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How do I add an edit point/CV in the midst of an existing curve?
Insert works well to add an additional Edit point within a curve.
Rebuild works well to uniformly change the overall number of controls.
You can add controls to the end of a curve with CURVE EDIT > MODIFY > ADD POINTS.
overall, keep your curves simple and avoid trying to do too much with a single curve. -
When I create a new curve, or even line, I can slide the first creation point along an existing curve if “snap to curve” is enabled. But I can’t seem to get this to work when using the ang command (draw a line at an angle to a curve). How do I get “snap to curve” to work on the ang command (and also, why is the behavior different than the curve/line creation… seems to me that the ang line is the one you really want to make sure is snapped to a curve properly)?
Keypoint curves have the benefit of have some additional attributes to the curve. hit CTRL +5 to open the information window when a keypoint curve is selected. you should see a section called attributes where you can change length and a few other parameters depending on the curve. pretty handy for laying out the initial size of your object. As others mentioned, use the DRAG KEYPOINT tool to move the keypoints around. as a long time user, i only use these curves for initial layout and the perpendicular lines tool. for cars, stick with the CV and EDIT curves. -
Keypoint curve creation seems to leave grey lines behind, even if I delete the keypoint curve. What are these grey lines and how can I get rid of them? They are very annoying, since they only seem to appear when a keypoint command is activated and they have some sort of snap behavior by default which I don’t know how to turn off.
yup, those can be annoying. in the PREFERENCEES > GENERAL PREFERENCES [option box] > MODELING WINDOWS. turn guidelines to 0 to turn them off all together. -
Keypoint curves doesn’t seem to have either CVs or Edit Points. What do they have, and how do I edit them?
DRAG KEYPOINT to modify them by default. if you want to start using a keypoint curve as a typical curve you just need to turn the controls on and start modifying them. I use the control panel all the time. you can toggle CVs and EPs very easily there. -
After I’ve created a curve on a surface, I am able to move the edit point beyond the boundaries of that surface (at which point the edit point disappears and become impossible to select). How can I select the CV when it’s outside of the surface? Basically i would not recommend building Curve on Surfaces or COS manually. you can mess with them but they can get tricky really fast. try to always generate them with either project, intersect, or tubular offset.
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Why doesn’t the “snap to point” or “snap to curve” seem to work when I move edit points of curves on surfaces?
COS have limited snapping capability and IMO not a recommended to mess with as a new user. best bet is to extend or use Curve Section to cut them. -
How can I delete a curve on a surface? (When I use “select object” on it, which works on normal curves, the surface also gets selected, and thus deleted if I use the “delete active” command.)
someone else answered this.
Drag Keypoint tool along with all the other Keypoint tools were combined in a single tool box a few years ago. many users use them only for specific task and not through out the entire modeling process. doing this really reduced the number of options in the curve creation menu.
PICK NOTHING. haha. love to hate this one as well. it is a very odd concept. its a combo of “complete”, “deselect” but does not leave the tool. unfortunately most of us have learned bad habits around this one. to reduce the use of it… try holding SHIFT to take you back to the selection mode of any of the transforms. you can also get rid of it all together, by using only PICK OBJECT… you can Deselect(replace) by click with the middle mouse button in an empty space.
Degree Vs Spans. in short. Single span geometry is called Bezier and the math is simpler and smoother. this is most important if you want to sculpt the CVs.