Wannabe Tutorials

[largento]

Continuity explained!

 

 

 

 

Note: You can find all of the Wannabe Way Tutorials collected in the Modeling Tutorials section.

[Rodney]

Outstanding.

[itsjustme]

I'm really liking the style, Mark!

[johnl3d]

Nice job Mark

[mtpeak2]

Cool, I like the style.

[largento]

Thanks, guys! Hopefully new users will find these helpful.

[NancyGormezano]

Yeah I have to add my "me too" - it's truly a great visual style for a toot.

[phatso]

I wish we had about 1,000 pages like that! Largento makes an important point understandable, and if tweaked it a little (like on the first picture, continue the vertical cable on thru the cube) it would become obvious.

 

In educational media, my goal, standard, benchmark, whatever, has always been the late Don Herbert, the original Mr. Wizard. His explanations and demonstrations were so lucid that everything else I've experienced in education has been a muddled bore by comparison. Now that I'm a seminar presenter, I measure everything I do by his standard.

 

When I looked at Largento's explanation, I had a "Mr. Wizard Moment." Not many people can do that.

[John Bigboote]

I'm printing it and handing it to the newbie I'm training...great stuff!

[largento]

Thanks, Nancy! I think the comic book/strip is a fantastic form of communication.

 

Thanks, too, Phatso! That's high praise indeed!

 

And Thanks, too, Matt! Exactly the audience I'm trying to target.

 

My goal is to do 1 a week, so the chances of 1000s of pages are pretty slim! :-) But hopefully I'll do enough to make having this be it's own section worthwhile.

[dawgking]

do more-keep going!

[Kamikaze]

Ditto, to all that has been in reply....Ill always consider myself a newbee.....

[largento]

Thanks again, everyone! Here's this week's page:

 

[Tralfaz]

Thanks Mark.

 

I knew there had to be a way to align CPs, but didn't know how to do it. I was always manually trying to align the little suckers! Very time consuming and really monotanous.

 

Al

[Rodney]

Thanks Mark! (I love these tutorials)

As others have discovered the Manipulators (Translate, Scale and Rotate) are powerful tools for 3D modeling.

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't learn part two of your lesson unil several years after purchasing A:M.

 

As a footnote: In addition to entering the text in the dialogue box you can also grab the appropriate scale manipulator with your mouse and use that to scale too. This can be useful when you want to straighten or refine a line but not all the way to zero. Of course you can enter other numbers than zero into the text box as well. Generally everyone will want to scale to zero.

 

Keep this up Mark! At the end of the year you'll have a graphic novel.

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

You know I hadn't thought of doing it, but when I get a bunch of these done, they could be gathered up in a ComicBookRAR file and viewed as a comic.

[largento]

It's Friday again and time for another page!

 

This time, it's about using the constraining keys to control your movement!

 

 

[Joe Gamblin]

You can also constrain along the spline with 4 and across the spline with 5.

[Caroline]

Still looking awesome - I'm enjoying a regular Friday post.

[nimblepix]

Beautiful! Thanks for putting these together.

[Rodney]

This last one should be learned by new users earlier rather than later.

 

It wasn't until I saw a SIGGRAPH video several years after purchasing A:M where I saw someone else using these keys that I learned how to do it. As I'd already established a habit of turning the model in order to move CPs around (Right click and change the view to side, top, right, left etc) I still have to remind myself I can do this key constraining even today. Old habits are hard to break so establish good habits early.

 

...and no I didn't read the manual. As a newbie I thought I was too good to read the manual as well.

I was stoopid, okay!!! Don't do as I did. Read the Manual!

 

...and read the 'Wannabe Way' comic book page.

 

Thanks for another great page Mark!

[largento]

Thanks, everybody!

[NancyGormezano]

as I said before - I love this style

[genocell]

These make learning more interesting and visual. Great work.

 

I just want to mention a feature in A:M that is worth putting in these tutorials.

 

I don't know if anyone has already mentioned this so forgive me if this is common knowledge but I've never seen it mentioned here before or in the manual. It's assigining a pivot point of a group automatically from a cp in the model.

 

A simple example : you have box and you want to assign the pivot point of a group to one of the corners using this corner cp's coordinates as a reference for rotating or scaling the whole box.

In the conventional way of doing this you would select the group, turn on the scale or rotate manipulator and manually drag the manipulator so it's center matches exactly to this cp's x,y,z coordinates, or copy paste the x,y,z coordinates of the corner cp into the group pivot properties.

 

Too much work.

 

There's an easier way. Select the cp that you wish to use it's coordinate for the whole group, turn on the rotate or scale manipulator first then add the rest of the group by using the shift key, you can also use the complement key (/) or the select spline key (,) as well, depending on what you want to selcect). The group's pivot point will be automatically assigned to the cp's

coordinate that you selected before you turn on the rotate/scale manipulator. If you don't want this pivot cp to be included in the group you can deselect it and the coordinates will still be retained. To save this group pivot coordinate just rename it, (don't deselect it just yet) then click on one of the coordinates in the groups pivot property panel and click enter. That's it.

