3D

3D tools

Cloner arrays, path travel, deformers and curve rigs; the CC0 model library, Mixamo characters, and real polygon modelling.

The working half of 3D: multiply objects, move them along drawn curves, bend and rig them, bring in models and characters, and model polygons directly.

Cloner

One object drawn many times — a row of columns, a ring of chairs, a wall of tiles. Three modes:

• Grid — counts and spacing per axis (X·Y·Z). Rows, stacks, walls.
• Radial — a ring: Count, Radius, Arc (360 spreads evenly all the way round; less lays clones along that arc with one at each end — what “half a ring of five” has to mean), and the ring’s Axis.
• Path — along any drawn layer’s curve: pick the stroke, then Start and Spread (keyframe Spread and the array grows along the line). Fence posts, beads, a queue.

Face Around/Along turns each clone with the ring or curve (chairs facing the table) or keeps the original’s orientation (identical posts). Step Turn adds degrees per clone — the dial that turns a grid column into a spiral staircase — and Step Scale tapers or grows the run. Scatter / Tumble / Vary Size add seeded randomness (with a Reroll button); everything is f(seed, index), so the array never reshuffles when you scrub. The whole array rides the object — rotate it and the clones turn with it — and every dial keyframes. Capped honestly at 512 copies, said out loud in the panel.

Path

A 3D object travels a drawn curve. Draw a line, pick it in the effect, keyframe Position 0→1 — the object flies the line. The curve is resolved in world space, so a tilted path is a path through the scene, travelled at even speed in space. Point Along turns the object to face its travel (off = a camera dolly), Lean banks into the turns like an aircraft, and Side/Lift offset the rider so several objects share one curve — two lanes on one road. Past 1, a closed path wraps (1.25 is a quarter-lap more); an open one holds at its end.

Deformer

Bend, Twist, Taper, Bulge and Wave — on any 3D object: a primitive, an extruded drawing, a swept tube, an imported prop, 3D text. They stack, reorder and keyframe like any effect:

• Bend — curves the object into an arc. A keyframed bend is a nodding flower.
• Twist — a wrung towel, a drill bit. Taper — a spike, a wedge (100 is straight — 0 pinches to a point). Bulge — fattens the middle (negative pinches). Wave — ripples it sideways, with a Ripples count. A flag is a plane plus Wave.

Pick the Axis (Y — “up,” the height of most shapes — by default). The mesh quietly subdivides itself exactly as much as the curve needs, only along the deformed axis — a bent cylinder is a smooth arc, never a folded straw — and three stacked deformers refine once, for the finest.

Rig

A bone chain laid through an object — posed by a drawn curve. No dials to keyframe: draw a line through the shape you want, pick it as Bend to, and the object bends into it. Keyframe the curve’s own points and the rig animates — with all the drawing tools, shape tweens and easing this app already has, instead of a stack of joint angles. Bones (more follow a tighter curve), Falloff (0 hinges like a mechanism, 100 bends like a hose), Offset (slide the object along the curve while bending to it — a snake moving through its own body), Twist (a full turn spread root to tip), and the Along axis. Tails, stems, tentacles, hoses.

The model library

521 CC0 props and 991 HDR skies from Poly Haven, browsed in-app with real renders of every asset — plus each model’s actual physical size (the one thing a render can’t tell you) and polygon count, and each sky’s light character, colour temperature and dynamic range. Pick a resolution (1k/2k/4k), press once, and it downloads and lands in the scene — or lights the comp. Everything is CC0: free for any use, commercial included, no attribution. Nothing here is required — if the library is unreachable you simply browse nothing new, and everything already imported keeps working. Installed assets re-place without the network.

Importing models & characters

glTF/GLB, OBJ and FBX import from the same flyout. Multi-material models arrive as correctly-assembled parts; texture maps (base color, normal, packed ORM, emissive) come along; glass and specular extensions are read.

A rigged character — a Mixamo download, say — brings its skeleton and animations with it. The Animation section is a little clip timeline: place clips in sequence (idle, then a walk, then a jump), trim, retime, loop and crossfade them — and Borrow… copies an animation from another character in the comp, retargeted by bone names, so one downloaded walk serves the whole cast. Two non-destructive dials keep heavy models workable: Detail decimates toward a target while preserving hard edges, UV seams and the rig — always recomputed from the untouched original, so 100% restores the file exactly — and Shade Smooth re-derives normals at any angle.

Polygon modelling

Press Make Editable (C) and a parametric shape freezes into a real mesh (deformers and the Rig keep working on top; undo is the way back). Then the component tools open up:

Levels — Object / Points / Edges / Polygons decide what a click picks; each keeps its own selection. Armed modes with live hover preview — hover shows exactly what the click will take before you commit: Fill (floods across the surface, stopping at hard edges — grabs a whole panel in one click), Loop (the band of quads running along through a face), Ring (the same walk across). Grow/Shrink/All/None round it out; Shift adds, Alt removes.

The four operations, working on quads where the mesh has quads:

• Extrude — push the selected polygons out along the surface, walls built behind them; then drag the orange arrow to take it further. Negative pushes in — how a hole gets started.
• Inner — shrink the selection within its surface, leaving a border ring (the usual first half of “inset then extrude” — the selection follows so the second press carries on).
• Subdivide — split every polygon into four, shape untouched, all quads out — so the second press behaves like the first.
• Loop Cut — insert an edge loop along the band a Loop/Ring hover shows, adding resolution exactly where a bend or joint needs it. Watertight at the ends, no T-junctions.

Detail levels, ZBrush-style: step the whole object up (+) and back down (−) through subdivision snapshots. Retopologize rebuilds a sculpt-dense mesh as an even quad grid at a chosen count — the way out of sculpting density. And the sculpt brushes live beside the operations (they’re the same kind of thing — point at a surface, it changes): Clay, Inflate, Grab, Smooth, Flatten, Crease, Pinch, with Alt inverting.

Selections can be kept under a name and given their own material — which is how one object wears several looks.

Recipe — a spiral staircase in a minute. Cube, scaled into a step. Cloner → Grid, Count Y ~18, Spacing Y to taste, Step Turn 20°. Done — and Step Turn keyframes, so it can assemble itself.

Recipe — a creature from a stick figure. Draw the skeleton with a few strokes (thicker torso via the Width tool). Add Dimension → Body, tune Melt. Make it move: switch on Rig to Strokes and keyframe the drawing’s points — the drawing is the rig.