tgj2o_3d-extruding-fins_blender

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include component="page" page="menu_tgj2o_3d_blender" =Extruding a fin= We're going to create another plane shape, go in and edit it to allow us to create a fin for the back of our saucer. First, our object is getting sufficiently complex that we're going to start to parent everything. Like in a family with young kids, if a parent goes someplace, their children do too. So, when we grab our parent object and move it, our children will all follow it. To accomplish this we will: 1) first choose the cockpit THEN shift select to choose the disc. THE ORDER IS IMPORTANT. We will choose in the menu at the bottom and choose OBJECT>PARENT>OBJECT (or just CTRL+P and choose object). 2) do this again with each engine separately. Select ENGINE then DISC then CTRL+P>Object

Deselect everything. Grab the disc (RMB) and press G. Notice when you move the disc around everything else follows. Interestingly, if you grab the cockpit or engine, they are still allowed to move separately. Like in a family, kids move around w.r.t. the parent, but when the parent moves, so do they. This forms the foundation for armatures, skelletons and complex animation down-the-road for you.

Step 1 - Drawing the fin
Choose FRONT VIEW (1 on the keypad). Open our newly parented group called saucer_disc (since it's the parent). Hide everything in it so we can focus on our fin. As before, we'll add an empty plane mesh, TAB into EDIT MODE and delete everything inside the shape. We'll add a simple fin shape. Notice how my points don't really line up all that well. First off, I want to keep the top of the fin even. To do so I'll go into VERTEX SELECT mode (CTRL+TAB), BORDER SELECT (B) and grab just a top point. By opening my details shelf (N) I can force both point to line up at a particular Z value (in my case the number 2.00). Choose the other point and make it Z=2.0 as well. Select the bottom left point and make it Z=0.0.

Now to tidy up those points at the bottom right. Grab both vertices in whatever manner you want. You can join them by going to MESH>VERTICES>MERGE or just press ALT+M. Take the average between the two points (the top choice).

Make this new point have a Z value of 0.00.

As before, with all points selected, let's fill the face by pressing F

Step 2 - Extruding the fin
Now that the face is filled, let's change the angle a bit so we can see what we've done. Select the face in EDIT MODE>FACE SELECT. By pressing E we can EXTRUDE (or pressing extrude on the tool shelf on the left). Make the fin a little bit thick.

Step 3 - Colouring and placing the fin
First we'll grab the faces of the fin and choose the ring colour from before saucer.ring (or colour it whatever colour you want). As with before, we'll unhide everything else and place our fin so that it looks good. To do so you'll want to use G (for translate), then either X, Y or Z as constraints so that the fin will go where you want. It should look something like this. As before, let's parent the fin to the disc. We do this by first selecting the fin in OBJECT mode, then shift-selecting the disc. Press CTRL+P then OBJECT.