dcc wrote:
> 
> I am trying to make a S curve cylinder with a bezier patch. It is not smooth
> or easy to manipulate. I also tried in spatch without much success. Any
> suggestions?

Takes a good deal of patience, but here are some tips that will at
least make it possible (if not actually easy) 
1.) When you create your bezier cylinder, make sure to make it at
least 3 or 4 cylinders high... 1 or 2 cylinders high and you won't
have enough control points to work with, bearing in mind that a
multipatch creation has some controls points (where the patches
meet) which can't be independantly moved by the user -- otherwise
the patches wouldn't come together), so you need to use more
patches to get more controls points you can work with. And...
2.) Experiment with the various point manipulation modes. The
default is "translate", but this can be very hard to "bend" points
together just right. You may experience more luck with "rotate"
mode, and especially try "rotate" and "local" together (which
rotates selected points around each other instead of the origin).
By fiddling with these various transform modes, you eventually
obtain better control of your point manipulation. And lastly...
3.) When you're through experimenting and ready to try "for real"
do a File | Save after each successful move... alas there is no
Undo for bezier patch manipulation, so File | Save is the clunky
but better-than-nothing "poor man's Undo". <g>

Charles

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