Welcome to using the array modifier in this video.
We're going to introduce you to your first modifier.
And that is the array modifier.
We're going to let you know that they are non-destructive until you apply to them.
And finally how to separate your geometry so you can work on the array that you've generated.
Let's hop over into blender.
Hello everybody and welcome back.
So let's get started with the fact that I'm currently on a Windows system.
This is a Michael from the future.
Updating this lecture for you.
So everything should be roughly the same.
Is a newer version a blender.
But let's continue with our pyramid.
Now I'm not sure if you've been you've been making something else in the meantime but we've got our
pyramid here and we did discuss about the arain modifier.
Now before we get into modifiers in general what we're going to have to do is go over to the right hand
side and making sure we've got properties frame open.
If you close that down then do open up another frame of type properties.
And I'm also going to extend this out a little so we can see all of the various tabs along the top ranging
from this camera.
I can tell what looks like a bouncing ball at the end and we want the one that looks like a spanner
or a wrench.
Once we click on that this is our modifiers tab.
Now modifiers in general are incredibly useful because they allow us to edit our model with out destroying
it.
So for example here we going to use the array modify and that's going to produce duplicate copies of
what we can see in front of us without having to worry about extra mesh data is done automatically which
means that any edits we do to this pyramid are reflected on every other one.
It's kind of like a linked duplicate in that respect.
So let's go ahead and click the ADD modifier that's somewhere in here there is horray and Verity's generate
array.
And we can see it creates a duplicate straightaway over here if I was to grab one of these phases and
lift it up.
You can see it automatically adjusts accordingly.
Now the great thing about this is anything that you're doing with repetition like that for maybe the
stairs intent of what the challenge might be when it comes to repeating we can do it using the array
modifier.
It's also useful when it comes to just making multiple copies of something very quickly and perhaps
spaced out.
So if you were producing a an array of pyramid's you could do so by just increasing the count number
here in two you meet the number that you require.
This is very good for perhaps apartment blocks et cetera et cetera.
Now what you can also do is change whether we have a constant offset or a relative offset.
Now our cost constant offset will be just a constant distance between each one in both the x y and z
directions relative offset takes into account the entire model itself.
So we can see in this case of air going off in the x direction by one each time and if we zoomed in
you would see that at the bottom of the steps is where the array stops and starts again who've got one
here.
If we go across here we've got another one starting.
If I increase that number to something else it just simply spaces them out.
And if it's less than 1 Well they're going to be on top of each other and then I leave that may be one
point five.
So there's some space between them.
Now when it comes to a race you've got an option of whether or not you want to apply that array.
Now whilst we leave it in this state with this array applied it can be incredibly useful with a non-destructive
workflow where you don't need to alter the other ones and this is great when you do have an array of
objects are all linked to this original one and you don't want to change them and you want this to update
all the others.
Now if we wanted to make changes to these flaws let's say position them slightly differently or indeed
separate them out and modify of them completely by themselves would have to apply that array.
And when we do that's what we'll end up with.
And here we go this is our first error that I want to show you.
You cannot apply this particular modifier whilst you're in edit mode.
We are in edit mode at the moment we're going to hit the tab key to come out into object mode.
Now when I hit apply we still have one object named pyramid.
However we seem to have three objects in the scene.
What's going on there.
Well this is one mesh object but it has three distinct mesh meshes inside it.
They are one mesh object so if you were to do any other modifiers to this object with these three pyramids
in it it will affect them all.
So how do we go about here separating these out.
Well the first thing I'm going to do is clear any selections I have by hitting the aiki now with nothing
selected.
We could move let's say on top of an object like this hit the b key border select and draw a box around
our pyramid.
Now if you've not got the right settings you'll notice that half the pyramid is in fact not selected.
This is something to watch out for when you're doing that.
If you want it to go all the way through you can switch it to wireframe mode and do that or indeed you
can select through the entire object itself.
And there's an option just along the bottom that the header bar for the 3D window next to our vertices
edges and face select We have limits.
To visible give I turn that off and now you'll notice that everything goes slightly translucent but
it does enable me to select everything regarding our model itself.
So it's kind of want a half way house between wire frame and solid shaded.
Now I've done that.
There were a couple of things that I can do to separate.
I can go to the mesh menu itself on the 3d header a bar.
This is a virtex operation so we go to vertices.
We can see there's an option to separate and then we can see there's a couple of options and we can
do it by selection and we can see here a short cut for that is p.
And if you want the shortcut to the vertex menu we can just go controller and V and we can bring this
menu up.
That is very useful later on when you're really getting into your shortcuts.
But for the moment I will hit the peaky and shoe selection.
