How Orbit builds objects

Orbit builds an object in layers. It starts as a primitive, a shape the program generates from settings you can change. Deformers reshape it and ORGANIC can round it off. When you need to work point by point, MAKE EDITABLE (TAB) turns it into a mesh. Booleans cut and join solid objects, and arrays repeat an object in a pattern. The settings and deformers stay editable until that conversion or a boolean bakes them into a fixed mesh.

#Primitives

ADD OBJECT in the toolbar lists 21 kinds of primitive, from SPHERE and BOX to TERRAIN and GROWTH. When one is selected, its settings appear near the top of the INSPECTOR. A sphere, for example, has SIDES and SEGMENTS under GEOMETRY, which set how many divisions its surface has around and from top to bottom. Change a setting and Orbit builds the shape again from the new numbers, so trying a value and changing it back leaves the shape as it was.

The settings describe the shape itself. Where it stands, how it is turned and how large it is are set separately, by POSITION, ROTATION and SCALE under TRANSFORM, and changing them does not touch the shape settings. Add objects shows the ways to add each kind.

#Deformers

A deformer reshapes an object after its settings have built it. TWIST turns the object more and more toward its top, BEND curves it and NOISE DISPLACEMENT roughens its surface. You add one with ADD DEFORMER, in the DEFORMERS section of the INSPECTOR, and it appears there as a row with its own sliders.

The rows form a stack that runs from top to bottom, and a new deformer always goes to the bottom. Each deformer works on the shape the rows above it produced, so the order changes the result. On a sphere, SMOOTH below SPIKE EXTRUSION softens the spikes. Put SMOOTH on top and it smooths the plain sphere before any spike exists, so the spikes stay sharp. Rows cannot be dragged into a new order. To move a deformer, remove it with the ✕ at the right of its row and add it again, which starts its sliders from their default values.

The object's own settings keep working underneath its deformers, and each deformer keeps its sliders. The checkbox at the left of a row switches that deformer off without removing it.

Most deformers apply one rule to every point of the object. MAGNET PULL and CAGE are shaped by hand instead, by dragging on the surface or by moving the points of a lattice around the object. SPIKE EXTRUSION, SHATTER, BURST and EXOSKELETON change how the surface is built, adding or splitting faces. SHATTER and BURST break the object into loose pieces. WATER and EMITTER take no deformers. To add and adjust deformers, see Bend, twist and melt objects with deformers.

#ORGANIC and SMOOTH ANGLE

ORGANIC smooths the finished shape. Turn it on with ENABLE SMOOTHING in the ORGANIC section of the INSPECTOR, or press O. It runs once, after the whole deformer stack, and rounds whatever the deformers made by splitting each face into smaller ones and easing the corners inward. A box comes out with rounded corners and edges. The section appears for SPHERE, BOX, CYLINDER, CONE, TORUS, PLATONIC, SPLINE TUBE, EXTRUDE and LATHE.

SMOOTH ANGLE, in the SHADING section, changes only the shading. Where the surface turns through more than the set angle from one face to the next, Orbit shades the edge between them as a crease. At the default of 180° it adds no creases, and a sphere shades smooth all over while a box keeps the hard corners it is built with. Because ORGANIC rounds the shape across its hard edges, a crease set with SMOOTH ANGLE does not survive the smoothing.

#Editable meshes

When settings and deformers cannot give the shape you want, click MAKE EDITABLE (TAB) in the INSPECTOR or press Tab. The object becomes an editable mesh, a fixed set of points, edges and faces that you move, cut and extrude by hand in poly edit mode. Edit a mesh point by point covers the tools.

The conversion bakes in the shape at that moment. The deformers and the ORGANIC pass become part of the mesh; the DEFORMERS list empties and ORGANIC turns off. SMOOTH ANGLE goes back to 180°, and because the mesh keeps the shape but not the creases, an object with hard edges can shade softer after the conversion. On the kinds that have a SHADING section, lowering SMOOTH ANGLE again brings the hard edges back.

