Tutorials -- Transforming Primitives

Transforming Primitives

Complicated 3D Objects are usually created from collections of simple primitives such as Cubes, Cylinders etc.

Unmodified primitives can be used to create many common objects. But to create most objects, primitives are transformed into other shapes using Operations.

What follows is an explanation of how to transform a cube into another object by application of the Extrude Operation, Inset Operation, and Smooth Operation.

On the Primary Toolbar click the down arrow to the right of the Visible Objects button and select Flat to turn smooth rendering off. Smooth Rendering is typically used for final rendering of scenes. During the modeling phase however it tends to obscure the details of an object making modeling more difficult.

Drag and Drop a Cube onto the scene.

Enter Face Selection Mode by clicking on

. Select a single face.

Click the

Inset Operation. This will result in a subdivision of the selected face into five faces.

The face created will automatically be selected.

Click the

Extrude Operation. The parameters for the applied Extrude will be on displayed on the Object Layers Panel. Change the Extrusion to .3 and a Bevel Amount of 0. This will extrude the selected face .3 units and apply no bevel.

Following the extrusion, the face created will automatically be selected.

Click the

Inset Operation.

The face created will automatically be selected.

Extrude the face and change the Extrusion to -.3 and the Bevel Amount to 0. This will intrude the face .3 units.

The result of the intrusion.

Repeat all steps on the other original faces of the cube.

Apply the

Smooth Operation. Click the Object Layers Panel's

button to reset to default Smooth parameters. Change the Smooth operation's Level parameter to 2.

Turn on smooth rendering. This can be done by clicking the down arrow next to the Visible Objects button on the Primary Toolbar and selecting Smooth.

Apply the

Crease Operation and adjust its Effect to show the amount of creasing you want.

So what do we have? Nothing really. But, these techniques are used extensively to add details to objects.