Import & Edit Multiple 3D Models in VCarve
How to import and edit multiple external 3D files into Vectric VCarve Desktop and VCarve Pro.
Want to learn more??
Click the link below to take your Vectric skills to the next level!
Video Transcript:
Hello everyone. If you're familiar with VCarve software, you know that one of the big limitations with the software is that you can only import one external 3D model. Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how you can go around that and actually import more than one external 3D model. And this is an awesome technique that I figured out over the years of working with Vectric software.
So let's take a look at our example here. This is what we're going to be working on today. And you could see, I am in VCarve Pro and I have multiple 3D models in here. So if you look at the 3D view, you can see there are two external 3D models that I imported. And if we make this bigger, you can see not only did I import two external 3D models, I'm also going to show you how to edit these models, inside of VCarve.
So as you can see if I turn those two off, you see, we have this moose that I mirrored to the opposite side, and then we also have the bear, and we combine those both together. And you see the bear I even removed the extra moon that was behind the bear. That way we only have one moon in this combined 3D model.
And you can see if we go back to the original, you could see there is a moon behind this bear. So in this lesson, I'm going to show you the technique that I use to import multiple 3D models and edit the models inside of VCarve. Okay so to start off, we're going to go to a new project file and you can see this one, I already imported one 3D model, which is the bear.
And you can see in the component tree, I only have one single 3D model. And if we wanted to import another 3D model, we're going to click on the model importer and you could see if we go to select another model, let's say the elk right here and click open.
You could see VCarve is going to give you this message here. And this says the version of the software only supports a single imported model. So it's telling us we have one imported model already and we cannot import a second one. It does however, say you can import multiple Vectric V3M files, which are the Vectric clip art files.
And these file types are proprietary for Vectric software, so you can not actually create those files. So that allows Vectric to be able to sell their own 3D models and allow you to import multiple of them inside of your clip art library. But as you can see, these are STL files and I can only import one inside of VCarve.
So the trick to import multiple models is to first combine them in a separate software and then import them together as one single file. So that's what we're going to do right now. So let's click okay. And you can see it did not import that second model. So what we're going to do is we're going to go to a separate software and this software is called blender, and this is a free 3D software.
So we're gonna open this up, and I'll put a link for this software down below in the description of this video. And we're going to do just a general file type. And by default it's going to have this little cube here. You could just select that and click delete on your keyboard and you don't have to get too crazy with this software.
You only have to know some basic things. I myself don't use this software, so I only know the basic features. But alls you have to do is click file and then go to import, and then you want to select your file type. In my case, it's a STL file. And then I'm going to find the multiple files that I'd like to import. And you have to think beforehand of how many models you have to import, because you can only do this one time.
So you can import as many files as you want into the blender software. And then we're going to export them all together as one single file. So just think of all the different components you want in a single file of Vectric software. So in this case, we're only going to do two, so the first one is going to be the bear.
So we're going to select that and click import. And that may take a little bit of time to import depending on the file size. So as you can see, we have this imported right here. And now that we have a single model imported, we are going to import a, another model. So we're going to go back to file, go to import STL, and we're going to select our second file.
So in this case, I'm going to do this elk here, which it's named as elk, but I actually believe this is a moose, not an elk. And it's going to take a minute to import as well. Okay there we go with. And generally they will stack on top of each other. So you are going to have to move these separate from each other.
So the easiest way I find to do that is over here on the right hand side, we have what's called transform and you see location is the first option here. So you can move in the X, Y, or Z location. I want to keep the Z the same. I only want to move this in the X direction to the right. So where it says X here, you'll see horizontal arrows appear.
So you want to click in this box and drag your mouse to the right. And as you do that, the model will move to the right. And you want to move these far enough apart to where you have some space in between there. And if you really wanted to, you can learn the software and do all the editing you want to these models right here, and then import them into Vectric software.
But that's going to require you to learn another software on top of the Vectric software. So I'm going to show you how you can just do this simply in the Blender software, and then we'll edit these inside of VCarve. So now we have our two models in here, and like I said, you can import more of these if you wanted to.
But for this example, we're going to do just these two. And now that we have these imported and positioned correctly, we're going to export these. Now just keep in mindsometimes when you import files, they may come in different rotations or something. So you may have to play around with the rotation settings, as well as the scaling settings.
In this case these look okay to me. So I'm going to go to file and come down to export and I'm going to export as a STL file. I'm going to select that, and then I'm going to select a location. I would just go to my desktop and I will name these combined models. And then click export STL. And now if we go back to our VCarve Pro software and you can do this in VCarve desktop as well, now what we're going to do is select that single bear that we imported before and I'm going to delete that.
