Hi all, sort of new to Blender so excuse any incorrect terminology please. The issue I am having is that I have 8 mesh “arms” that surround a sphere. In the image I have just used a subdivided and scaled cube for the sake of simplicity. Is there a mod or basic procedure I can use to “bend” the “arm” mesh around the sphere. Sort of a XY scaling that decreases with an increasing Z value.
In the image the red arrows indicate the “arms” and the green outline is sort of where I would like my “arm” mesh to end up after making the changes.
Really appreciate any input and TIA.
Make a single Cube the size you want, apply scale.
Add Loop Cuts ( 6 or 8 ) to the cube.
Enter Ortho Front View ( 1 on keypad), and move and rotate the cub in the desired location. Apply rotation.
Add a simple Deform Modifier, set it to Bend, and bend till you get the desired curvature, You might need to use a Negative value for it to form around the sphere.
Go to the top ortho ( 7 on Key pad)… select the cube, add Duplicate Shift + D, left click to accept. Use R+45 to set the second cube ( you should set the Transform pivot to Cursor)
Repeat till you have all 8 cubes…
Hi Kim.
Thanks for pointing me to these videos! Really helpful. Pretty obvious once you know where to look. Probably need to work through all the modifiers as a learning task …
Thanks again.
Hi RSEhlers. Thanks for your reply. Good info. Getting the hang of this (initially). Looks like you can only bend a complete object. The example is simplistic as there is a whole other mesh under the arms. I think I need to separate a selection of each arm and then play around with bending that new object. Thanks again.
This is great as its actually more along the lines of what I am needing but thought that bending would basically do the job. Will this work if the arms are a selection from another mesh or like bending does it only work on the object? Can you outline the steps please and I can go research the right info.
Thanks
Thanks for the file. I will study it tomorrow. I was able to work through the vertex group process. But was not able to get the mesh of the arm to follow the vertex group in the sphere. Really cool solution. Thanks. I will get back to you to either say it’s done or possibly to say I am stuck …
Personally, I’d make a bone chain, use shrinkwrap constraints to stick it to the sphere, and parent your arm to it. Added advantage of being animatable
Hi. This is a really awesome feature that I obviously need to study more. I get everything set up correctly I think except that the arms do not curve around the sphere like in your example. I am assuming I am missing maybe just one step along the way. What makes the planes in your example actually bend?
