I’m doing a tutorial on modeling from The Essential Blender which uses an array modifier on an object which I have created. In the book, it creates a group of evenly-spaced objects which are all facing the same direction. When I do it, though, the new objects all appear at seemingly random intervals and rotations. I’ve checked the photo of the author’s modifier settings against against my own, and the’re the same: relative offset is on, with 3 for x and 0 for y and z, and with object offset on and set to an empty at the position of the original object. Does anyone know what’s going on here?
The modifier works on object center. It could be that your vertices and faces for the object are off center, perhaps waaaaay off center, thus making it appear random. There’s a quick snap or relocate commend in edit mode to recenter the verts around the object center.
also, ALT+R, S, and G are the commands to clear any rotation, scale, or location settings that may be negatively affecting the modifier.
It’s not the same problem, but it fits the topic of this thread well: if the object that has array modifier is out of screen, the entire chain it creates disappears. This is very annoying if you have few array modifiers that duplicates the mesh over large distance/area/volume and you need to go closer to it to add say a small unique detail. Is there any way, except applying the modifier?
Myn.pheos: I’m using SVN, and only the arrayed objects that are beyond the clipping distance are clipped; the original and arrayed that are in range are displayed, so maybe this was fixed.
If you can’t see an object and don’t know where it is to zoom in on it, select the object in the Outliner, then snap your cursor to it in the 3D, then Center your display on it, then zoom in and you will be brought right to it, even if it is out of clipping distance.
You can always expand your 3D clipping distance in the 3D View Properties.
Thanks Papa, I use official 2.45 most time, in SVN it’s fixed. I should have tried this sooner.