And now you can see, we have no components in our componet tree. So now I'm going to go back to the file import. And I'm going to go to the desktop where I just saved that model right there, where it says, combine STL files. I'm gonna open that up. Okay there we go,in our 3D view, you can see, we now have both of those models that are importing.
So that is our first hurdle complete getting multiple models to import into Vectric software. So now we're going to scale these up. So I'm going to change the model size. I'm going to go, let's say 15 inches. And click apply and I'm going to center these inside of the model, and this is the old importer.
So the version 11 and above will look a little bit different than this, but we're also going to change the zero plane position to the bottom, and that will raise the models up. Just like that. Okay so now we have these both imported, so we're going to click okay. And there we go. Now inside of VCarve, we have to external 3D models, but they are considered one single model inside of the component tree here.
So now I'm going to show you how to split both of these apart and then be able to edit them individually. And in order to do this, we need to use a feature called clipping. Now first, I'm going to show you how clipping works, just so you understand it, in case you've never used it before. So we're going to draw just a simple circle in the center of the project here where overlaps part of both models and click close.
Now, if we go to the modeling tab with that circle selected and we're going to split the views so we can see the 3D view at the same time. So you can see right now in the 3D view, we see both of the models and in the 2D view, we have the circle selected. And if we right click on this level, that has the models in it and go down to clipping and then click apply.
You can see anything outside of that circle has been removed in the 3D view. Now whatever's shown in the 3D view is only going to be what's carved when you make some tool toolpaths. So, as you can see, if you were to move the 3D model, it will update inside of the 3D view. And whatever's in that circle is what's going to be shown.
So this is a dynamic way to clip anything outside of the vector. And you can see, I move this to the right now, the moose goes away and the bear stays because it's in the circle. Now you can also move the circle in the 2D view. Let's say we made it smaller and put it just around the bear's head. You could see that did nothing in the 3D view.
And that's because whenever you adjust in the 2D view, you have to do what's called updating. So if you right click on the level, and go to clipping. You want to click update, and now you can see that will update to whatever changes you made in the 2D view. And now that's still dynamic where we can move the 3D model.
And if we put the Moose's head in that circle, that's all that's being shown. Okay so that's a quick overview of how the clipping works. So now what I'm going to do is show you how you can use that feature to be able to split these models apart. So what I'm going to do is delete that circle. And you can see that did not change in the 3D view because that clipping is still applied.
So now you have to right click on the level, go down to clipping and click remove. And now the entire 3D model will come back. So now I just want to center this model by selecting it and clicking F9. Now that's centered in our project, and now what we're going to do is we're going to make vectors around both of these models.
So if you select the combined model and use this tool right here called create vector boundary around selected components, just by clicking on that, that will create a 2D vector line around both of these models. Now, the only line we're really concerned about here is the outer most line. We don't really need the inner lines.
You can leave those there, but if you wanted to, you can delete those as well. If you plan on overlapping shapes, you may want to keep those in there. But these will group all of the lines together, so you're going to first have to ungroup those lines by clicking the letter U on your keyboard. And now all of those lines are ungrouped.
And now what I like to do is group both models, separately. So I'm going to draw a selection box from left to right over the second model over here. And that will select only what was inside of that selection box. And now I'm going to click the letter G to group those together, and then I'm going to do the same thing over here.
Drawing a selection box around the first model and click the letter G to group those together. And now we have two separate groupings of the vectors. And now what we're going to do is create two separate models that we can move and edit independently. So to do that, we're first going to want to duplicate the original model here.
So if we right click on this and click duplicate that will create a second copy of both of the models. And you could see in the 3D view, these will actually get thicker because they are adding on top of each other. And you could see if you hide one. It will get thinner, and if you show both of them and will get thicker and double the thickness.
So what we're going to do is use both of these and apply a clipping to each one. So in order to apply two separate clippings, we need two separate levels because the clipping only applies to the level, not the individual components. So we're going to right click on level one,and click insert new level. And then we're going to take that copy that we made and drag it and drop it inside of level two.
Now we have two separate levels and what I like to do is rename all of these so they correspond to what we're using. So this level two, we can right click and rename it. And we'll name it moose, and we can rename the component itself as well. So we'll right click on that. Rename and name it, moose, and then click enter.
And then for level one, we're going to right click and rename it, bear for both the level and the components.
Okay so right now we still have two combined models that are adding on top of each other. As you can see if we hide the moose, it hides the second combined model. So now what we're going to do is select the outline around just the bear and we're going to right click on the bear level. And go down to clipping and then click apply.
