Metasequoia Documentation




Toolbars-



File: Press Alt+F to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the file toolbar on the menu.


New: Pretty self explanatory, this creates a new file for you to model on. The shortcut is Ctrl+N.

Open: This is to open a pre existing file you have already created or downloaded. The shortcut is Ctrl+O.

Save: This is to save your current progress you have made with your model. The shortcut is Ctrl+S.

SaveAs: This is to rename the current file you have loaded.

Insert: This is to insert a file into your the current file you are working on. This is very useful when making animation skins and also when you make pieces of an armor set separately and then use the insert to get the whole set at the end. E.g. You open up the file sword.mqo and it contains a sword, you then click on insert and select the file armor.mqo, which contains a set of armor. Then in the file sword.mqo you would have the sword and the armor together. The shortcut is Ctrl+I.

Rendering: This is supposed to be a way of rendering your model to look nice. The renderer in Metasequoia is a bit... outdated to be nicely put and will not do great justice to your model. I rarely ever use this feature. The shortcut is Shift+Ctrl+R.

Export to DOGA-L: I have never used this feature, and it seems to not work on my version of Metasequoia. I presume that DOGA-L is a type of modeling software that it can be exported to.

Configuration: This is really useful in making your modeling as effective as possible. You can view all of your current shortkeys here and also change the colors of the interface. For example my lines are white instead of pink or whatever they were, and my background is a dark grey. You can also create new shortcuts. A really useful shortcut that I use is Align Selected Vertices. You can change or create shortkeys by first clicking on Keyboard. Next you will click on a little box that is about in the center of the Configuration window that says "Customize shortcut keys". To set up the Align Vertices shortcut you will need to find the category "Menu|Selected". Next, on the right side, look for Align Vertices. I made my shortcut Alt+M by checking the box Alt and selecting the key to be the letter M. To mess with your configuration it really isn't that difficult, and if you don't know exactly what something is, then I advise you to not mess with it.

Basic Mode: If I am correct this is automatically seleced. Before you do any modeling you should uncheck the Basic Mode. This will just limit the possibilities of the program and you may also not see what I am talking about, because it hides certain interfaces.

Latest Files: These are the latest files that you have loaded into the program Metasequoia. Pretty self explanatory also.

Exit: This exits you out of Metasequoia.




Edit: Press Alt+E to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the edit toolbar on the menu.


Undo: This undo's the most recent thing you have done. If you made a mistake this is a handy tool to use. The shortcut is Ctrl+Z.

Redo: This redo's the last thing you undid. Really useful if you decided to change your mind about undoing something. The shortcut is Ctrl+Y.

Select All: This selects everything that is currently loaded into the program. The shortcut is Ctrl+A.

Invert all of the selection of vertices: This basically means that if you have some vertices selected and you click this, the vertices that weren't selected become selected, and the vertices that you had selected become unselected.

Invert all of the selection of faces: Same thing as "Invert all of the selection of vertices" except it does it with selected faces.

Unselect All: It unselects everything you currently have selected. The shortcut is Ctrl+D.

Select all in a current object: When you open up the object panel, which I will show you how to do so later, you can visually see how many objects there are. Whichever object is highlighted with a blue color is the current object. When you click this button is selects all of the faces, vertices, and lines in the current object. The shortcut is Ctrl+B.

Invert all of the selection of vertices in a current object: This does the same thing as "Invert all of the selection of vertices" except for that it is only in the current object. As stated above, the current object is the object in the object panel that is highlighted in blue.

Invert all of the selection of faces in a current object: This does the same thing as "Invert all of the selection of faces" except for that it is only in the current object. As stated above, the current object is the object in the object panel that is highlighted in blue.

Unselect all in a current object: This unselects everything that you have selected in your current object.

Select all the faces in a current material: This selects all of the faces on your model that have the current material applied. You can tell which material is the current material by which material is highlighted in blue, same as the object. The shortcut is Alt+K.

