Taper, Twist, Bend, Shear & Drag Net
These five tools reshape the selected shapes rather than just moving them: Taper resizes one end more than the other, Twist turns them about an axis, Bend curves them into an arc, Shear slides one end further than the other, and Drag Net pulls whatever lies inside a sphere and leaves the rest. All of them are in the Transform accordion of the Voxel sidebar, and each one opens the Numeric window, where its settings live.
How they work
Select the shapes you want to change first. Twist, Bend and Shear are greyed out until something is selected. Every tool shows a live preview while you work, and nothing is kept until you say so:
- Apply at the bottom of the Numeric window, or Return, keeps the result.
- Esc drops it and puts everything back. For Twist, Bend and Shear, clicking the lit button again does the same.
Once applied, a deform is fixed. The deformed shapes are gathered into a group in the Voxel Tree, and that group's page in the Numeric window says what it holds: Bend: N degrees, Twist: N degrees, Shear: N m or Taper: X x Y x Z. As the Twist tooltip puts it, an applied deform can be moved, mirrored or deleted, but not edited. Use Undo to change your mind.
If you select several shapes for one deform, they must share a parent in the Voxel Tree. Otherwise the Numeric window says, for example, “These can't be bent together: pick nodes that share a parent.”
If Mirror mode is on in the Modify accordion, deforms happen on both sides of the mirror.
Taper
Taper resizes the selection more at one end than the other. It is the Scale handles with a linear falloff that deforms, so clicking it puts the Scale gizmo up. The Scale button itself stays unlit, because Taper is the tool that is on. Drag the Scale handles in a view. The Numeric window shows Scale with falloff, where X, Y and Z are percentages of the size the selection started at (100% means no change).
Under Falloff in the same window, you choose which end stays put and how far the ramp runs:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Shape | Where the effect starts: at the near end, the far end, the middle or both ends. The end where it starts is untouched, and the effect grows from there. |
| Ease in / Ease out | How the ramp leaves nothing and how it arrives at full, from -1 to 1. Presets sets both together. |
| Range | Automatic runs the ramp between the nearest and farthest ends of the selection. With Fixed, the range runs between two circles on the axis line in the views. Drag them to set where the falloff starts and ends. The strip between them is black where the effect is zero and white where it is full. |
| Axis | The world axis the range runs along. |
The Mode row is hidden while tapering. Rigid would scale each part whole and taper nothing. Click Taper again to put the handles away.
Twist
Twist turns the selected shapes about X, Y or Z, more along their length. After you click it, the status bar says “Twist: set the angle and profile, then Apply.” Your first click in a view sets the axis and the centre. In a Top, Front or Side view, the axis is the one that view looks along. After that, drag the crosshair to move the centre.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Angle | How far the twisted end turns, in degrees. A negative angle turns the other way. |
| Axis X / Y / Z | The world axis to twist about. Only the first click in a view picks the axis; after that, only these buttons change it. |
| Falloff → Shape | Where the twist starts. It can start at the end nearest the camera, the end farthest from it, the middle, or both ends. Where it starts stays put, and the twist grows away from there. |
| Center | Shown as “Center: … (set in the sidebar)”. It is the sidebar's action centre (Mouse, Selection, Pivot or Origin), the same one the transform gizmo uses. |
Bend
Bend curves the selected shapes into an arc. Click it, then click in a view to set where it bends. Then drag left or right to set the angle. While you drag, the Angle field in the Numeric window follows. In a view that looks down the bend's axis, the drag also sets the direction the bend points. Hold Ctrl to lock that direction to the nearest world axis.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Angle | How far the far end turns, in degrees, up to 180. A negative angle bends the other way. |
| Direction | Which way it bends, in degrees around the axis. The tooltip names the two world axes 0 and 90 point toward. |
| Shape | Two buttons. With the first, the Start stays put and the bend grows toward the End. With the second, the End stays put and the bend grows toward the Start. |
| Range | Automatic runs the range along the whole selection, along the axis. Fixed runs it from Start to End. Type the points below, or drag the circles on the axis line in the views. |
| Axis X / Y / Z | The world axis the range runs along. The first click in a view picks one. |
| Start / End X, Y, Z | The two ends of the range, as world points. The axis line runs through them. Their position along the axis can be edited only when the Range is Fixed. Changing a coordinate across the axis moves the whole line. |
Shear
Shear moves the selected shapes more at one end of the falloff than the other, like pushing over a stack of cards. Click it, then click in a view to set the centre and the axis, and drag to move. Hold Ctrl to lock the drag to an axis.
In the Numeric window, X, Y and Z show how far the far end moves. You can type exact values there instead of dragging. Below them are the same Falloff controls described under Taper, with their Axis row. There is no Mode row, because a shear always deforms.
Drag Net
Drag Net drags whatever lies inside a sphere and leaves the rest where it was. It is the Move handles with a radial falloff, so the surface inside the sphere is pulled out smoothly and the outside does not move. It starts smooth, with Ease in and Ease out at 1. The Numeric window shows Move with falloff, with the drag's X, Y and Z offsets.
The sphere starts with its Range set to Fixed, because you draw the net yourself. Until you do, the Numeric window says “Right-drag in a Top / Front / Side view to draw it out.” Right-drag out from the middle to size it, or from the square at its centre to move it. Then drag the Move handles.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Range | Automatic sizes the sphere to hold the selection. Fixed lets you set its size and where it sits. |
| Radius | How far the field reaches along each axis. The three values let the field be an ellipsoid. Zero on an axis means no limit that way, so the field becomes a tube running right through the model. |
| Center | Where the field sits, measured from the middle of the selection. It rides along when the selection moves. |
Drag Net always deforms, so the Numeric window has no Mode row for it. When you apply it, the result becomes a locked group. Click Drag Net again to put the handles away.
Dragging a Drag Net again
After you apply a net, its result stays selected. You cannot drag a net on top of an existing one. The Numeric window says “… is already a Drag Net. Flatten it before dragging it again.”, and a Flatten button appears below the message. Click it to bake the first net into a plain shape, then drag again.