And you'll see in the 3D view, the moose side dropped down because it now removed that second model that was on top. And now on the moose side, if we select that outline and right-click on the moose level. And go down to clipping and then click apply. You can see now it removed the extra bear. And now these are two independent models, and now they're back down to the original thickness.
So now you can move these around and edit them individually, as much as you like, but there is a little bit of a trick to this. The vector has to move with the 3D objects. And unfortunately you cannot group those together because you cannot group 2D and 3D objects. So what you have to do is try to move these together by selecting them both at the same time.
So if you hold your shift key and select the moose and the outline, you can see by doing that, it may select the wrong 3D component. And that's because both models are still in both of these components, the extra one is just clipped out. So what I would recommend doing, instead of selecting on the screen, you want to select in your component tree the moose, and then make sure the outline of the moose is selected.
And then if you double click on this to be able to move it, we can move this shape and you could see, it will look like the bear is moving with it, but that's just the extra part that is clipped out of the moose component. So that can get a little bit confusing, but just keep that in mind. Okay so now you can see, we move the mousse component, but in the 3D view, now it looks all messed up and that's because our clipping has to be updated.
So if we de-select everything you could see, that's what it looks like in the 3D view. So whenever you make a change in the 2D view, like I mentioned before, you have to right click on that level, which in this case will b the moose. Go down to clipping and then click update. And then you could see that we'll update the 3D model to whatever you changed.
So what I'm going to show you here is how you can mirror the moose to be looking in the other direction. And then also remove the moon from the bear component because otherwise we'd have two moons. So let's first mirror, the moose component. And to do this, I recommend selecting both shapes like we did before holding shift and make sure that's the moose component that's selected and then click F9 on your keyboard to make sure it's centered in your project.
And if you wanted to, you can even move these up here. So they're not overlapping the original components and you can kind of see these a little bit better. And then what you're going to want to do is mirror these horizontally. So the keyboard truck have to do that as the letter H so if you click the letter, H you could see, you will mirror the 3D components and the 2D outline, and that's exactly what we want to do.
And now that you've done that you can move all of these components together, just focusing on where you put this moose, and you can get it wherever you like it to align to the other components. So I'm going to move this right on the side of the bear. And you can see once again, we're going to have to update the 3D view.
So we just have to right click on that level, go down to clipping and click update. And now you can see, we have both of these side by side, but you can see where they overlap in the middle. It is doubling up again because they're adding on top of each other. So what you have to do there is change the combine mode.
So right now it's set to add for the level. So if you right click on the moose level and go to combine mode, we can switch this to merge. And now you can see in the 3D view, it has now changed to merge together rather than adding together. And now it looks much better where they combine and you can adjust those as much as you need to.
You can even change the height of each shape individually by double clicking on the component and changing the shape height, or adding a base height, you can even add fades and tilts to individual components. Now that we have these separated. Okay so now we have that done. We are going to want to remove that extra moon because as you can see, it looks a little bit silly with two moons in one 3D model.
And if you were to carve these together, that would not look correct. So in order to remove parts of a shape, you just have to adjust the vectors to be able to clip that part out. So basically instead of the 2D vector line going around the moon, you'd want it to go around the head of the bear and this tree, and that would leave the moon out side of the vector to be clipped out.
So to do that, there's many different ways. You can either manually draw a 2D vector around these shapes. But another trick you can use here is I'm going to make this bigger so we can see this. If you select just this component, making sure it's the bear component and then go to the drawing tab. And what you want to use is the trace bitmap tool.
And this may not work for all components, but some components like this. You could see you right now. It's dark, you can't see that tree. So if we turned down the threshold, you could see that tree will start to appear. And if you go too far, the moon will start to blur it out. So you want to go up a little bit until you see just that tree, just like that.
And if we were to click preview right now, that would trace both the bear and the moose from before. We don't want to trace all of that because then we'd have a bunch of lines all over the place. We only want to trace this part of the tree and the top of the bear's head. So to do that, what you can do is draw a box around just that area.
So if I draw a box just like that, you could see that box will stay there. And now when I click preview, it's only going to trace inside of that box, around those grayscale images there. And now you can see, we have our tree traced and the top of his head. So now we just have to do a little bit of manual editing to remove the vector around the moon and combine the rest of the vectors together.
So what we're going to do is click apply to save those changes and then click close. And now what we're going to do is some node editing. So the first thing we have to do is ungroup the outline around the bear. So I'm going to select that and click the letter U to ungroup. And then we need to delete some of these extra pieces that came in here.