And if we have a look at the outliner we see that we've now got pyramid's 0 0 1 and it's a separate
object to our original mesh object that we had and I can finally do the same to this third pyramid.
Now in order to select this third pyramid I'm going to use another short cut key which is select linked
now because all of this mesh data is linked together.
Nothing is separate from one another.
The way that we've constructed it if I go ahead and hit the L key.
We see that they hold all of the pyramid is now selected.
Now this operation itself is depended on whether you've got virtex Selected edge selected or face selected
enabled.
So do bear in mind as you're doing the operation and we see the operator panel says select linked and
we've got some other options down there we're not going to fiddle with those and we're going to whiz
round my object to make sure we have selected it all we have and then hit the P key and then do selection.
So now we've got three pyramids that we can do whatever we like with so we can go ahead grab this pyramid.
Let's move it's going to hit G and I'm going to constrain it to the x y plane so shift and z is going
to place it over there and I'm going to scale it but only on the x and y.
So I'm going to shift Z again and just scale it up like that.
This one here I'm going to scale but only on the Z to make it really really tall.
There we go.
And now we just whiz around to perhaps here we can set ourselves up a nice little scene where we've
got all of our pyramids in place.
There we go.
So there's an example of how you might want to use the array modify how we can go ahead and separate
out our objects.
If you have used an array modifier or indeed want to separate any other mesh data from a particular
mesh object of course the array modifier itself is also incredibly useful for things like stairs.
Now remember you do not have to apply the modifier now a little hint for the challenge coming up when
you have let's say stairs and you produce one stare and you repeat it lots using the array modifier
you end up with a set of stairs.
Now if you wanted to join that back onto our main pyramid you would have to apply the array modifier.
The reason for that is because it's on the object itself.
If you go ahead and join your stairs to the pyramid you will find that if you have not supplied the
array modifier you'll just end up with one step coming across enough of those hints and tips is time
to reveal that challenge creates your stairs.
I bet you guys knew that was coming.
So the steps themselves should run from the bottom to the top or the wife wants you to create your steps
using the array modifier and finish with one meche object at the end so there's a clue that you're going
to have to separate something at some point.
Pause a video now and go give that a go.
Welcome back.
Let's create some stairs for our pyramid's So let's hop straight our Nova in two blender so let's work
on our pyramid too which is this one at the front.
I'm going to leave the other ones in the background just for aesthetics and I'm going to hop on over
into edit mode.
I'm going to start at the bottom you could start at the top if you want and I'm going to zoom in right
to this front area here.
I'm going to go to virtex select and you could do this a number of ways.
And I'm going to turn off merging vertices for the moment because I do want them to be separate.
I'm going to click that virtex THERE and extrude.
So I just created an edge basically another vertex freely floating in space but only on the z axis and
I don't know how far to do it's perhaps point two yes Point two sounds.
Nice point two.
And then I'm going to extrude it in the x axis again by point two.
So that's going to be the outline of our stair and then a select it's there and here and extrude this
way and I'm going to snap it over here.
So in fact in this case I'm going to turn on the snapping edge and move it across until it's on this
edge here.
It's going to cause a few issues.
I only need to lock in the y axis.
There we go.
So now that's our step.
We just need to multiply it several times.
However it's part of this pyramid at the moment so were going to have to select the geometry we want
and in this case it's just these two faces that we've created and then we would separate it with the
P key by selection and it's added it down here so I'm just gonna do that pyramid's to stairs.
Okay so we've got pyramid 2 and Pyramid two stairs and plus there's a what I want to apply the modifier
on.
So we're going to go down to add modifier go to our array.
And nothing's happened twice nothing happened.
Well it's probably disappeared inside the model.
There we go.
If I turn on a wire frame we can see it's disappeared inside the model.
So it's actually going in the x axis in the right direction go one step unit there.
We also want to go one step unit up as well so on Z we want that to go to one.
And there we go we've got our second step.
I haven't a clue how many steps we're going to need to fill up our pyramid.
So I'm just going to increase this number until it looks right.
And zoom around to the top I think we need to more excellent So in this case with a step height and
depth of point to 35 tical get to the top of mine.
Now finally because they don't exist yet only the bottom one does.
I'm going to apply my modifier now I can go in and if I wanted to edit these ever so slightly so I can
make one higher one lower cetera et etc..
If I wanted to I don't.
But what I do want to do is now merge these two objects back together.
So I'm going to hop over into object mode selector our stairs and our pyramid and press control and
J for join the now together.
And unfortunately it's named pyramid two stairs.
I don't want that.
It's just pyramid by itself at the moment.
And there we go.
We've got our pyramid with stairs.
That's great.
How did you guys get on.
See you in the next lecture.