Panel Screws

Panel Screws lets you generate screws on selected faces or vertices. This is particularly useful for creating riveted look on panel details. You can design your own screws or use some of the custom designed meshes that comes with the operator.

Figure 1

Here are the redo properties and what they do:

Type

Allows you to select what screws you want to use.

• Basic: Creates a basic cylinder with its own properteis Shape and Bevel to design it.

• Custom: Allows you to use 4 of the custom screws that comes with the operator.

• Mesh: Allows you to select from any mesh in the scene to serve as the screw.

• Collection: Allows you to assign a collection's mesh objects as the screws.

Figure 2

Basic will create a primitive cylinder with the default segment of 6 to act as the screw. This will have its own property controls like the Shape and Bevel. This is a great low res alternative for background assets or as placeholders.

Import Mesh

Only shows up when you use Type: Custom. This allows you to choose from the 4 custom screw models that comes with the operator.

Figure 3

Mesh

Only shows up when you use Type: Mesh. This allows you to select from any mesh in the scene to act as the screw object.

Figure 4

Collection

Only shows up when you use Type: Collection. This allows you to assign a collection whose mesh objects will act as the screw.

Figure 5

Object Seed

Only shows up when you use Type: Collection. Randomizes the mesh object used in each point using a seed number.

Figure 6

Origin

This has two options: Faces and Verts. Faces will let you create the screws at each vert in a face or in corner verts depending on an angle threshold. Verts will let you create the screws for each selected vertices.

Figure 7

Unless you're using the Per Face toggle, using Origin: Faces will generate the screws in the corner angles of the entire face selection.

Mode

This only shows up when using Origin: Faces and has two options: Angle and All Verts. Angle will create the screws on vertices that meet an angle threshold and All Verts will create the screws on all the vertices of a face.

Figure 8

Threshold

The angle threshold used for the Mode: Angle property or setting. Any vertices whose edges go in an angle that meets or is higher than the angle will have a screw.

Figure 9

Radius

This determines the size of the screws.

Figure 10

Margin

This only shows up when using Origin: Faces. Allows you to create a margin in the selected faces and reposition the screws accordingly.

Figure 11

Offset

This allows you to offset the screw towards or away from the face.

Figure 12

Spacing

Generates more screws in the edges shared by two vertices. This only shows up when using Origin: Verts.

Figure 13

Shape

This only shows up when using Type: Basic and has two properties: Depth and Segments. Depth determines the thickness of the cylinder and Segments is for the number of segments used to create the cylinder.

Figure 14

Bevel

This only shows up when using Type: Basic and has two properties: Offset and Segments. Offset determines the thickness of the bevel effect. Segments is for the number of segments used for the bevel.

Figure 15

Rotation

This lets you set the angle of rotation for the screws.

Figure 16

Rotation Seed

Randomizes the rotation for each screw for more realism using a seed number. The randomization will only occur at seed number 2 and above with 1 letting you use a constant rotation value for all the screws.

Figure 17

Proc (Programmed Random Occurence)

This has two properties: Perc and Seed. Perc is a percentage slider that allows you to control the possibility of a screw being generated at a particular point. Useful for creating that old riveted panel effect where some screws are already missing. Seed lets you randomize the screw generation based on the percentage slider using a seed number.

Figure 18

Material Index

The Material Index property lets the resulting cloth sim mesh inherit a material from the active or work mesh.

The default value of -1 means it will use the active material in the work mesh if that material exists.

Using 0 and above means you will be using the 1st material in the material stack when using 0, the 2nd material when using 1 and so forth.

Using a material stack number when that material does not exist will assign no material to the resulting panel cut mesh.

Use Mirror

This allows you to use the vertices in the symmetry line when using a mirror modifier to generate screws.

Figure 19

Per Face

This only shows up when using Origin: Faces. This will generate the screw effect for each face in the selection instead of using the face selection as a whole and generating the screws in the sharp corners.

Figure 20

Split Sharp

Splits the source mesh in sharp angled edges to generate screws on face islands generated from splitting. Useful when selecting an entire mesh like a cube for example.

Figure 21

Selecting a whole mesh will typically not generate screws when using the default Origin: Faces because this uses the sharp angled corners from the selection boundary which selecting the whole mesh does not have - so by splitting the faces this will create those sharp corners.

Tagged Verts Only

Only generate screws on verts tagged using the Tag Verts operator. This only works for Origin: Faces.

Figure 22

Limited Dissolve

Limit dissolves the selected faces to get a unified face region to generate the screws. Useful for higher resolution selections where the margin property can cause overlaps and directional issues for the screws.

Figure 23

This is also useful for unifying faces so other functionalities could work like the angle threshold.

Figure 24

If the selected faces are too tightly packed, sometimes using the margin property can cause the screws to reverse direction. With Limited Dissolve, the selected faces becomes one and the margin will have a wider area to work with, this avoids smaller faces where a screw is generated to be scaled so far that its normal becomes reversed affecting the direction the screw.

Max Angle

The angle threshold for the Limited Dissolve property.