Unselect all the faces in a current material: This unselects all of the faces on your model that have the current material applied. You can tell which material is the current material by which material is highlighted in blue, same as the object.

Lock Selection: I cannot get this to work, but what I presume it is supposed to do is lock the current faces, vertices, and edges you have selected so that they cannot be altered in any way.



Attribute: Press Alt+A to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the attribute toolbar on the menu.


Hide Selected Faces: This will act as if you deleted the faces you had selected. It is a very useful tool when adding animation skins, so you know which parts you have added animtion data to. The shortcut is Ctrl+H.

Hide Unselected Faces: This will act as if you deleted the faces you didn't have selected. The shortcut is Shift+Ctrl+H.

Show Hidden Faces: This will make the faces that you made dissappear, reappear. The shortcut is Ctrl+G.

Fix selected vertices and faces: This will lock the vertices and faces in place. You cannot alter them in anyway until you unfix them.

The next three: Fix Selection, Store Selection, and Restore Selection, we are going to skip. I have never used them, and I don't know what they do. After clicking on them and trying to figure out what they do I still have no idea. You probably won't need them either.

Set center of rotation: This sets the center of where your view pivots on. This really isn't needed because a much more effective way of moving about the screen is clicking the scroll wheel and moving the mouse. This will move your center of rotation much more easier. The shortcut is Ctrl+W.

Fit to view: This will take the current angle and direction you are looking at the model and zoom it out so that the whole entire model fits in the screen. This is a really useful tool when taking a screenshot. The shortcut is Ctrl+F.



Selected: Press Alt+S to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the selected toolbar on the menu.


Cut: This will delete whatever you have selected and place the deleted faces to the clipboard. The shortcut is Ctrl+X.

Copy: This will copy the faces you have selected to the clipboard. The shortcut is Ctrl+C.

Paste: This will paste the faces you have on your clipboard into the current file. The shortcut is Ctrl+V.

Del: This deletes the current selection of faces. The shortcut is the delete key.

Invert: This takes the faces you have selected and turns them inside out. Basically this means that the faces that appeared on the front are now on the other side, and the faces on the other side, are now on the front. If you can picture having a ball that has a hole in it, and you flip the ball inside out so the inside of the ball is now on the outside, that is the same thing you are doing with this tool.

Double Sided Face: This makes it so that the selection of faces now have a face on the front and on the back. If you were to have a plane, the plane would have a face from an aerial perspective and from a view of the bottom.

Set Material to Faces: This applies the selected material in the material panel to the faces that are selected.

Extrude Faces: This extrudes the selected faces by an increment of your own decision. This is much more precise than extruding by clicking and dragging. The shortcut is Ctrl+E.

Mirror: This mirrors the selection of faces. It is the exact opposite of the faces selected.

Move Faces to a New Object: This is a really handy tool. After you have been modeling for a while you will realize it is quite more efficient to separate your model into separate objects. This way, through the object panel, you can hide different sections of the model and view other parts of your model that were otherwise hard to view or work with. I highly suggest working with this tool when you first start modeling to get the feel of when to break something into a new object.

Merge Two Triangles: This basically turns two triangles into one quad[rilateral]. Handy if you are trying to un-triangulate a model, but can be quite tedious. I've never really used this tool to be honest as it is too tedious.

Triangulate Selected Faces: This will triangulate all of your selected faces. You must do this before importing your model into a game as a graphics card can only handle triangular faces.

Symmetry: I really can't get this tool to work. I assume that it would create the vertices to be symmetrical, but I can't figure out how it works. If anyone has any insight on this I would gladly add it to the tutorial and credit you. :) The shortcut is Ctrl+R.

Join Vertices: This is a really helpful tool. This tool is great for creating an edge on a blade, getting rid of unnecessary vertices, and closing gaps. I use this tool quite a lot and I suggest you start using it also. Shortcut is Ctrl+J.