Like the shape down here,there's a couple of small little shapes in there, so I can just draw a selection box from left to right around that area and then hold shift and de-select anything I wanted to keep. So now I'm just deleting all these little shapes. So I'm just going to click delete. And that got rid of all those little shapes.
So now we just need to combine this outline of this vector, to the rest of the outline, and that will make that a single closed vector. So what we're going to do is let's first select this shape and go to the nod, editing, typing the letter N and we're going to disconnect it right here, where it starts to go back around the moon.
So you can either right click on that, and click delete span, or you can use the keyboard shortcut, which is the letter D. So that disconnected that side. Now I'm going to go up to this side where it starts to go back around the moon. And I'm actually going to start down here because we need to trace this little section here.
So I'll just start, uh, let's say right here, and I'm going to delete that span. And now that will separate, that part on the outside that we don't want from the part that we want to keep. So now I can just select the part that we don't want and click delete to remove that. And now we can edit our original vector by selecting it and doing the same thing where it stops on the tree and starts going back to the moon.
We're going to right click and delete that span both ends. So we'll do it over here and delete that span. Okay now we're going to, de-select both of those and only select the vector around the moon and click delete. And that got rid of that. And now we just simply have to connect these back together. So down here, what you can do is first exit the node editing by typing the letter N and we could select both of these vectors holding shift, and you can use the feature called closed vectors with a smooth curve, and you'll see that will connect those together and make it a smooth curve.
You can fine tune that if you'd like, but you don't have to get too technical with the outline like this. That should be just fine enough for clipping that out. Okay and then up here, alls we have to do is we're going to have to manually draw a shape in here to trace this tree. And it also looks like we may have to adjust the nodes on this one a little bit to come out here around the tree more.
And like I said, you don't have to get too technical with this, but, uh, however you draw, this is going to be exactly how it clips. So, what I'm going to do first is adjust these nodes a little bit to better match the tree that's there. So I'm going to select that shape, go to the node editing by typing the letter N and I could just select all these nodes and move them closer to the outside there.
And we can adjust the handles on this side. We can even right click on this point and switch it to a smooth point, and you can get more technical down here, uh, tracing that better. Uh, just for the sake of time though, I won't get too technical, but let's close this up and to do this, uh, what we can do is first, I'm going to delete that little point there, and then what you can do to continue this line is right click on any of the endpoints and click edit polyline.
And that's going to automatically open up your line tool to allow you to finish off this line. So now I can come down here and click and hold in my mouse, and that will allow me to make a curve line and come down here, click again, start to make another curve and to join this line together, I could just click the tab key and that will close that off and now click close.
And now we should have a closed vector around the entire bear, excluding the moon, and this is exactly what we want. And I see a little tiny vector there I can delete that. Okay so what I'm going to do now is select all of these vectors again, around the bear and click the letter G to group those together.
And you have to make sure those are closed vectors. So if they're not closed, just use the joint tool to join those together. But once you get that as a closed vector. We're going to go back to the modeling tab and we're going to split our view again so we can see both the 2D and 3D, and you can see, we currently have the moon in the background, but now that we edited the shape, if you were to right click on the bear and go down to clipping and click update, you could see it's not going to work because we did edits to the original shape.
So what you actually have to do is right click on the bear level. Go down to clipping and click remove, and then right click on it again, go down to clipping and then click apply with the new vectors selected. And now you can see that will remove anything outside of that vector, which now remove the moon and left us with just the two 3D components without the moon behind the bear.
And you can see in our 3D view, that looks perfect now. And now you can create your toolpaths and you'll be able to carve these just like you see here. And if you wanted to, you can even go to the clip art library and add additional 3D objects to these shapes. And you can do as many clip art as you like.
It's just the external 3D models that you can not import multiple of without using this technique. So this is a great way to do it. If you only have VCarve desktop or VCarve Pro, and this will allow you to import as many 3D models as you like. But if you plan on doing this a lot, I would definitely recommend looking into Aspire because you can see in Aspire.
You can have two 3D models and you could see, you don't have to do any level of clipping or anything, you see in the 2D view they're just two simple 3D models. And you can do as many imports as you like and move these around and you don't have to do any updating or anything. So it's a lot easier in Aspire, but it's still as possible in VCarve using those techniques I've just showed.
And if these tips helped you out and you'd like to learn more on Vectric software, I'd encourage you to check out my Vectric master training course. And you can see, I have a breakdown of all the different aspects of Vectric software broken down in chronological order of how you should learn the software.
