Decaff's Naming Conventions
When I try to describe something about working in blender for YSFlight modding, I frequently find myself using the same words over and over again to describe certain things. This page will guide you through my terminology. Hopefully you will find it as logical as I do.
Objects
In blender, and object is something that we can select in Object Mode. There are many varieties of objects, some of which have unique properties which is why it is important to designate the differences between them.
Mesh Object
What I call a mesh object is actually the objects you work with the most in blender. These are the objects that are converted into SRFs and form the physical airplanes or other things we make for YS Flight. There is a basis for this name because blender allows us to convert things to a mesh. Additionally a mesh is a common name for vertex-based geometries.
Long story short, if you can go into Edit Mode and edit the vertices, edges or faces of an object in blender, it is a mesh object.
You can add a mesh object to your blender model by using the following path:
Spacebar -> add -> Mesh
Text Object
Seeing as I am really unoriginal with names a text object is one that allows you to use a font to create a 2D piece of text. In YSFlight Modding, this is typically used to create decals of registration numbers, or in some cases, the actual airline name. Part of the process for doing this is to convert the text object into a mesh object so that we can export it in the dnm file.
You know that a text object is a text object if when you select it in Object Mode and enter Edit Mode you can type letters or numbers and they will be added to the text.
You can add a text object to your blender model by using the following path:
Spacebar -> add -> Mesh
Curve Object
A curve object is a very useful tool to have when tracing out complicated decals. In most situations it speeds up the process which I why I encourage you to use them. They can also prove very handy in a number of other situations of you play around with trying to achieve different results thru different and new methods.
One of the main features of a curve object is that while in Edit Mode you can edit the start and end point of each curve and then control the shape of the curve with different control points.
You can add a curve object to your blender model by using the following path:
Spacebar -> add -> Curve