BINedit Basics

BINedit Menu Commands - The Face Menu

No prizes for guessing that the Face menu contains the commands that allow you to manipulate the faces on a model.

Add... - Allows you to add new faces to your model. It's a good idea to write down the vertex numbers that will be the new face's corners before entering this command.

The following dialog box will appear, in which you can specify the vertices that will become its corners. .BIN models can have three or four sided faces, so there are only four input fields on this window (to get a three-sided face, leave the last field as -1).

On the right half of the dialog window you can specify the properties of the texture that will be mapped to this face. Colour 0 (pure black on the texture) can be specified as being black or transparent, but you can change this at any time so it doesn't really matter what you specify when you first add the face.

Any added faces will get the first texture in the texture pool (which are arranged alphabetically by filename). To change the texture, select the face and press Shift+T to select a new texture from the pool.

Delete current [Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+X] - Deletes the current (selected) face. This may leave some vertices unused on the model, which should be removed using Delete All Unused Vertices. This command is mirrored in the Shortcut Buttons.

Flip Face - Flips the direction of the face. Faces are visible from the side where the vertices are defined clockwise and invisible from the other side; this command simply reverses the order in which the vertices are defined.

Here I've selected one of the faces on the tailgate of Bigfoot (face # 9, if you're interested) - note the pink tint which shows it is the current face. This face is visible from our point of view, and invisible from within the model itself.

By executing the Flip Face command, the face becomes invisible from our point of view and visible from within the model.

If I execute Flip Face again, the face will be flipped back to its original direction.

Flip Texture X/Y - Flips the texture mapping of that face horizontally or vertically respectively. This doesn't actually change the texture, just the orientation that the face was mapped at. Flip doesn't work for triangles.

Here I've still got the same face on the tailgate selected, however I've toggled Textured mode on - you can still see the pink tint over the Bigfoot logo on the tailgate.

Here I've executed Flip Texture Y - the logo on the tailgate is now inverted.

If I execute Flip Texture Y again, the logo will be flipped back right way up.

Rotate Texture - Rotates the texture mapping of the face by 90 degrees. Again, this doesn't change the texture, just the orientation that the face was mapped at.

Here I've executed the Rotate Texture command - the logo has been rotated 90 degrees from its original position.

If I execute Rotate Texture again, the logo will be upside down - execute it two more times and the logo will be back to its original orientation.

Select all Faces [Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+A] - Selects or "tags" all faces on the model. This can then be saved as a face group and used for mapping the faces to a texture and specifying face properties - see the Groups menu page for more information. Tagged faces are visible in the 3D view as being tinted green, and in the X, Y and Z wireframe views as having a green outline.

Deselect all faces - Deselects any selected faces.

Select by facing - Selects only the faces which are facing along the selected axis or it's negative, or up to a certain degree away. When you select this command, the following window appears:

Here you can specify which axis the faces are facing along, and up to how many degrees away. The result of my selections, above, can be seen here below - BINedit has tagged all the faces that satisfy the selection criteria I specified, and they appear tinted green:

Properties - This brings up a window that allows you to view/change the properties of the current face. If we go back to the face that I had selected on Bigfoot's tailgate one last time...

... we can view its properties:

BINedit displays the face type, vertex numbers, texture name, and texture image (which is reversed) and an outline on that image that shows where this face is mapped.

Jump to Face #... - Jumps directly to the face number you specify. You can jump to any number face including -1 (ie. no selected face).

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