Align Vertices: This tool will align the selected vertices along the axis of your choice. After you have used this tool over a period of time, you will begin to understand which axis is which, and to select which axis(es) to get the desired result. Just a recap, x is left to right, y is up and down, and z is front to back.

Flatten: It really is that simple. This tool just flatten the selection faces/vertices. Nothing else to it.

Round: This is basically a type of bevel. This just bevels the edges of your selection so that the edges aren't sharp. Can become quite glitchy if overused.

Separate Faces: This will rip the selection of faces from your current model. They will no longer be attached to the current mesh and be free floating.

Erase Vertex Color: At first I thought this was to get rid of a vertex weight, but it appears not. I am not exactly sure what this is for, but if anyone has any insight on this I would be glad to add it to the tutorial.



Object: Press Alt+O to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the object toolbar on the menu.


Create: Located in this section in the Object toolbar is different scripts (I guess you could call them this) that will generate a model for you. I have a script that will generate a human character that I can make it vary by how fat or muscular it is, but by default you should only have two; Landscape and Create Text.

	Landscape creates a landscape by an image provided. This is done by the different extremities of shading on the image provided. Is quite a neat tool and creates landscapes much more efficiently. I am pretty sure it comes with an example. If not I can provide one.

	Create Text: This is a text generator. To explain how the interface works (starting from top to bottom), the first box is the type of font you want the text generated in. The second box is the text you want generated, and the third box is how smooth (subdivided) you want the letters to be.

Freeze: You can use this to subdivide your models. I think what the actual tool does is freeze proporties you have applied to the object, but is not an actual part of the mesh. For example you can subdivide your model without making it real geometry. If you press freeze and have the patch box ticked, you can make the subdivision actual geometry.

Shift the Position: This moves the selected object. It will shift it in any one direction that you have selected.

Join Closed Vertices: This tool does the same thing as Ctrl+J, but it does it on the whole entire object. You have to tell the program how close the vertices have to be though to be joined. A safe number I always go with is .15.

Reduce Polygons: This reduces the amount of polygons in the given object. This tool isn't one of the best polygon reduction tools I have seen, so I wouldn't recommend using this to drastically reduce the polygons of a model. It uses the number of vertices in a model to reduce it by.

Mesh Smoothing: This is basically another term for subdivide. This will subdivide (make the mesh [model] smoother) your mesh by an increment of your decision.

Align Faces: It is late at night and I'm not really sure how this works, nor am I willing to figure it out right now. If anyone has some insight on how it works or what it does, I would be glad to add it to the tutorial.

Delete Overlapped Faces: This is a handy tool if you accidentally have two faces lying on top of each other. I sometimes do this by accident when joining vertices or extruding. Gets rid of those pesky faces that you don't see and don't necessarily need.

Unify Faces: This is a handy tool if you want to get rid of any double sided faces. The only bad thing is that you can't control which face gets deleted. Sometimes it seems to be random and othertimes it doesn't.

Attach Current Material to Non-Material Faces: This adds the current material selected in the material panel to faces that don't have any materials applied to them in the current object.

ƒu[ƒŠƒA": It seems to combine your objects or subtract your objects in different ways. The interface goes like this (name of object) [function] (name of object2). I found out the last function you can pick mixes the two objects you selected. A bit interesting.

Wired: Deletes all of the faces in the current object and makes your model "just a wireframe".

Delete Lines: This is very useful if you, say, open up DatMaker and it says "Contains Lines". That means that you need to open up your model and press this button. What it does is delete any lines that do not have a face connected to them.




View:  Press Alt+V to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the view toolbar on the menu.


Document Information: This displays information about the current model you are working on. Use this if DatMaker ever tells you that you have lines in your model. This will tell you how many lines you have that do not also have a face. The only one that is ambiguous (to me, that is) is the patch. Patch is how many faces the model has with the current method of subsurfacing. You can do this with mesh smoothing, but the patch won't show any numbers. Numbers will only appear if you do subsurfacing through the object's settings.

Set View: Not really sure what it does, but it says something about using the shift button for the same effect. When you press the shift button and try rotating the view in the perspective / orthographic dock with the right mouse click button, it will only rotate the view on a certain axis.

Grid: This is for specifications for the grid. The first interval you don't really have to care about. The second part, the size and interval part you do have to care about. A RuneScape tile is 128x128 pixels. The interval of the grid is also measured in pixels. I would set the interval to 64 as that means 4 tiles = 1 RS tile. Very handy when making drop models, as the 4 centered tiles = 1 RS tile. I usually set the size to 1000, as that is the biggest you will ever need. You would be fine with 500, though.

Set Background Image: This is used to set a reference picture. It is extremely useful when making a model that needs to be precise, e.g., a skeleton, a human, or anything that really requires anatomical correctness.

Show Precisely: This means that in the perspective / orthographic viewport it will show the materials exactly how they are. If you add the material to shine, then you should have this on. Otherwise, the material will appear dull, as if you never edited it.

Show Textures: This is kind of self explanatory. If you have this checked, it will display materials that have textures. Otherwise, textures will not be displayed.

Smooth Shading: This will make your model seem smooth and not edgy. I personally don't like smooth shading, because I can view my polygonal flow easier. This is just a personal reference, and many people prefer smooth shading.

Show Only Faces in a Current Object: This is also kind of self explanatory. It will only show faces in the object that you have highlighted in the object panel.

Show Lines of Uncurrent Object: This will display lines that are not in the current highlighted object in the object panel as three different options; Normal, Dark, and Hidden. Kind of self explanatory on what the different settings do. Normal is what they are normally, dark is a darker color (for me it is a dark blue, not sure if everyone else has it this way. You can also probably change this color in the configuration), and hidden makes them not appear.

Show Selected Parts Only: This will only display the lines and vertices on parts that you have selected. If you have nothing selected, you will not be able to see a wireframe.

Lines Overwrite Faces: This basically makes the model look see-through. You can see lines that are normally behind faces.




Panel: Press Alt+P to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the panel toolbar on the menu.


Paint Panel: This is basically a texture-maker built into Meta. For more information on how to use this, click this link: http://www.moparscape.org/smf/index.php/topic,418310.0.html
Shortcut: Ctrl + P

Script Editor: Not sure exactly how to write scripts, but if you try and open a script, the default file type is python. Which means you could make a script and probably import it into Meta for rendering, the same thing that 3ds Max and Blender do. Most modeling software's native rendering sucks terribly, like Meta's.

Object Panel: This is a panel that shows the current objects in the model. I highly suggest you drag this panel off to the right so it will click in onto the interface because you will use this panel a lot when you progress as a modeler.
Shortcut: Ctrl + Q

Material Panel: This is a panel that shows the current materials available and lets you create new materials. I highly suggest you drag this panel off to the right so it will click in onto the interface because you will use this panel a lot.
Shortcut: Ctrl + M

Edit Panel: Just a easier way to scale, move, or rotate. Click on which way you would like to scale/move/rotate and then drag. Don't let go of the left mouse click and you will see what I mean. You can also enter values into the edit panel to move/scale/rotate by exact numbers.

Command Panel: This is the thing that you see to your left. It is extremely handy and I will cover it more indepth later.




Help: Press Alt+H to understand what I am talking about. This should open up the help toolbar on the menu.


Index: Mine said it could not find Index.htm. If you experience something different, please tell me what this button does.

About: Tells you about Metasequoia.

About Plug-ins: Tells you about the different plug-ins you have installed.

Error Window: Tells you about the specs of Metasequoia. If you encounter an error while modeling in Metasequoia this may have some valuable information in it, although I am not sure as I have never checked. :P

Benchmark: Gives a benchmark (a mark of performance) for the program.

Homepage: Opens up a webpage with "http://www.metaseq.net/"

Update Check: Checks to see if there is an update.

Registration: This is to register your Metasequoia program and to unlock the other aspects of the program (highly recommended).






Command Panel- Before you read about all of these tools, I highly suggest you untick the Basic Mode in File>Basic Mode.




System: It is at the very top of the panel, contains buttons related to saving and selecting.


File:
	Open: Opens up a model that you select.

	Save: Saves the current model you are working on.

	SaveAs: Saves the current model under a different name.

	Insert: Inserts a new model in the current model you are working on.

Config: Opens up the configuration interface.

Doc Info: Opens up the document's information.

ObjPanel: Shows/Hides the Object Panel.

MatPanel: Shows/Hides the Material Panel.

ObjProp: Opens up the selected object's properties.

MatProp: Opens up the selected material's properties.




Edit:


Undo: Undoes the last change you made.

Redo: Redoes the last undo you made.

Sel All: Selects everything in the current model.

Unsel All: Unselects everything you have selected.

Sel Obj: Selects the current object.

Sel Mat: Selects all of the faces with the current material applied.

Hide: Hides the current faces you have selected.

Show: Shows all of the faces you have hid.

Fix: This will lock the vertices and faces you have selected in place. You cannot alter them in anyway until you unfix them.

Unfix: This will unlock the vertices and faces you have selected.

Store 1, 2, 3, 4: I have no absolute idea. If you have any idea, I would be more than glad to add it in.

Restore 1, 2, 3, 4: I have no absolute idea. If you have any idea, I would be more than glad to add it in.




Command:


Edit:
	Select (You can cycle through the multiple options by pressing S repeatedly. Shortcut is S):
		Normal: Selects singular faces, lines, and vertices. Hold shift to select multiple faces/lines/vertices at once.

		Joined Face: Selects faces that are joined together as one mesh.

		Belt: Selects a "belt" of faces. You select a line and it wraps around till it gets to that line again. Almost like going around the object through those lines of faces.

		CurObj: Changes to the current object by the face you select, e.g., you select a face that is in object obj1 and the current object will change to obj1; select a face in obj3 and the current object will now be obj3.

		Brush: A selection method where you have a little circle and wherever you click and drag over it will select. Change the radius by Alt+Left Click and drag.

	Rect: A selection method where whatever is in the box is selected. Hold control for it to deselect instead. Shortcut is R.

	Rope: A selection method where you "rope" a selection of faces for them to be selected. Hold ctronl for it to deselect instead. Shortcut is G.

	Move: Moves the current selection of faces. Shortcut is V.
		Rel: It means the relative coordinate. Shows how much you have moved it, respectively.

		Abs: It means the absolute coordinate of the selection. Can be used to position the model to and exact coordinate.

		Handle: Toggle on/off the option to view the interface with the arrows to move the selected mesh.

		X/Y/Z: The values for whichever coordinate viewing is selected, respectively.

	Scale: Makes the selected mesh scale by the current method selected. Shortcut is Q.
		Handle: Toggle on/off the option to view the interface with the cubes to scale the selected mesh.

		Proportinal: Scales the selection proportionally by the value you put into the box.

		Screen: Only lets you scale the selected mesh by the handle.

		X/Y/Z: Scale the mesh by the value in the box by the axis selected.

		Number: More of a technical way of scaling. Gives you the center of each axis and the option to scale them by each axis.

	Rot: Rotates the selected mesh by the current method selected. Shortcut is C.
		Handle: Toggle on/off the option to view the interface with the axises to rotate the selected mesh.

		Trackball: The interface on the viewport with the red, green, and blue axises. Default option of rotating.

		Screen: Only lets you rotate the selected mesh by the trackball.

		X/Y/Z: Rotate the mesh by the value in the box by the axis selected.

		Number: More of a technical way of rotating. Gives you the center of each axis and the option to scale them by each axis by a certain degree.

	Local: The previous 3 tools all in one, but for only editing the current object highlighted in the Object Panel.
		Shape: Without this box ticked it seems that all of the tools does nothing.