And then if you want to just check it out for free, I also have a free Vectric bootcamp that you can check out. And you'll see inside of here, I have some free training that can really help you out for getting started with Vectric software. So hopefully this lesson helped you out, and if it did make sure you like and subscribe for more.
So let's take a look at our example here. This is what we're going to be working on today. And you could see, I am in VCarve Pro and I have multiple 3D models in here. So if you look at the 3D view, you can see there are two external 3D models that I imported. And if we make this bigger, you can see not only did I import two external 3D models, I'm also going to show you how to edit these models, inside of VCarve.
So as you can see if I turn those two off, you see, we have this moose that I mirrored to the opposite side, and then we also have the bear, and we combine those both together. And you see the bear I even removed the extra moon that was behind the bear. That way we only have one moon in this combined 3D model.
And you can see if we go back to the original, you could see there is a moon behind this bear. So in this lesson, I'm going to show you the technique that I use to import multiple 3D models and edit the models inside of VCarve. Okay so to start off, we're going to go to a new project file and you can see this one, I already imported one 3D model, which is the bear.
And you can see in the component tree, I only have one single 3D model. And if we wanted to import another 3D model, we're going to click on the model importer and you could see if we go to select another model, let's say the elk right here and click open.
You could see VCarve is going to give you this message here. And this says the version of the software only supports a single imported model. So it's telling us we have one imported model already and we cannot import a second one. It does however, say you can import multiple Vectric V3M files, which are the Vectric clip art files.
And these file types are proprietary for Vectric software, so you can not actually create those files. So that allows Vectric to be able to sell their own 3D models and allow you to import multiple of them inside of your clip art library. But as you can see, these are STL files and I can only import one inside of VCarve.
So the trick to import multiple models is to first combine them in a separate software and then import them together as one single file. So that's what we're going to do right now. So let's click okay. And you can see it did not import that second model. So what we're going to do is we're going to go to a separate software and this software is called blender, and this is a free 3D software.
So we're gonna open this up, and I'll put a link for this software down below in the description of this video. And we're going to do just a general file type. And by default it's going to have this little cube here. You could just select that and click delete on your keyboard and you don't have to get too crazy with this software.
You only have to know some basic things. I myself don't use this software, so I only know the basic features. But alls you have to do is click file and then go to import, and then you want to select your file type. In my case, it's a STL file. And then I'm going to find the multiple files that I'd like to import. And you have to think beforehand of how many models you have to import, because you can only do this one time.
So you can import as many files as you want into the blender software. And then we're going to export them all together as one single file. So just think of all the different components you want in a single file of Vectric software. So in this case, we're only going to do two, so the first one is going to be the bear.
So we're going to select that and click import. And that may take a little bit of time to import depending on the file size. So as you can see, we have this imported right here. And now that we have a single model imported, we are going to import a, another model. So we're going to go back to file, go to import STL, and we're going to select our second file.
So in this case, I'm going to do this elk here, which it's named as elk, but I actually believe this is a moose, not an elk. And it's going to take a minute to import as well. Okay there we go with. And generally they will stack on top of each other. So you are going to have to move these separate from each other.
So the easiest way I find to do that is over here on the right hand side, we have what's called transform and you see location is the first option here. So you can move in the X, Y, or Z location. I want to keep the Z the same. I only want to move this in the X direction to the right. So where it says X here, you'll see horizontal arrows appear.
So you want to click in this box and drag your mouse to the right. And as you do that, the model will move to the right. And you want to move these far enough apart to where you have some space in between there. And if you really wanted to, you can learn the software and do all the editing you want to these models right here, and then import them into Vectric software.
But that's going to require you to learn another software on top of the Vectric software. So I'm going to show you how you can just do this simply in the Blender software, and then we'll edit these inside of VCarve. So now we have our two models in here, and like I said, you can import more of these if you wanted to.
But for this example, we're going to do just these two. And now that we have these imported and positioned correctly, we're going to export these. Now just keep in mindsometimes when you import files, they may come in different rotations or something. So you may have to play around with the rotation settings, as well as the scaling settings.
In this case these look okay to me. So I'm going to go to file and come down to export and I'm going to export as a STL file. I'm going to select that, and then I'm going to select a location. I would just go to my desktop and I will name these combined models. And then click export STL. And now if we go back to our VCarve Pro software and you can do this in VCarve desktop as well, now what we're going to do is select that single bear that we imported before and I'm going to delete that.
And now you can see, we have no components in our componet tree. So now I'm going to go back to the file import. And I'm going to go to the desktop where I just saved that model right there, where it says, combine STL files. I'm gonna open that up. Okay there we go,in our 3D view, you can see, we now have both of those models that are importing.
