In solidworks I can place a vase on a table(for example) by adding mates using surfaces, vertices and planes of said components , How do I position a vase on a table (or what ever)
Also i have modeled a kitchen in solidworks and saved it out as a vrml
I want to be able to move the kitchen doors as in open and closed positions but they are part of the original vrml file imported into blender .How do I separate them out for separate manipulation?
Not sure if this is clear but any help will be welcome:RocknRoll:
I imagine that you are using Blender for presentation not for machining or architectural drafting. There are tons of tricks to achieve a similar function but I think that the most important thing I can tell you that’ll help is to forget about too much precision when using Blender. It is an artist tool and when something looks right in it then it is right enough for all practical intent. It is not that difficult to position a vase on a table using 2-3 orthogonal view.
For your animation I see two problems to be solved:
1- selecting the individual objects when they are all grouped in a single mesh.
2- animating them.
Individual objects are quite often islands of vertices, i.e. vertices that are linked together with edges. If you bring your mouse pointer close enough to one of those vertices and use the Lkey then all linked vertices should be selected at once. If you object is made of more than one island just repeat until all its components are selected. Then you could either separate them into a mesh of their own or you could just name that object as a vertex group.
As for animation you could use armatures or shape keys. My favorite is the former technique: it is more visual for me.
Hope this helps. Call back if you need details.
Jean
Jean
Hi sojounerman
I came from a solidworks and autocad background to Blender and struggled at first. I have put together a series of tutorials based around modelling with precision and it covers most of the tools you will need to create mesh models and assemblies.
Take a look you may find it speeds up your grasp on Blenders different (but excellent) way of doing things.