Model editor

This document describes how to work with the Visual Studio Model Editor to view, create, and modify 3D models.

You can use Model Editor to create basic 3D models from scratch, or to view and modify more-complex 3D models that were created by using full-featured 3D modeling tools.

Supported formats

The Model Editor supports several 3D model formats that are used in DirectX app development:

Get started

This section describes how to add a 3D model to your Visual Studio C++ project and other basic information that will help you get started.

To add a 3D model to your project

1. Ensure you have the required Visual Studio component installed that you need to work with graphics. The component is called Image and 3D model editors.

   To install it, open Visual Studio Installer by selecting Tools > Get Tools and Features from the menu bar, and then select the Individual components tab. Select the Image and 3D model editors component under the Games and Graphics category, and then select Modify.

   

   The component starts installing.

2. In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the C++ project you want to add the image to, and then choose Add > New Item.

3. In the Add New Item dialog box, under the Graphics category, select 3D Scene (.fbx).

   

   Note

   If you don't see the Graphics category in the Add New Item dialog, and you have the Image and 3D model editors component installed, graphics items are not supported for your project type.

4. Enter the Name of the model file, and then select Add.

Axis orientation

Visual Studio supports every orientation of the 3D axis, and loads axis orientation information from model file formats that support it. If no axis orientation is specified, Visual Studio uses the right-handed coordinate system by default. The axis indicator shows the current axis orientation in the lower-right corner of the design surface. On the axis indicator, red represents the x-axis, green represents the y-axis, and blue represents the z-axis.

Begin your 3D model

In the Model Editor, each new object always begins as one of the basic 3D shapes—or primitives—that are built into the Model Editor. To create new and unique objects you add a primitive to the scene and then change its shape by modifying its vertices. For complex shapes, you add additional vertices by using extrusion or subdivision and then modify them. For information about how to add a primitive object to your scene, see Create and import 3D objects. For information about how to add more vertices to an object, see Modify objects.

Work with the Model Editor

The following sections describe how to use the Model Editor to work with 3D models.

Model Editor toolbars

The Model Editor toolbars contain commands that help you work with 3D models.

Commands that affect the state of the Model Editor are located on the Model Editor Mode toolbar in the main Visual Studio window. Modeling tools and scripted commands are located on the Model Editor toolbar on the Model Editor design surface.

Here's the Model Editor Mode toolbar:

This table describes the items on the Model Editor Mode toolbar, which are listed in the order in which they appear from left to right.

Here's the Model Editor toolbar:

The next table describes the items on the Model Editor toolbar, which are listed in the order in which they appear from top to bottom.

Control the view

The 3D scene is rendered according to the view, which can be thought of as a virtual camera that has a position and an orientation. To change the position and orientation, use the view controls on the Model Editor Mode toolbar.

The following table describes the primary view controls.

The view is established by the virtual camera, but it's also defined by a projection. The projection defines how shapes and objects in the view are translated into pixels on the design surface. On the Model Editor toolbar, you can choose either Perspective or Orthographic projection.

You might find it useful to view a 3D scene from a known position and angle, for example, when you want to compare two similar scenes. For this scenario, the Model Editor provides several predefined views. To use a predefined view, on the Model Editor Mode toolbar, choose View, and then choose the predefined view you want—front, back, left, right, top, or bottom. In these views, the virtual camera looks directly at the origin of the scene. For example, if you choose View Top, the virtual camera looks at the origin of the scene from directly above it.

View additional geometry details

To better understand a 3D object or scene, you can view additional geometry details such as per-vertex normals, per-face normals, the pivot points of the active selection, and other details. To enable or disable them, on the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > View, and then choose the one you want.

Create and import 3D objects

To add a predefined 3D shape to the scene, in the Toolbox, select the one you want and then move it to the design surface. New shapes are positioned at the origin of the scene. The Model Editor provides seven shapes: Cone, Cube, Cylinder, Disc, Plane, Sphere, and Teapot.

To import a 3D object from a file, on the Model Editor toolbar, choose Advanced > Scene Management > Import > and then specify the file that you want to import.

Transform objects

You can transform an object by changing its Rotation, Scale, and Translation properties. Rotation orients an object by applying successive rotations around the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis defined by its pivot point. Each rotation specification has three components—x, y, and z, in that order—and the components are specified in degrees. Scaling resizes an object by stretching it by a specified factor along one or more axes centered on its pivot point. Translation locates an object in 3-dimensional space relative to its parent instead of its pivot point.

You can transform and object either by using modeling tools or by setting properties.

Transform an object by using modeling tools

1. In Select mode, select the object you want to transform. A wireframe overlay indicates that the object is selected.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose the Translate, Scale, or Rotate tool. A translation, scaling, or rotation manipulator appears for the selected object.

3. Use the manipulator to perform the transformation. For translation and scaling transformations, the manipulator is an axis indicator. You can change one axis at a time, or you can change all axes at the same time by using the white cube at the center of the indicator. For rotation, the manipulator is a sphere made of color-coded circles that correspond to the x-axis (red), y-axis (green), and z-axis (blue). You have to change each axis individually to create the rotation you want.

Transform an object by setting its properties

1. In Select mode, select the object that you want to transform. A wireframe overlay indicates that the object is selected.

2. In the Properties window, specify values for the Rotation, Scale, and Translation properties.

   Important

   For the Rotation property, specify the degree of rotation around each of the three axes. Rotations are applied in order, so make sure to plan a rotation, first in terms of the x-axis rotation, then the y-axis, and then the z-axis.

By using the modeling tools, you can create transformations quickly but not precisely. By setting the object properties, you can specify transformations precisely but not quickly. We recommend that you use the modeling tools to get "close enough" to the transformations you want, and then fine-tune the property values.