So that is our first hurdle complete getting multiple models to import into Vectric software. So now we're going to scale these up. So I'm going to change the model size. I'm going to go, let's say 15 inches. And click apply and I'm going to center these inside of the model, and this is the old importer.
So the version 11 and above will look a little bit different than this, but we're also going to change the zero plane position to the bottom, and that will raise the models up. Just like that. Okay so now we have these both imported, so we're going to click okay. And there we go. Now inside of VCarve, we have to external 3D models, but they are considered one single model inside of the component tree here.
So now I'm going to show you how to split both of these apart and then be able to edit them individually. And in order to do this, we need to use a feature called clipping. Now first, I'm going to show you how clipping works, just so you understand it, in case you've never used it before. So we're going to draw just a simple circle in the center of the project here where overlaps part of both models and click close.
Now, if we go to the modeling tab with that circle selected and we're going to split the views so we can see the 3D view at the same time. So you can see right now in the 3D view, we see both of the models and in the 2D view, we have the circle selected. And if we right click on this level, that has the models in it and go down to clipping and then click apply.
You can see anything outside of that circle has been removed in the 3D view. Now whatever's shown in the 3D view is only going to be what's carved when you make some tool toolpaths. So, as you can see, if you were to move the 3D model, it will update inside of the 3D view. And whatever's in that circle is what's going to be shown.
So this is a dynamic way to clip anything outside of the vector. And you can see, I move this to the right now, the moose goes away and the bear stays because it's in the circle. Now you can also move the circle in the 2D view. Let's say we made it smaller and put it just around the bear's head. You could see that did nothing in the 3D view.
And that's because whenever you adjust in the 2D view, you have to do what's called updating. So if you right click on the level, and go to clipping. You want to click update, and now you can see that will update to whatever changes you made in the 2D view. And now that's still dynamic where we can move the 3D model.
And if we put the Moose's head in that circle, that's all that's being shown. Okay so that's a quick overview of how the clipping works. So now what I'm going to do is show you how you can use that feature to be able to split these models apart. So what I'm going to do is delete that circle. And you can see that did not change in the 3D view because that clipping is still applied.
So now you have to right click on the level, go down to clipping and click remove. And now the entire 3D model will come back. So now I just want to center this model by selecting it and clicking F9. Now that's centered in our project, and now what we're going to do is we're going to make vectors around both of these models.
So if you select the combined model and use this tool right here called create vector boundary around selected components, just by clicking on that, that will create a 2D vector line around both of these models. Now, the only line we're really concerned about here is the outer most line. We don't really need the inner lines.
You can leave those there, but if you wanted to, you can delete those as well. If you plan on overlapping shapes, you may want to keep those in there. But these will group all of the lines together, so you're going to first have to ungroup those lines by clicking the letter U on your keyboard. And now all of those lines are ungrouped.
And now what I like to do is group both models, separately. So I'm going to draw a selection box from left to right over the second model over here. And that will select only what was inside of that selection box. And now I'm going to click the letter G to group those together, and then I'm going to do the same thing over here.
Drawing a selection box around the first model and click the letter G to group those together. And now we have two separate groupings of the vectors. And now what we're going to do is create two separate models that we can move and edit independently. So to do that, we're first going to want to duplicate the original model here.
So if we right click on this and click duplicate that will create a second copy of both of the models. And you could see in the 3D view, these will actually get thicker because they are adding on top of each other. And you could see if you hide one. It will get thinner, and if you show both of them and will get thicker and double the thickness.
So what we're going to do is use both of these and apply a clipping to each one. So in order to apply two separate clippings, we need two separate levels because the clipping only applies to the level, not the individual components. So we're going to right click on level one,and click insert new level. And then we're going to take that copy that we made and drag it and drop it inside of level two.
Now we have two separate levels and what I like to do is rename all of these so they correspond to what we're using. So this level two, we can right click and rename it. And we'll name it moose, and we can rename the component itself as well. So we'll right click on that. Rename and name it, moose, and then click enter.
And then for level one, we're going to right click and rename it, bear for both the level and the components.
Okay so right now we still have two combined models that are adding on top of each other. As you can see if we hide the moose, it hides the second combined model. So now what we're going to do is select the outline around just the bear and we're going to right click on the bear level. And go down to clipping and then click apply.
And you'll see in the 3D view, the moose side dropped down because it now removed that second model that was on top. And now on the moose side, if we select that outline and right-click on the moose level. And go down to clipping and then click apply. You can see now it removed the extra bear. And now these are two independent models, and now they're back down to the original thickness.
