Modelling an Animal Head Using Immediate Radial Tugs
The Basic idea
Treating a mesh like a ball of clay, an animal head is created from just a few tugs
and pushes.
A MirrorEdit node is used so that only one side needs to be tugged to create
a symmetrical shape.
How Long Does it Take?
To do the actual tugging, the robot tugs takes only 1 minute!
Begin
Start the robot demo by moving the mouse to the top left corner
of the 3d window and selecting:
immediate radial tug demo
All of the titles for the robot demo operations will be shown here in bold beginning with the operation number followed by the title itself. Any comments for the operation will be explained under the title.
0. Create a New Seamless File
1. Build a Sphere
While the part is selected the
button is clicked to create a SphereBuild node that references the selected part.
The part is the node that contains the triangles while the BuildNode is the node
that generates the triangles for the part. The staves and bands for the BuildNode are increased to
32 and 16 so that we have enough triangles to be able to mould our mesh like a ball
of clay.
The sphere is centered at it's center by toggling the checkbox for the
yCentred field.
Lastly the sphere is rotated on the X axis at a right angle so that the staves run
from the front of the sphere to the back of it rather than from the top to the bottom.
This is done because the triangles are better structured this way if we are to tug
out a nose from the front.
2. Convert White Part to Blue
In the previous operation we used a build node to generate the triangles for the selected part. Because build nodes update the triangles for the part each time we
change a field or open the file, they would undo any work we do if we were allowed
to tug at the vertices. This is why before we can tug the vertices contained in
the part the part must be converted to a blue part. In performing this command
all build nodes that reference the converted part automatically get deleted.
3. Setup Mirror Editing
To make it so that ever one side of the mesh gets tugged the opposite side gets tugged
identically in mirror form a MirrorGroup
node is added containing a
MirrorEdit
node that references the part we want to mirror edit. Because only one
part is referenced by the MirrorEdit node, the tugs on the right side will mirror the left and the vertices
in the center can not be tugged to the left or right. To drag a part as
a reference in the scene tree window the Alt key is held down.
4. Mirror Triangle Structure
The triangle structure for the right and
left sides are made to mirror each other
exactly by clicking the
button.
If you have trouble seeing the difference in the 2 images above, look more closely
at the triangles in the middle for the 2 spheres and see how the triangles do not
mirror each other for the non
mirrored image like they do for the mirrored image.
Because the mirroring the 2 halves will leave the triangles no longer joined in
the middle the join close vertices for all shown
parts command
is used to join them back.
Tug Ears & Nose
By default the tug radius is at 0 (single vertex tug mode), The robot increases
the tug radius using the
buttons.
The circle in the 3d window
is the visual clue that displays the radius for the tugs:
All of the vertices within the radius when tugging are influenced but the further the vertices are away from the center the less they will move.
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