 

It's something that I do a lot and is one of the most useful features in modeling, especially mechanical modelling. I also use it extensively when I want to unwrap models for decalling.

[Rodney]

Great tip Reza. I did not know that.

[robcat2075]

These look real good.

 

I'd take issue with something in the spline continuity page. The good CP is really more like a cube with 4 holes, not 6. The situation illustrated at the top with two splines crossing and another one dead-ending into that would be a classic crease-maker to be avoided.

[largento]

Thanks, everyone!

 

I'll file that one away, Reza!

 

Robert, the illustration was merely to introduce the concept of a control point not just being a point but as something that a spline can pass through. It was not intended to represent an actual model.

 

A 4-holed cube would ignore the requirements of even a basic model of ...a cube. :-)

[phatso]

Hmm. "4" to constrain in the direction of a roll handle works for me. "5" doesn't. Am I doing something wrong?

[robcat2075]

A 4-holed cube would ignore the requirements of even a basic model of ...a cube. :-)

 

a cube doesn't have to have a hole on all six sides. In fact cubes don't normally have holes at all.

[largento]

phatso, 5 constrains to the direction of the intersecting spline that isn't selected. If you think of a simple x/y intersection, if the x is selected, holding down 5 would constrain your movement along the y.

 

Robert, the holes are imaginary.

 

I think you're taking the visual aid far too literally and missing the point. It is not an illustration of a model. It is an illustration of concepts.

 

Your critique was that it should only have holes on four sides, allowing for only two splines to intersect.

 

However, if you make a very simple model of a cube, the corner points have to allow three splines to connect from three different directions.

 

 

If my example of a control point only had 4 holes to allow (for example) a spline in the x-axis and a spline in the y-axis, then it would negate the possibility of adding a spline in the y-axis... and I wouldn't be able to model a simple cube with it.

[Jeetman]

Mark,

 

I really like your visual explaination of a control point. I hope you don't mind, I took your pic and crudely modified it to show what I think you mean by "6 holes" for each control point.

 

George

 

 

[heyvern]

These are by far, in my humble opinion the BEST most EASY TO UNDERSTAND and visually PLEASING tutorials for AM I've ever ever seen! They blow my socks off! The imagery style is PERFECT.. it's just... so clean and special. The comic book style is really fantastic.

 

Great job! Wonderful!

 

-vern

[robcat2075]

If my example of a control point only had 4 holes to allow (for example) a spline in the x-axis and a spline in the y-axis, then it would negate the possibility of adding a spline in the y-axis... and I wouldn't be able to model a simple cube with it.

 

 

That's what "Peaking" is for. Really.

 

 

 

That six-holed cube representation suggests that splines have to meet at 90 or 180 degree angles. They can meet at any angle.

 

The four holed cube reduces the situation down to the topic issue of good continuity: we want two splines criss-crossing and no more. We don't want a third one dead-ending in to that. We don't even want to suggest that that is a normal practice. Don't start them off by showing a picture of that.

[Tralfaz]

Gotta' agree with Vern on this one Mark.

 

These tutorials are great and easy to understand. I've learned a couple of new things already from them.

 

So, what's next? (waiting anxiously and trying to be patient)

 

Al

[heyvern]

That six-holed cube representation suggests that splines have to meet at 90 or 180 degree angles. They can meet at any angle.

 

The four holed cube reduces the situation down to the topic issue of good continuity: we want two splines criss-crossing and no more. We don't want a third one dead-ending in to that. We don't even want to suggest that that is a normal practice. Don't start them off by showing a picture of that.

 

I get it now and I see Robcat's point (cp? ) If you really did put splines through all the holes you would likely get creases or even potentially internal patches.

 

The way I see it, if splines go through any two "sets" of symbolic "holes" the third set should be "grayed out" or vanish, or at least an indication that another spline intersecting should be used only by "experienced" AMers with the skills to know how and when to do that... only in an emergency.. or... on the back of the head... under the hair... in a snow storm... at night... with your eyes closed. .

 

p.s. I love the "Spiderman" cable splines. Makes me want to model a suspension bridge... or pop in my Spiderman DVD. They look so perfect I wonder if you could zoom in close enough in AM those braided cables could be seen? Reminds me of when I do my over the top mechanical image contest entries... I get so obsessive over detail I imagine I should be modeling individual atomic structures at a microscopic level... to get it perfect.

 

-vern

[KenH]

I agree with Robert. Think of the two closed sides of the cube as continuations of the patches. Nice tuts btw.

[largento]

>sigh

 

Moving on... :-)

 

Thanks, guys! I greatly appreciate the support!

 

Especially when you consider how far I have to go! (I'm not even ready to introduce the concept of patches yet!)

 

These are by far, in my humble opinion the BEST most EASY TO UNDERSTAND and visually PLEASING tutorials for AM I've ever ever seen! They blow my socks off! The imagery style is PERFECT.. it's just... so clean and special. The comic book style is really fantastic.

 

Great job! Wonderful!

 

Vern, you honor me, sir!

 

The new ones will go up on Fridays.

[heyvern]

I can't wait to see if Capt. Spline defeats the Evil Dr. Crease and his horrible henchmen the Dynamic Duo (two brothers dynamically constrained at the hips.).

 

Will the Halls of Hash survive the onslaught of viscous (YES! Viscous!) Poly Polygon? Will she tempt our hero to the dark side? Will the Hairy Hordes descend on the great halls and overtax the Processors of Protection? Will the Spriticles free themselves from the Blue Fields of Fatality in time to render assistance? Will the new data disk be delivered in time to stop the flesh eating android insects of disaster? Will professor Euler come up with the solution to stop the space station from spinning wildly out of control and burning up in the atmosphere? Will Capt. Spline see the dead end and stop himself before it's too late? Will Shaggy and Scooby ever discover they could just buy their own dang snacks and not be enslaved by the other members of Mystery Inc.?

 

Stay tuned to find out the answers to these and many other questions in the next episode of.... the next episode... of... uh...

 

This comic book really needs a cool name. How soon till they make it into a movie?

 

 

-vern

[largento]

flesh eating android insects of disaster

 

Vern, you need to trademark this immediately!

 

I can see this being a whole series of sci-fi/horror films... FLEAS

 

FLesh Eating AndroidS (FLEAS)

[John Bigboote]

Largento- I hope you can keep pumping these out... they would sure look great in a future A:M Manual.

 

Would you take offense if I 'borrowed' the comic-book tutorial idea and made 1 or two of my own?

[largento]

Thanks, Matt! I would take no offense at all. I certainly can't pretend I'm the first person to think of doing instructions in comic book form.

[heyvern]

That's the first thing I thought of too! Stealing the idea!

 

We are just a bunch of creative cannibals after all.

 

-vern

[largento]

Wow, it's Friday already? Time for another tutorial on the Wannabe Way!

 

This week I'm adding control points!

 

[phatso]

Viscous? But that should be saved for when we're dealing with fluids.

 

If this is made into a movie, I wanna play the evil Dr. Alias.

[Tralfaz]

Jeepers Mark! Another great tutorial and learned something new once again. This is going to make modelling so much more easier.

 

Kudos to Martin for setting up this Special Topics area. And many, many thanks to you and everyone else working on these tutorials.

 

I really like the style you are using for your tutorials Mark. Any chance of a tutorial on how you create your tutorials?

 

Al

[largento]

Haha! A "tutorial tutorial"? :-)

 

There's not a real trick to it, Al. To make it easy on myself, I'm using an app that ships on new Macs (at least it used to) called "Comic Life." It's sort of an everyman's comic book page maker. You can drag on images and panels and resize them. I'm pretty sure they make a windows version of it now. (Just checked and they do make a Windows version... and it looks like it no longer comes free on new Macs.) If I were to do them in Illustrator, I'd end up spending hours being more intricate with them. The limits of the application make it easier... if that makes any sense.

 

The hard part, of course, is figuring out what to do the tutorial about and how to demonstrate the lesson.

 

Then it's just a matter of opening up A:M and doing all the steps and making screen captures of what I need along the way.

[heyvern]

Any chance of PDF versions? Image quality is fine but trying to read the all caps text on a huge monitor when you can't zoom easily is a bit of a pain.

 

-----

 

Nice job once again. I know all of this stuff already but it's really fun to read about it again this way. It's like watching reruns of the Love Boat on DVD... uh... not that I actually have The Love Boat on DVD... I am sure it might be fun to watch that old corny show... but... actually buying the DVDs would just be plain silly... a real man wouldn't buy the Love Boat first season Volume 1 on DVD. I certainly wouldn't. I have no idea what gave anyone that idea.

 

p.s. Season 1 Vol 2 is suppose to be coming out this month but I haven't seen it on the shelves yet.

 

-vern

[largento]

I can do that, Vern. I'll start doing them both ways next week.

 

Not sure which browser you use, but leastways on a Mac using Firefox, "command – +" (plus sign) will zoom in and "command – -" (minus sign) will zoom back out. I'm assuming there's a windows equivalent.

[heyvern]

Yes I'm using a mac with FF but this doesn't work with an image loaded in a page, iit works with text though. Like I said, small quibble. PDF would be better for printing too.

 

-vern

[largento]

Hmm... Maybe that's a leopard only feature, because it does zoom the image, too on mine.