		Children: Can't really figure out what this is supposed to mean. :P

		Move/Rotate/Scaling: See the above tools, respectively.

		Centering: Centers the local position of the object according to the center of the mesh.

		Property: A lot of complicated and technical ways of rotating/scaling/moving.

	uV: This tool is required to make textures on your model. Shortcut is U.
		Tool Interface:
			Vert: If you have this selected, then your current modifications (selecting/moving/rotating/scaling) will be applied to the vertices selected.

			Face: If you have this selected, then your current modifications (selecting/moving/rotating/scaling) will be applied to the faces selected.

			Apex: Seems to select the vertice that is closest to your cursor regarding the center of the face.

			Select: Selects by the current method selected.

			Move: Moves the current selection selected on the UV. Some tips would be to use Ctrl+Shift+Left Click to select a group of UVs and then move/scale/rotate. The only thing is that you can only do this with move/rotate/scale, not select. Odd, I know.

			Rotate: Rotates the current selection selected on the UV. Some tips would be to use Ctrl+Shift+Left Click to select a group of UVs and then move/scale/rotate. The only thing is that you can only do this with move/rotate/scale, not select. Odd, I know.

			Scale: Scales the current selection selected on the UV. Some tips would be to use Ctrl+Shift+Left Click to select a group of UVs and then move/scale/rotate. The only thing is that you can only do this with move/rotate/scale, not select. Odd, I know.

			Three Objects: Plane, Cylinder, and Sphere: These offer a quick way to edit the mapping for only a selection of the mesh, not the whole entire mesh. Becomes quite handy when you get used to using them.
				Plane: Uses a plane to map the UV to. Use this for flat places that somehow got distorted by the default UV Mapping.

				Cylinder: Uses a cylinder to map the UV to. Use this for cylindrical places that somehow got distorted by the default UV Mapping.

				Sphere: Uses a sphere to map the UV to. Use this for sphereical places that somehow got distorted by the default UV Mapping.

				Mapping Interface:
					Apply: Applies the current "object (the plane/cylinder/sphere)" you have created as a mapping that the selected faces have to go by. Kind of hard to explain, but imagine that the faces selected have to go on this object you have created and then you unwrap that object and that is what your UV looks like.

					Move: Moves the "object (the plane/cylinder/sphere)" by the arrow you have selected. Red is the X axis, green is the Y axis, and blue is the Z axis.

					Rotate: Rotates the "object (the plane/cylinder/sphere)" by the axis you have selected. Red is the X axis, green is the Y axis, and blue is the Z axis.

					Scale: Scales the "object (the plane/cylinder/sphere)" by the cube you have selected. Red is the X axis, green is the Y axis, and blue is the Z axis.

					Fit: Unless you feel you can do better, this is usually your best option as far as moving/scaling. You may wish to rotate the "object" a bit more to make sure it is linear with the selection of the mesh. What this basically does is fit the "object" according to the selection of the mesh.

					Property: A more technical and complicated way of setting the mapping. Don't really see the point in this unless you are extremely good at numbers and fail miserably at graphical interfaces... :P

				U: Imagine this as the X axis in UV Mapping. Almost like a coordinate plane, and 0,0 is the least the position can be (top left corner) and 10,10 is the highest the position can be (bottom right corner). You can change the position of the selected vertex/vertices by changing these values.

				V: Imagine this as the Y axis in UV Mapping. Almost like a coordinate plane, and 0,0 is the least the position can be (top left corner) and 10,10 is the highest the position can be (bottom right corner). You can change the position of the selected vertex/vertices by changing these values.

				Normalize: Not really sure what this means. I guess if you ever get your UV really messed up you could always try pressing this button. :P

				Unify: Unifies the selected vertices. Kind of like the Ctrl+J shortcut in the actual mesh, but this is for the UV. I highly suggest creating a shortcut for this.

				Separate: Separates the selected faces/vertices from the UV. Is really handy if you accidentally combine two vertices on the UV that aren't the actual same vertice in the mesh.