projected(2D)	The proportional falloff gets calculated in the screen space. Depth doesn't play a role. When it's in the radius, then it gets calculated.

Scale Texture Space

Scale Texture space is similar to the Move texture Space. With the only difference that it scales the UV space instead of moving it.

This tool relies at the scale tool. With the difference that it scales the texture space instead of the object. It has also a very special use case, and just works with a material with a Texture Coordinate / Generated node. And requires to have the shading at Material or Rendered to see a result in the viewport.

In the viewport you will see the UV cage in black color. In the header you will see the values for the current position of the UV cage.

Note that once done and applied, there is no way to reset the UV cage back to zero. When you repeat the operation, then the values will start at 0 again. Even when the UV cage is already offset.

Last Operator Resize

Scale

Adjust in which directions you want to transform.

Orientation

Choose the orientation.

Mirror Editing

Enable mirror editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings.

Entry	What it does
Proportional Falloff	Adjust the falloff methods.
Proportional Size	See and adjust the falloff radius.
Connected	The proportional falloff gets calculated for connected parts only.
Projected(2D)	The proportional falloff gets calculated in the screen space. Depth doesn't play a role. When it's in the radius, then it gets calculated.

Set Dimensions

Edit Mode Only!

Normally all scale operations in Bforartists are relative to the current selection and dimensions. And you always start with a relative value of 1.

Set dimensions allows to scale object selections in absolute world values. No matter how the initial values are. The new values gets set in the Last Operator.

Set dimensions is an add-on. You can turn it off in the add-ons section of the user preferences when you want.

Last Operator Set Dimensions

New Dimensions

When you activate the tool then you will see the world coordinates of the selection. Change the values to other world coordinates.

Mirror submenu

Mirror mirrors the selected geometry along the defined axis.

Interactive Mirror

Mirror by hotkeys. You activate the tool, type in x for x global for example, or x x for x local. And the selection gets mirrored

X Global, Y Global etc.

Mirrors the selection around the chosen axis.

Last Operator Mirror

The Last Operator Mirror panel gives you tools to adjust the mirror action.

Orientation

Orientation is a drop-down box . Choose the type of orientation for the mirroring action.

Constraint Axis

Constraint Axis gives you again the possibility to define the mirror axis. You can choose more than one axis here.

Snap submenu

Snap

Choose several methods to snap one element to another. The menu items should be self explaining.

Last operator Snap Selection to Cursor

Some snap operations shows a last operation panel, some not.

Entry	What it does
Offset	If the selection should snap as a whole, or if each individual element of the selection should snap.
Rotation	If the selection should be rotated to match the cursor.

Operators

Duplicate

Duplicates the current selection. This can be a single control point or a whole curve.

The copy sticks to the mouse until you release it. A Right click while moving will reset the position of the duplicate. The duplicated part will be part of the same object.

When you drag the duplicate around you will see the position values in the header.

Last Operator Duplicate

Move X , Y , Z

Orientation

Choose the orientation.

Entry	What it does
Mirror Editing	Enable Mirror Editing.
Proportional editing	Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings. · Proportional Falloff: Adjust the falloff methods. · Proportional Size: See and adjust the falloff radius. · Connected: The proportional falloff gets calculated for connected parts only. · Projected(2D): The proportional falloff gets calculated in the screen space. Depth doesn't play a role. When it's in the radius, then it gets calculated.

Entry

What it does

Mirror Editing

Enable Mirror Editing.

Proportional editing

Enables proportional editing. Activating proportional editing reveals further settings. · Proportional Falloff: Adjust the falloff methods. · Proportional Size: See and adjust the falloff radius. · Connected: The proportional falloff gets calculated for connected parts only. · Projected(2D): The proportional falloff gets calculated in the screen space. Depth doesn't play a role. When it's in the radius, then it gets calculated.

Show / Hide

Show Hidden

Makes all curve geometry in the scene visible again.

Hide Selected

Hides the selected curve geometry.

Last Operator Hide Selected

Unselected

Hides the not selected curve geometry.

Hide Unselected

Hides the not selected curve geometry. The selected geometry stays visible.

Delete

Deletes the current selection.

Tool Shelf

Tools

Tool Shelf - Metaball - Edit Mode

Tweak, Select, 3D Cursor, Transform, Measure and Annotate tools

The Tweak, Select , 3D Cursor, Transform, Measure and Annotate tools at the end of the list are explained in the chapter 7.1.1 Editors - 3D View - Tool Shelf - Object Mode. We won't cover this tools again here.