newbee blender head seeks assistance

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hey all, I just recently found blender and these forums, so please excuse me if I start to ramble on with redundant questions. I kinda read some of the knowledge database, but I must have A.D.D or something.

  1. is there an easier way to ‘cookie-cut’ any shape out /or into a curved section of a polygonal mesh? take for example: a circle or hexagon.

  2. is it possible to create a lamp to simulate light under water, (those nice dancing lines of light cuased by a turbulent surface; aka refracted light) without using a texture or painting?

  3. could someone be kind enough to drop a link about beveled surfaces and edges?

TIA,

Mr_B

2

There is not really a way to make specific cuts out of a mesh. My approach is usually to use curves to do this type of work. Example-- add a Curve Circle, scale it up some, stay in edit mode and add another Curve Circle (which should show up in the center of the first circle). TAB out of edit mode and you will see that the first circle now has a hole in it. Curves are easy to shape so this may be your solution.

As for the undwerwater lighting, it would have to be simulated on surfaces with an animated or projected texture. The “beams” that show up in the water itself (caused by the light reflecting off of particles in the water) could be simulated by setting the light(s) to have a Halo.

Not sure about specific links to tuts on beveling but try looking in the Tutorial listings on this site. It essentially involves extruding a face and scaling it down to form the bevel. Many Blender users use Wings for modelling bevelled items since it has a nice tool to do that. You may want to check it out.

3

I’m not sure about the underwater lights, but there is a python knife script at:

http://www.selleri.org/Blender/scripts/text.html

And there is also a tutorial to use this for beveling objects, but it should give you the basic idea of how to use it.

http://www.selleri.org/Blender/tuts/BevelWithKnife.pdf

Anywayz, happy blending!!! :wink:

Matt

Blend on, and blend well!!!

4

Have you tried the boolean tools? Docs are here:
http://download.blender.org/documentation/html/x711.html

  1. is it possible to create a lamp to simulate light under water, (those nice dancing lines of light cuased by a turbulent surface; aka refracted light) without using a texture or painting?

You can try applying a texture (eg. a procedural marble texture might work well) to the light. This lets you change the pattern of light and shadow rather than just a circle spotlight. You can then animate the texture parameters to make the fake caustic effects animate.

EDIT: Here’s an example blend file using a clouds texture on a lamp that I just made to illustrate what I mean. I animated the offset and size of the lamp’s texture. Render out the animation to see the effect.

http://mke3.net:9000/blender/misc/water_lamp.blend

Hrm… Maybe that might make a good tutorial if there’s not one already…

5

Thanks much for the help and links, they should get me a bit further down this road. I ended up having to edit my mesh vertice by vertice to get the cut-out I wanted, it took a while but it worked out ok.

As for python scripts, I’m not sure where to start with those just yet since I’m still in the ’ where is that button! ’ & ’ how do I … ? ’ stage.

I hope I can post my first WIP in a few more weeks. :expressionless: