Mini Tutorial for Blender Using Spin & SpinDup
This little tutorial is more of a 'Tips and Tricks' lesson on my favorite mesh functions 'Spin' and 'Spin Duplicate'. In 10 steps we will create a reusable object that is known as a 'hex head nut cap' that i saw on my skateboard wheel.
STEP 1 |
| Add a Mesh >> Circle in side view, select 3/4 of the verts and delete them with the [XKEY] and click Vertices.
STEP 2 |
| Resize the remaining verts and move them up and to the left with the [SKEY] and [GKEY].
STEP 3 |
| Select the upper right vert and extrude it once to the right and one more time down.
STEP 4 |
| Go into front view and with all verts selected do the 'Spin' command with the values set in the Edit Window as seen in this image. It is important that the 3D cursor stay on the object center.
STEP 5 |
| This is what you get so far as seen in Side and Front views.
STEP 6 |
| Move around a little in Trackball mode so you can select just the 2 verts that i have in this image and make an edge between them with the [FKEY].
STEP 7 |
| Select the 7 verts as seen in this image and make faces out of hem with [SHIFT+FKEY].
STEP 8 |
| Select just the same 2 verts as i did in STEP 6 then go to side view and extrude them back with the [EKEY].
STEP 9 |
| In Front View select all verts and do the function 'Spin Dup' with the values set to the ones in this image. Just like in STEP 4 you must make sure to leave the 3D cursor at the object center. You need to select all verts and 'Remove Doubles' with [WKEY_4KEY_ENTER] or click the button Remove Doubles in Edit Window before you render or you may see a seam. Also is good idea to render with the 'Automatic Smooth' option set on this mesh which is now not a CKEY feature any more (Thanks TON !).
LAYER 10 |
| Now you have the tiny little mechanical object, i don't really know the name but i call it a 'hex head nut cap'. Save this as an object file because you can import it into another file using [SHIFT+F1] and us it in a 'Duplivert' function to create an array of them like caps to rivets or something similar. I HOPE YOU ENJOY MY TIPS AND TRICKS, i will be happy to make more if you like me to. Gene Ruffalo