So now you can move these around and edit them individually, as much as you like, but there is a little bit of a trick to this. The vector has to move with the 3D objects. And unfortunately you cannot group those together because you cannot group 2D and 3D objects. So what you have to do is try to move these together by selecting them both at the same time.
So if you hold your shift key and select the moose and the outline, you can see by doing that, it may select the wrong 3D component. And that's because both models are still in both of these components, the extra one is just clipped out. So what I would recommend doing, instead of selecting on the screen, you want to select in your component tree the moose, and then make sure the outline of the moose is selected.
And then if you double click on this to be able to move it, we can move this shape and you could see, it will look like the bear is moving with it, but that's just the extra part that is clipped out of the moose component. So that can get a little bit confusing, but just keep that in mind. Okay so now you can see, we move the mousse component, but in the 3D view, now it looks all messed up and that's because our clipping has to be updated.
So if we de-select everything you could see, that's what it looks like in the 3D view. So whenever you make a change in the 2D view, like I mentioned before, you have to right click on that level, which in this case will b the moose. Go down to clipping and then click update. And then you could see that we'll update the 3D model to whatever you changed.
So what I'm going to show you here is how you can mirror the moose to be looking in the other direction. And then also remove the moon from the bear component because otherwise we'd have two moons. So let's first mirror, the moose component. And to do this, I recommend selecting both shapes like we did before holding shift and make sure that's the moose component that's selected and then click F9 on your keyboard to make sure it's centered in your project.
And if you wanted to, you can even move these up here. So they're not overlapping the original components and you can kind of see these a little bit better. And then what you're going to want to do is mirror these horizontally. So the keyboard truck have to do that as the letter H so if you click the letter, H you could see, you will mirror the 3D components and the 2D outline, and that's exactly what we want to do.
And now that you've done that you can move all of these components together, just focusing on where you put this moose, and you can get it wherever you like it to align to the other components. So I'm going to move this right on the side of the bear. And you can see once again, we're going to have to update the 3D view.
So we just have to right click on that level, go down to clipping and click update. And now you can see, we have both of these side by side, but you can see where they overlap in the middle. It is doubling up again because they're adding on top of each other. So what you have to do there is change the combine mode.
So right now it's set to add for the level. So if you right click on the moose level and go to combine mode, we can switch this to merge. And now you can see in the 3D view, it has now changed to merge together rather than adding together. And now it looks much better where they combine and you can adjust those as much as you need to.
You can even change the height of each shape individually by double clicking on the component and changing the shape height, or adding a base height, you can even add fades and tilts to individual components. Now that we have these separated. Okay so now we have that done. We are going to want to remove that extra moon because as you can see, it looks a little bit silly with two moons in one 3D model.
And if you were to carve these together, that would not look correct. So in order to remove parts of a shape, you just have to adjust the vectors to be able to clip that part out. So basically instead of the 2D vector line going around the moon, you'd want it to go around the head of the bear and this tree, and that would leave the moon out side of the vector to be clipped out.
So to do that, there's many different ways. You can either manually draw a 2D vector around these shapes. But another trick you can use here is I'm going to make this bigger so we can see this. If you select just this component, making sure it's the bear component and then go to the drawing tab. And what you want to use is the trace bitmap tool.
And this may not work for all components, but some components like this. You could see you right now. It's dark, you can't see that tree. So if we turned down the threshold, you could see that tree will start to appear. And if you go too far, the moon will start to blur it out. So you want to go up a little bit until you see just that tree, just like that.
And if we were to click preview right now, that would trace both the bear and the moose from before. We don't want to trace all of that because then we'd have a bunch of lines all over the place. We only want to trace this part of the tree and the top of the bear's head. So to do that, what you can do is draw a box around just that area.
So if I draw a box just like that, you could see that box will stay there. And now when I click preview, it's only going to trace inside of that box, around those grayscale images there. And now you can see, we have our tree traced and the top of his head. So now we just have to do a little bit of manual editing to remove the vector around the moon and combine the rest of the vectors together.
So what we're going to do is click apply to save those changes and then click close. And now what we're going to do is some node editing. So the first thing we have to do is ungroup the outline around the bear. So I'm going to select that and click the letter U to ungroup. And then we need to delete some of these extra pieces that came in here.
Like the shape down here,there's a couple of small little shapes in there, so I can just draw a selection box from left to right around that area and then hold shift and de-select anything I wanted to keep. So now I'm just deleting all these little shapes. So I'm just going to click delete. And that got rid of all those little shapes.
