The lathe tool is often an underrated and bypassed tool -
but it is very versatile in its application.
Lathe will spin an object multiple times around a user defined
axis of rotation and then join these duplicates together to
make an outer surface or "skin". The user can set
which objects are lathed - if nothing is selected the contents
of the entire layer will be lathed. You can set the
axis of rotation by clicking with your Left Mouse Button in
the desired view port - this will create a positional cross
which the user can then relocate to the precise point - either
with the mouse or by pressing "n" and using the
numeric requester.
Note that if you press the right mouse button the lathe will
be performed automatically around that point - not recommended
unless you have an eagle eye!
What is useful is that you can perform the lathe on a curve
- or set of curves and they will be deleted when the lathe
is completed - so if you want these curves however - make
sure you copy them.
Another good thing about the lathe operation is that because
it creates an automatic point order - so long as the
original template polygon is used for different lathes - how
ever they have been adjusted for different lathe operations
- you can make multiple Morph targets! The technique is simple
- lathe your template object - save it - then undo - adjust
the points and lathe again - save that - a perfectly set Morph
target!
First off, when you open up the lathe tool
you will see a requester like this:
| Start
Angle |
defaults to zero on
startup will start
the lathe at 0
degrees - other values
will start it at different
degree settings |
| End
Angle |
same as above but
obviously for where
the lathe operation
will stop |
| Sides |
Higher the sides the
smoother the object |
| Offset |
is very useful
- if you make
a disc for example
1m diameter 3m
away from the
axis of rotation
-
then lathe around
the axis - you'll
get a donut. By
offsetting by
say 10 m - you
will create a
spring - see example
later.
|
| Axis |
of rotation - set
here or using Mouse
Button in Views |
| Centre |
of rotation - set
here or using Mouse
Button in views |
|
Examples:
| Lathing a disc using the settings
as above in the requester image
gives this result: |
|
| Now by using these settings and
a disc of 20m diameter with its
centre 40m from the rotation axis |
|
| |
|
Now to make a real spring: We do this by multiplying
how many times we want this effect to
occur - so let's factor up the end
angle, sides and
offset by by a value of
10; i.e. 3,600 degrees, 360
sides and 500m offset - you'll
get this:
Pretty cool huh? but let's get down to something more substantial
- what about making the Vree saucer main sections in one sweet
operation?
The success of this operation lies completely
with preparation - you will be using the
Polygon menu and the points option - by
using the right mouse button to
immediately place points - note that pressing
Control + p will create a polygon
curve from your points and just p
will make a 2 or more sided polygon
dependent on points selected. We want
to aim for something like this:
Now all we do is lathe this beast --
64 sides should do: after the lathe,
remember to weld the points as the skin
created by the separate 2-point polygons
will not be connected to their adjacent
"skins" - then run the Reduce_Polygons
plugin to tidy it up and check for 1 and
2 sided polygons and eliminate them and
finally we get this:
And she weighs in at just 5,836 Polygons.
Tutorial ©2000 F. Passaro
(E-mail)
|