If you don't want to use manipulators, you can enable free-form mode. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Tools > Free-form Manipulation to enable (or disable) free-form mode. In free-form mode, you can begin a manipulation at any point on the design surface instead of a point on the manipulator. In free-form mode, you can constrain changes to certain axes by locking the ones you don't want to change. On the Model Editor Mode toolbar, choose any combination of the Lock X, Lock Y, and Lock Z buttons.

You might find it useful to work with objects by using snap-to-grid. On the Model Editor Mode toolbar, choose Snap to enable (or disable) snap-to-grid. When snap-to-grid is enabled, translation, rotation, and scaling transformations are constrained to predefined increments.

Work with the pivot point

The pivot point of an object defines its center of rotation and scaling. You can change the pivot point of an object to change how it's affected by rotation and scaling transformations. On the Model Editor Mode toolbar, choose Pivot Mode to enable (or disabled) pivot mode. When pivot mode is enabled, a small axis indicator appears at the pivot point of the selected object. You can then use the Translation and Rotation tools to manipulate the pivot point.

For a demonstration that shows how to use the pivot point, see How to: Modify the pivot point of a 3D model.

World and local modes

Translation and rotation can occur in either the local coordinate system (or local frame-of-reference) of the object, or in the coordinate system of the world (or the world frame-of-reference). The world frame-of-reference is independent of the rotation of the object. Local mode is the default. To enable (or disable) world mode, on the Model Editor Mode toolbar, choose the WorldLocal button.

Modify objects

You can change the shape of a 3D object by moving or deleting its vertices, edges, and faces. By default, the Model Editor is in object mode, so that you can select and transform entire objects. To select points, edges, or faces, choose the appropriate selection mode. On the Model Editor Mode toolbar, choose Selection modes, and then choose the mode that you want.

You can create additional vertices by extrusion or by subdivision. Extrusion duplicates the vertices of a face (a co-planar set of vertices), which remain connected by the duplicated vertices. Subdivision adds vertices to create several faces where there was previously one. To create the new faces, new vertices are added—one in the center of the original face, and one in the middle of each edge—and then joined together with the original vertices. The number of added faces is equal to the number of edges in the original face. In both cases, you can translate, rotate, and scale the new vertices to change the geometry of the object.

To extrude a face from an object

1. In face-select mode, select the face you want to extrude.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Tools > Extrude.

To subdivide faces

1. In face-select mode, select the faces you want to subdivide. Because subdivision creates new edge data, subdividing all faces at once gives more-consistent results when the faces are adjacent.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Tools > Subdivide.

You can also triangulate faces, merge objects, and convert polygon selections into new objects. Triangulation creates additional edges such that a non-triangular face is converted to an optimal number of triangles; however, it doesn't provide additional geometric detail. Merging combines selected objects into one object. New objects can be created from a polygon selection.

Triangulate a face

1. In face-select mode, select the face you want to triangulate.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Tools > Triangulate.

Merge objects

1. In object-select mode, select the objects you want to merge.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Tools > Merge Objects.

Create an object from a polygon selection

1. In face-select mode, select the faces you want to create a new object from.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Tools > Create New Object from Polygon Selection.

Work with materials and shaders

The appearance of an object is determined by the interaction of lighting in the scene and the material of the object. Materials are defined by properties that describe how the surface reacts to different types of light and by a shader program that calculates the final color of each pixel on the object surface based on lighting information, texture maps, normal maps, and other data.

The Model Editor provides these default materials:

Each of these materials applies one texture on the surface of an object. You can set a different texture for each object that uses the material.

To modify how a particular object reacts to the different light sources in the scene, you can change the lighting properties of material independent of other objects that use the material. This table describes common lighting properties:

Depending on what a material supports, you can change its lighting properties, textures, and other data. In Select mode, select the object whose material you want to change, and then in the Properties window, change the MaterialAmbient, MaterialDiffuse, MaterialEmissive, MaterialSpecular, MaterialSpecularPower, or other available property. A material can expose up to eight textures, whose properties are named sequentially from Texture1 to Texture8.

To remove all materials from an object, on the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Materials > Remove Materials.

You can use the Shader Designer to create custom shader materials that you can apply to objects in your 3D scene. For information about how to create custom shader materials, see Shader Designer. For information about how to apply a custom shader material to an object, see How to: Apply a shader to a 3D model.

Scene management

You can manage scenes as a hierarchy of objects. When multiple objects are arranged in a hierarchy, any translation, scale, or rotation of a parent node also affects its children. This is useful when you want to construct complex objects or scenes from more basic objects.

You can use the Document Outline window to view the scene hierarchy and select scene nodes. When you select a node in the outline, you can use the Properties window to modify its properties.

You can construct a hierarchy of objects either by making one of them the parent to the others or by grouping them together as siblings under a placeholder node that acts as the parent.

Create a hierarchy that has a parent object

1. In Select mode, select two or more objects. The first one you select will be the parent object.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Scene Management > Attach to Parent.

Create a hierarchy of sibling objects

1. In Select mode, select two or more objects. A placeholder object is created and becomes their parent object.

2. On the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Scene Management > Create Group.

The Model Editor uses a white wireframe to identify the first selected object, which becomes the parent. Other objects in the selection have a blue wireframe. By default, placeholder nodes are not displayed. To display placeholder nodes, on the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Scene Management > Show Placeholder Nodes. You can work with placeholder nodes just as you work with non-placeholder objects.

To remove the parent-child association between two objects, select the child object, and then on the Model Editor toolbar, choose Scripts > Scene Management > Detach from Parent. When you detach the parent from a child object, the child object becomes a root object in the scene.

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