So now we just need to combine this outline of this vector, to the rest of the outline, and that will make that a single closed vector. So what we're going to do is let's first select this shape and go to the nod, editing, typing the letter N and we're going to disconnect it right here, where it starts to go back around the moon.
So you can either right click on that, and click delete span, or you can use the keyboard shortcut, which is the letter D. So that disconnected that side. Now I'm going to go up to this side where it starts to go back around the moon. And I'm actually going to start down here because we need to trace this little section here.
So I'll just start, uh, let's say right here, and I'm going to delete that span. And now that will separate, that part on the outside that we don't want from the part that we want to keep. So now I can just select the part that we don't want and click delete to remove that. And now we can edit our original vector by selecting it and doing the same thing where it stops on the tree and starts going back to the moon.
We're going to right click and delete that span both ends. So we'll do it over here and delete that span. Okay now we're going to, de-select both of those and only select the vector around the moon and click delete. And that got rid of that. And now we just simply have to connect these back together. So down here, what you can do is first exit the node editing by typing the letter N and we could select both of these vectors holding shift, and you can use the feature called closed vectors with a smooth curve, and you'll see that will connect those together and make it a smooth curve.
You can fine tune that if you'd like, but you don't have to get too technical with the outline like this. That should be just fine enough for clipping that out. Okay and then up here, alls we have to do is we're going to have to manually draw a shape in here to trace this tree. And it also looks like we may have to adjust the nodes on this one a little bit to come out here around the tree more.
And like I said, you don't have to get too technical with this, but, uh, however you draw, this is going to be exactly how it clips. So, what I'm going to do first is adjust these nodes a little bit to better match the tree that's there. So I'm going to select that shape, go to the node editing by typing the letter N and I could just select all these nodes and move them closer to the outside there.
And we can adjust the handles on this side. We can even right click on this point and switch it to a smooth point, and you can get more technical down here, uh, tracing that better. Uh, just for the sake of time though, I won't get too technical, but let's close this up and to do this, uh, what we can do is first, I'm going to delete that little point there, and then what you can do to continue this line is right click on any of the endpoints and click edit polyline.
And that's going to automatically open up your line tool to allow you to finish off this line. So now I can come down here and click and hold in my mouse, and that will allow me to make a curve line and come down here, click again, start to make another curve and to join this line together, I could just click the tab key and that will close that off and now click close.
And now we should have a closed vector around the entire bear, excluding the moon, and this is exactly what we want. And I see a little tiny vector there I can delete that. Okay so what I'm going to do now is select all of these vectors again, around the bear and click the letter G to group those together.
And you have to make sure those are closed vectors. So if they're not closed, just use the joint tool to join those together. But once you get that as a closed vector. We're going to go back to the modeling tab and we're going to split our view again so we can see both the 2D and 3D, and you can see, we currently have the moon in the background, but now that we edited the shape, if you were to right click on the bear and go down to clipping and click update, you could see it's not going to work because we did edits to the original shape.
So what you actually have to do is right click on the bear level. Go down to clipping and click remove, and then right click on it again, go down to clipping and then click apply with the new vectors selected. And now you can see that will remove anything outside of that vector, which now remove the moon and left us with just the two 3D components without the moon behind the bear.
And you can see in our 3D view, that looks perfect now. And now you can create your toolpaths and you'll be able to carve these just like you see here. And if you wanted to, you can even go to the clip art library and add additional 3D objects to these shapes. And you can do as many clip art as you like.
It's just the external 3D models that you can not import multiple of without using this technique. So this is a great way to do it. If you only have VCarve desktop or VCarve Pro, and this will allow you to import as many 3D models as you like. But if you plan on doing this a lot, I would definitely recommend looking into Aspire because you can see in Aspire.
You can have two 3D models and you could see, you don't have to do any level of clipping or anything, you see in the 2D view they're just two simple 3D models. And you can do as many imports as you like and move these around and you don't have to do any updating or anything. So it's a lot easier in Aspire, but it's still as possible in VCarve using those techniques I've just showed.
And if these tips helped you out and you'd like to learn more on Vectric software, I'd encourage you to check out my Vectric master training course. And you can see, I have a breakdown of all the different aspects of Vectric software broken down in chronological order of how you should learn the software.
And then if you want to just check it out for free, I also have a free Vectric bootcamp that you can check out. And you'll see inside of here, I have some free training that can really help you out for getting started with Vectric software. So hopefully this lesson helped you out, and if it did make sure you like and subscribe for more.
