Vertex Modifier Tutorial: Telescope

This tutorial will go over rearranging some parts of the Mortar Team into a telescope. Knowledge from the previous tutorial is assumed.
MDL(s) needed: Mortar Team (Units\Human\MortarTeam\MortarTeam.MDX)

  • Before rearranging things into a telescope, we need to make it all into one geoset. In the Mortar Team, what we will use are in different ones: 4 for the telescope itself, and 6 for what will become the base.
    • Open the Mortar Team and choose geoset four, the telescope.
    • Go to File->Merge Geoset. Choose the Mortar Team again, this time with geoset six.
  • Making the tripod:
    • Select and delete the large canister from which the Mortar Team fires.
    • Select the leg which was under it.
    • Activate 'Rotate' by clicking on the rotate button on the right.
    • In the front viewport (activate tips in the help menu if you are unsure which viewport is which), right click and drag up to rotate the leg so that the foot is flat with the ground.
    • In the top viewport, do the same thing so that the front of the foot faces exactly forward.
    • Activate 'Move' by clicking its button on the right.
    • Select the top three vertices of the leg.
    • In the left viewport, right click and drag to move them out, making the leg longer.
    • Select the entire leg.
    • In the top viewport, right click and drag the whole leg to make its top centered on the origin.
    • Activate 'Clone' mode by clicking on its button on the right. It will turn red to indicate that it is active. The next transformation that you do will result in a copy.
    • Activate 'Rotate' again.
    • Rotate about 120 degreees (not necessarily all at once) in the top viewport. A duplicate leg should have been created.
    • Activate 'Move' and move it so that the tops of the two legs line up.
    • With the new leg still selected, repeat the procress you used to make the second leg: activate 'Clone' mode, rotate another 120 degrees, and move it to be centered.
    • To make the top look like it's actually connected, we have to do some snapping. Select each pair of three almost-together vertices one at a time and snap them (by click "Snap" on the right). In this picture, the triplets you should snap are highlighted blue.
  • Making the telescope:
    • Select the telescope you got from the Mortar Team. If it's hard to select due to part of the base being over it, you can just pick one vertex and expand the selection (Tools->Expand Selection or CTRL-E).
    • In the left viewport with the 'Move' tool activated, move it to sit nicely on the base.
    • Activate rotate and right click and drag to make it point slightly upwards.
    • Select one end or the other and move it out to make it longer.
    • If it is no longer touching the base due to moving/rotating, reposition it.
  • Finally, make sure the feet of the base line up along the ground (you can tell by looking in the left or front viewport at the horizontal origin line) and you're done.
  • Go to 'File->Save Geoset' and save as Telescope.MDL.