The object's own settings stop having an effect, and outside poly edit mode the INSPECTOR shows them dimmed under MESH IS EDITED · PARAMETRIC LOCKED. Deformers added after the conversion work on the mesh and keep their sliders. From then on, Tab switches poly edit mode on and off, and the button reads ENTER POLY EDIT (TAB) or EXIT POLY EDIT (TAB). If an object was converted with no deformers, ORGANIC off and SMOOTH ANGLE at 180°, and you leave poly edit mode before changing its mesh, Orbit drops the mesh and the settings work again.

The kinds that convert are SPHERE, BOX, CYLINDER, CONE, TORUS, PLATONIC, TEXT, GROWTH and a loft drawn with the pen from two or more strokes. SPLINE TUBE, EXTRUDE, LATHE, HELIX, MÖBIUS, TORUS KNOT, METABALLS, TERRAIN, WATER, SADDLE, HYPERBOLOID, PARABOLOID and EMITTER do not. Orbit cannot rebuild those shapes as editable faces, so they have no MAKE EDITABLE (TAB) button and Tab does nothing on them. A single pen stroke becomes a SPLINE TUBE and cannot convert either.

#Going back to the settings

RESET TO PARAMETRIC, in the banner, reverses a conversion. Click it, then click it again when it reads TAP AGAIN TO CONFIRM. The mesh and every change made to it are discarded, and the object gets back its settings, the deformers that were baked in, ORGANIC and its SMOOTH ANGLE. Deformers added after the conversion stay, below the restored ones.

Right after a conversion, ⌘Z also restores the object exactly as it was. The result of a boolean has no settings to return to, and RESET TO PARAMETRIC on it leaves a plain box.

#Booleans

A boolean combines two or more solid objects that overlap. The BOOLEAN menu in the toolbar offers three operations, and a subtraction keeps the object you selected last.

The selected objects are replaced by one new baked mesh with their combined shape, in the place they stood, and their settings are gone. The new mesh takes the material of the object you selected last and starts with SMOOTH ANGLE at 30°, which keeps its flat faces meeting at crisp edges. It is an editable mesh from the start, so Tab goes straight into poly edit mode. One ⌘Z right after the boolean brings the original objects back. The practical steps are in Combine and cut objects with booleans.

An object with its array turned on cannot take part until you turn the array off, because the result would keep only the original and none of its copies.

#Closed solids and open surfaces

A boolean has to work out which parts of each object lie inside the others. That needs closed solids, surfaces that seal off a volume all the way around. An open surface has a border somewhere, an edge where its inside meets its outside, so it encloses no volume to cut or join. Before a boolean runs, Orbit checks every selected object, with its deformers and ORGANIC applied, for edges that border only one face, and it refuses the boolean if it finds any.

Some kinds are open by nature. WATER is an endless flat plane, TERRAIN a sheet of ground and a pen loft a thin shell. The tube of a HELIX stays open at both ends, and MÖBIUS, SADDLE, HYPERBOLOID and PARABOLOID are sheets that no setting can cap. A GROWTH is many branches that overlap without forming one solid. An EMITTER has no surface at all, only glowing motes.

In other kinds, a setting leaves the shape open. A LATHE with an open rim needs CAP ENDS, or THICKNESS when its profile starts on the axis, and one with SWEEP below 360° stays open. An EXTRUDE needs CAPS and a SPLINE TUBE needs CAP ENDS. A SHATTER or BURST deformer breaks a solid into loose pieces, so an object carrying one is refused until that deformer is switched off. When an object stops the boolean, the tooltip of the dimmed BOOLEAN names it and gives the reason.

#Arrays

An array repeats an object in a pattern. Turn on ENABLE ARRAY in the ARRAY section of the INSPECTOR and choose a pattern under MODE, from SCATTER, GRID, RADIAL, LINEAR, TERRAIN and PATH. The copies show the object as it is after its deformers and ORGANIC. They are drawn from the original rather than stored as objects of their own. Clicking any copy selects the original, and a change to the original appears in every copy at once. To set one up, see Repeat objects with arrays.