Manual/Cast Modifier

From BlenderWiki

User Manual: Contents | Guidelines | Blender Version 2.44

Contents

[hide]

Cast Modifier

Mode: Any Mode

Panel: Editing Context → Modifiers

Hotkey: F9

Description

This modifier shifts the shape of a mesh, curve, surface or lattice to any of a few pre-defined shapes (sphere, cylinder, cuboid).

It is equivalent to the To Sphere button in the Editing Context → Mesh Tools panel and the To Sphere command in the Editing Context → Mesh → Transform menu, as well as what other programs call "Spherify" or "Spherize", but, as written above, it is not limited to casting to a sphere.

Hint: the Smooth modifier is a good companion to Cast, since the casted shape sometimes needs smoothing to look nicer or even to fix shading artifacts.


Important: For performance, this modifier works only with local coordinates. If the modified object looks wrong, you may need to apply the object's rotation (hotkey: CTRL+a), specially when casting to a cylinder.

Options

Cast modifier
Cast modifier
Type
Menu to choose cast type (target shape): Sphere, Cylinder or Cuboid.
X Y Z
Toggle buttons to enable / disable the modifier in the X, Y, Z axes directions.
Factor
The factor to control blending between original and casted vertex positions. It's a linear interpolation: 0.0 gives original coordinates (aka modifier has no effect), 1.0 casts to the target shape. Values below or above [0.0, 1.0] deform the mesh, sometimes in interesting ways.
Radius
If nonzero, this radius defines an sphere of influence. Vertices outside it are not affected by the modifier.
Size
Alternative size for the projected shape. If zero, it is defined by the initial shape and the control object, if any.
From radius
Toggle: if ON, calculate Size from Radius, for smoother results.
Object
The name of an object to control the effect. The location of this object's center defines the center of the projection. Also, its size and rotation transform the projected vertices. Hint: animating (keyframing) this control object also animates the modified object.
VGroup
A vertex group name, to restrict the effect to the vertices in it only. This allows for selective, realtime casting, by painting vertex weights.

Examples

These models also have Subsurf modifiers applied after the Cast modifier:

Casting to sphere: Left: Factor: -0.8. Center: Factor: 0.0 (disabled). Right: Factor: 0.8.
Casting to sphere: Left: Factor: -0.8. Center: Factor: 0.0 (disabled). Right: Factor: 0.8.
Casting to cylinder: Left: Factor: -0.8. Right: Factor: 0.8.
Casting to cylinder: Left: Factor: -0.8. Right: Factor: 0.8.
Casting to cuboid: Left: Factor: -0.8. Right: Factor: 0.8.
Casting to cuboid: Left: Factor: -0.8. Right: Factor: 0.8.

These have Subsurf (in simple subdiv mode) applied before the Cast modifier, to have more vertices to work with:

Casting Suzanne: Left: to sphere; Center: to cylinder. Right: to cuboid.
Casting Suzanne: Left: to sphere; Center: to cylinder. Right: to cuboid.


Previous: Manual/Build Contents Next: Manual/Curve_Modifier
Personal tools