Face Tools

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces
Hotkey: Ctrl-F

These are tools that manipulate faces.

Make Edge/Face

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Make Edge/Face
Hotkey: F

This will create an edge or some faces, depending on your selection. Also see Creating Geometry.

../../../_images/fill1.png

A closed perimeter of edges.
../../../_images/fill2.png

Filled using fill.

Fill

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Fill/Beautify Fill
Hotkey: Alt-F

The Fill option will create triangular faces from any group of selected edges or vertices, as long as they form one or more complete perimeters.

../../../_images/fill3.png

Filled using fill.

Note, unlike creating n-gons, fill supports holes.

../../../_images/fill1_holes.png

A closed perimeter of edges with holes.
../../../_images/fill2_holes.png

Filled using fill.

Beauty Fill

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Fill/Beautify Fill
Hotkey: Alt-Shift-F

Beautify Fill works only on selected existing faces. It rearrange selected triangles to obtain more “balanced” ones (i.e. less long thin triangles).

Max Angle
An angle delimiter option to limit edge rotation to flat surfaces.
../../../_images/mesh_beauty_fill_before.png

Text converted to a mesh.
../../../_images/mesh_beauty_fill_after.png

Result of Beauty Fill, Alt-Shift-F.

Grid Fill

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Fill/Grid Fill

Grid Fill uses a pair of connected edge-loops or a single, closed edge-loop to fill in a grid that follows the surrounding geometry.

Span
ToDo
Offset
ToDo
Simple Blending
ToDo
../../../_images/mesh_fill_grid_surface_before.png

Input.
../../../_images/mesh_fill_grid_surface_after.png

Grid Fill Result.

Solidify

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Solidify

This takes a selection of faces and solidifies them by extruding them uniformly to give volume to a non-manifold surface. This is also available as a Modifier. After using the tool, you can set the offset distance in the Operator Panel.

Thickness
Amount to offset the newly created surface. Positive values offset the surface inward relative to the normals direction. Negative values offset outward.
../../../_images/solidify-before.png

Mesh before solidify operation.
../../../_images/solidify-after.png

Solidify with a positive thickness.
../../../_images/solidify-after2.png

Solidify with a negative thickness.

Intersect

Intersect (Knife)

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Intersect (Knife)

The Intersect tool lets you cut intersections into geometry. It is a bit like Boolean Tool, but, does not calculate interior/exterior. Faces are split along the intersections, leaving new edges selected.

Source
Selected/Unselected
Operate between the selected and unselected geometry.
Self Intersect
Operate on the overlapping geometry of the mesh.
Separate
Splits the geometry at the new edge.
Merge Threshold
ToDo.

Intersect (Boolean)

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Intersect (Boolean)

Performs boolean operations with the selection on the unselected geometry. While the Boolean Modifier is useful for non-destructive edits, access to booleans as an edit-mode tool can be useful to quickly perform edits.

Boolean
Difference, Union, Intersect
Swap
Changes the order of the operation.
Merge Threshold
ToDo.

Wireframe

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Wire frame

The wireframe tool makes a wireframe from faces by to turning edges into wireframe tubes, similar to the Wireframe Modifier.

Poke Faces

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Poke Faces
Hotkey: Alt-P

This tool fan-fills each face around a central vertex. This can be useful as a way to triangulate n-gons, or the Offset can be used to make spikes or depressions.

Poke Offset
ToDo.
Offset Relative
ToDo.
Poke Center
Weighted Mean, Mean, Bounds

Triangulate Faces

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Triangulate Faces
Hotkey: Ctrl-T

As its name intimates, this tool converts each selected quadrangle into two triangles. Remember that quads are just a set of two triangles.

Triangles to Quads

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Triangles to Quads
Hotkey: Alt-J

This tool converts the selected triangles into quads by taking adjacent tris and removes the shared edge to create a quad, based on a threshold. This tool can be performed on a selection of multiple triangles.

This same action can be done on a selection of two tris, by selecting them and using the shortcut F, to create a face, or by selecting the shared edge and dissolving it with the shortcut X ‣ Dissolve.

To create a quad, this tool needs at least two adjacent triangles. If you have an even number of selected triangles, it is also possible not to obtain only quads. In fact, this tool tries to create “squarishest” quads as possible from the given triangles, which means some triangles could remain.

../../../_images/fill5.png

Before converting tris to quads.
../../../_images/quadtotris.png

After converting tris to quads.

All the menu entries and hotkey use the settings defined in the Mesh Tools panel:

Max Angle
This values, between (0 to 180), controls the threshold for this tool to work on adjacent triangles. With a threshold of 0.0, it will only join adjacent triangles that form a perfect rectangle (i.e. right-angled triangles sharing their hypotenuses). Larger values are required for triangles with a shared edge that is small, relative to the size of the other edges of the triangles.
Compare UVs
When enabled, it will prevent union of triangles that are not also adjacent in the active UV map.
Compare Vertex Color
When enabled, it will prevent union of triangles that have no matching vertex color.
Compare Sharp
When enabled, it will prevent union of triangles that share a edge marked as sharp.
Compare Materials
When enabled, it will prevent union of triangles that do not have the same material assigned.

Weld Edges into Faces

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Weld Edges into Faces

A Tool to split selected faces by loose wire edges. This can be used in a similar way to the knife tool, but the edges are manually setup first.

Rotate Edges

Reference

Mode: Edit Mode
Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Rotate Edge CW

This tool functions the same edge rotation in edge mode.

It works on the shared edge between two faces and rotates that edge if the edge was selected.

../../../_images/rotateedgefacemode1.png

Two Faces Selected.
../../../_images/rotateedgefacemode2.png

Full Render.

See Rotate Edge for more information.

Rotate & Reverse

Rotate UVs
Todo.
Reverse UVs
Todo.
Rotate Colors
Todo.
Reverse Colors
Todo.

Normals

See Editing Normals for more information.