Beginner with Blender, but I’ve successfully made a donut and coffee cup via Blender Guru. Now I’m trying to get a little bold for my scene and create a paper plate.
Here’s how I figure the best approach would be:
I’d first need to take my current plate and make a segment of it a “pie slice” evenly by creating two edges to somehow align into the center axis. Then I create the concave vertical slits along the top rim using the sculpting window. After that’s completed, I’d use the array modifier to duplicate the plate’s slice along a circular path while ensuring “merge” is enabled and while ensuring the faces don’t overlap.
So my questions are:
[1] When erasing and adding faces, vertexes, edges, etc.; how do I create new edges and vertices at an angle to align to the center?
[2] How would I ensure the edges of the “pie slice” plate but up against each other using the array modifier tool?
I’ve looked at tutorials and cannot find definitive answers that help me resolve my approach to making a paper plate.
I would try to create a slice by creating a vertical line in top view (extrude a vertex), then using the screw modifier to get a nice divisor if possible. Doesn’t have to be integer, but something with limited number of decimal places.
360/94 = 3.829787234, so I would rule that out.
360/96 = 3.75, sounds better to me.
If the fan looks ok, apply the modifier and delete all verts except what creates a triangle.
Now place an empty and add an empty driven array on the triangle.
Set number of slices and rotate the empty by the slice angle (or half, not sure).
Go in edit mode, set array to show in edit mode, and verify everything looks ok.
Disable the array and start editing the slice.
That being said, my plate’s modifiers aren’t applied yet meaning the slices are 32 vertexes an ngon applied. The plate itself, without the modifiers, is flat simple even geometry.
I feel as though a knife cut ( K ) would suffice with my current issue, but I’m not sure how to approach it.
Depicted below is the pie slice I’m wanting to create.
The plate’s “pie slice” size, if rotated to create the plate again, would be 16 vertexes instead of 32 vertexes due to me creating the shape from two smaller slivers. I’m sure I would have to divide 360 degrees by 16 to somehow get the rotation amount.
But my question is: how do I use the knife tool to have the edges I’m creating ( blue ) align to center of the place into one vertex?
I tend to use the screw modifier as @CarlG said, only I did not create the wedge first but created the side profile completely extruding a single vertex, then applying the screw modifier at 64 divisions…then a series of bevels as well as proportional editing and some edge loops, etc…
a little more time and it would look a bit closer…
The screw was an intermediary step to generate a wedge which was then arrayed around. It was to be able to generate the bulge through manual edit. Here is a complete non-destructive version where you edit the screw profile and location of two shrink wrap rectangles around (could be one in the middle I guess), which is then arrayed, solidified, and subdiv’ed. Zipped, have no idea why this would be 1.7MB, I purged everything. Paper_Plate.blend.zip (191.0 KB)
