Cutting through Steel

Support Basics & Interface
1

I am interested in making an intro to my movie, featuring a spiffy title.

Then I found a tutorial called “Cutting through Steel” by Bart Veldhuizen:
http://www.vrotvrot.com/xoom/tutorials/Welder/Welder.html

Sadly I think it is outdated :frowning:

So because I am a n00b, I got stuck on the first step: :x

Make a shape out of a curve.

When I looked at the curve choices there was 5! :expressionless:

Which one do I use?

I took a wild guess and used a NURBS curve - made an A. Then realised I didn’t know how to close the shape together!

I am not a total n00b and I have used blender before but I am a little stuck here.

Thanks 8)

2

There are, as you saw, several types of curves, each with particular strengths and purposes. I’d like to refer you to the online Blender tutorial section on curves and surfaces, at http://download.blender.org/documentation/html/c2759.html as the very best place to start. In this section you’ll also see how to “close” a curve. (The section on this page where a graphic logo is constructed is particularly helpful.)

And, don’t worry about having a flat-head experience right now, caused by hammering said head against the wall and/or slapping said head with your hand and saying Doh! :wink: That happens to everyone, every day. “Computers are like that.” :smiley:

3

Cool, thankyou for your help sundial. :wink:

4

http://www.vrotvrot.com/xoom/tutorials/Welder/Welder.htmlSorry to bring this thread back from the dead. But I decided to retry this tutorial again. Its been about 4 - 5 months so I have more experience at Blender. However I was stuck at this step:

"Finally, render the animation to disk; call the animation frames alphaMap. "

I’d never heard of such a thing so I ignored it.

But later it says:

"Now, assign the previously rendered animation to the texture. Go to the Texture buttons screen (F6), select the image button and load the first frame of the alphaMap animation. Set the value in the ‘frames’ field to 150. Select ‘calcAlpha’(!). "

So I rendered the first frame and used it as a texture, which looks really weird. Is that right.

Also, in this step:

“To ensure you have a nice, random particle emission from your mesh, enter edit mode, select all vertices, go to the Edit Buttons screen (F9) and hit the ‘Hash’ button.”

I did exactly as it said but there was no Hash button.

If anyone could answer these questions it would be greatly appreciated.To ensure you have a nice, random particle emission from your mesh, enter edit mode, select all vertices, go to the Edit Buttons screen (F9) and hit the ‘Hash’ button.

5

If I understand correctly, you just rendered only the first frame. That’s the mistake…

You need to render the whole animation, as a jpeg animation and then use it as an animated texture on the material…

The instructions are pretty straightforward on that…

I did exactly as it said but there was no Hash button.

Oh yes there is:

:wink: :wink: :wink:

Good luck… :smiley:

6

I tried looking for that button but it wasn’t there. How do I find it?

Also how do I make an animated texture? And why would I need one? Why can’t I just leave it the way it is? It practically looks the same as the one in the picture.

7

You’ll only see the hash button if you’re in Edit mode. And if you didn’t mess up the UI by moving panels around, and such. It’s there, somewhere.

8

Also how do I make an animated texture? And why would I need one? Why can’t I just leave it the way it is? It practically looks the same as the one in the picture.

Just render the animation pressing “anim” in the display buttons. That will be your animated texture. Reimport it in the texture buttons using “Load Image” (choose Texture Type = Image before). That’s it.
Why do you need an animated texture? Because you want the cutting to be a process. OK? :-?