Welcome to Merging Vertices in
Blender! In this video we'll explore
Wireframe Mode, how to merge two vertices
into one vertex, why you would want to do
this, and how to control the sensitivity of
that merge. So let's hop over into Blender!
In front of us here we have the periscope we've been working on.
I'd like you to look at the Info Header, right at the very top of your
Blender window, and cast your eyes over to the right-hand side
where we can see it says Blender version 2.74. Then, it gives
us Verts and that says 20. We also can see 16 Faces.
So we're going to use that information, coming up, so we can
keep that as our reference. So let's hop over
into Edit Mode and make sure Vertex
Select is selected and let's just
scroll around and count our vertices. I count 12. If you count
all of the vertices that are here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So what's going on?
Why are there 20 vertices and I'm only seeing
12? Well even though we've merged this, so it's one mesh,
it's remembered that the vertex that makes up this
wedge is different from the one that makes up the cube, even though they exist in exactly
the same point in 3D space. So how do we
go about selecting the other one, because at the moment,
it doesn't matter where I click around this area, I can zoom in,
I just can't select it. Well not only does Wireframe
Mode, which is down here, so near Edit Mode
on the 3D Header we have our Viewport
Shading options. We can select Wireframe, we can also use the Z key.
So you may have told it, if you've ever tried to undo something
and miss-hit the keys. Now we're in
Wireframe mode. If you select, can you see it toggles
between the vertex on the wedge, and we can see that with the orange lines,
and the vertex of the cube. Now, ordinarily there'll be another
two lines coming out on these two edges here,
however, they are covered up.
So how do we merge these two together
and why would we want to do that? Well let's cover the why first. So I'm
going to hop back onto solid shading, and I'm going to go to Edge
Select. And remember that whenever you select Vertex
Select, Edge Select, or Face Select, what it's essentially doing
is selecting the vertices that make up that face
or that edge, or indeed, when it's just a Vertex Select just the vertex itself.
So if we select this front edge here,
it's likely to have selected
that wedge rather than the cube. And if we drag that forward,
it has excellent, we can see that's made more of a
house shape. So, in this case, we may not want
to merge these together, because now they're actually in two separate
places. However, if we wanted
to move the whole lot at once, thus creating a completely different
shape, what we'd want to do is merge these vertices
with these ones here. So if I Shift and click that
edge inside, as well, and go over to the
left-hand side onto the Tool Shelf and scroll all the way down,
there's an option to Remove Doubles.
Now, when you click on Remove Doubles nothing will happen,
and that's because the four vertices we have selected
are very very far from one another. They're
0.0001 Blender units. So we're going to
have to increase this number, down on the lower-left,
until they snap together. And there we go, they have now snapped together!
Now we can see, up there, that it's removed two vertices, because we're
now on 2, which is the 2 either side of this edge, out of
18 rather than 20. That's brilliant!
Let's do another example down at the bottom!
We're going to go to Vertex Select, select this one here,
and going to go into Wireframe, so I can select the other one
that's in exactly the same place. This time when I hit Remove
Doubles, because the Merge Distance is so high it's definitely going to work, but
because they are in exactly the same place in space,
it would work anyway. And that's removed another vertex, and now
we shall see that the amount has also dropped down, now to 17.
So I feel a challenge coming on! Are you guys ready?!
I'd like you to make your periscope the minimum number
of vertices that it can possibly be. Go ahead and
try that now!
Welcome back! Let's go and make our periscope have the
minimum number of vertices that it needs, in order to make the same shape.
So I've got this bit of a squiffy thing going on here!
Now if we lower the merge distance all the
way down to 0.00001 and select our
entire model and click on Remove Doubles,
it will remove the extra 5 vertices, in this case, that I had,
so now we have 12 out of 12. You could have
gone around and done each one individually for more control, but
in this case, because of the merge distance, I've lowered all the way back down
to a very low number. It only merges the ones that are in
exactly the same place in space. Now
I've now got full control over the model, and I can move that roughly
to where it was before. And, in fact, with the Median distance
here with the Y, I can actually go in there and type -1,
and that will probably straighten it up to where it was before. That looks
pretty neat to me! Excellent! How did you guys
get on?! Did you decide to select all of the
vertices and then just Remove Doubles on the entire model, or did you go around
one by one and take a bit more caution over it? Of course,
if you had had a very high number, when you were
merging, so we selected all and you clicked Remove Doubles, but this
was something much much higher, perhaps earlier on, you could have ended up
with a line or some sort of other shape going on.
A kind of cool sort of fractal crystal going on there, but
it's no longer our periscope.
And in fact, if it was really really high, you would find that all of the
vertices would merge to one point, and then, you would just have
one vertex left in your model and that's not really 3D anymore.
In fact, it's no dimension because it's just a point [Laughs] in space. But well,
let's stop being silly, and let's drag that all the way back down to where it was before,
so we've got our periscope back again. If you haven't
done it already, I suggest you go to File, Save As.
Name it something like Merging Vertices in Blender or whatever
you want to call it yourself and save that file. As always,
I would recommend saving as much as you can.
I do like the versioning, you can use that as a
fallback as well, as well as the system, or indeed Dropbox, but I do
like having finite control over what I'm doing. So in this case, I've Saved
As, and I've called it (Merging Vertices in Blender), for my own reference.
Remember guys, please save! Once you've lost work,
or messed it up beyond belief, it will be incredibly hard to get it back!
OK guys, see you in the next lecture!