Welcome to Subdividing an Edge and
to Sphere! So in this video we will be using this
Subdivision Tool to add edge geometry, so adding some more
vertices on an edge to take more control out of it, and
using To Sphere to create a circular
hole. So let's hop straight into Blender and carry
these out!
So here we are in Blender with our to soon
be bowling ball! So first of all, a bowling ball
is nice and smooth, so I'm going to
find on our Tool Shelf here, under the Tools Tab,
Smooth Shading, so we've got a nice smooth surface,
and I'm going to hop over into Edit Mode.
Now we've got a series of triangles we can work at here, and the
subdivision, on the modifier, that we chose
has generated a few artifacts. If you look
closely, there are a series of six triangles or
hexagons being created, but also, occasionally there's a pentagon
where they join up and around that pentagon the geometry's just a bit
distorted, around there. So we're going to stay clear
of the ones with five going around,
and we're going to stick to the six ones. So I'm going to find a space in the middle
and we're going to create one of our holes. So here is
absolutely fine! So I'll go to Face Select
and click on these faces here, I'm just going to select a group of
them. You could use a series of selection methods to do that,
I'm just holding down Shift. And what we can do
here is literally extrude in. So we'll see what that looks
like, if we do that. So we've got that there, that's being extruded
in. That's great! Let's see what that looks like by hopping straight
back over into Edit Mode! So it looks like there's a hole
in the ball, which is great! It's quite a deep hole, I haven't gone through the other
side, fortunately, no control over that! And
it looks very rough, I mean that looks absolutely horrible. It doesn't
look like an appropriate size hole, to begin with, and neither does it look the
right shape, it's a hexagonal hole. so even though we've got Smooth Shading
turned on, that's not hidden the fact that we've cut a hexagon
into the surface of our model. So let's hop back on over
into Edit Mode, and I'm going to undo that last step
of geometry. So we need to have more
of a step going in, and one of the easiest ways to do this is to,
first of all, we're going to select an edge loop. So we want to
select the edge loop that's going around our model here,
the hexagon basically, and
if we go to Edge Mode, hold down Alt, and try and do that, it won't work.
And the reason it won't do that is because there isn't an edge loop that's well defined there.
It doesn't know which way to go. I mean these are all triangles,
so it doesn't know which way to go. Each time, it doesn't know whether to go this way,
that way, this way, or any other way. In fact, it's got one, two, three,
four, five possibilities and directions, so Blender just does
not know which way to go. However, we can help it
by simply selecting some triangles again
and insetting. So I'm going to use the shortcut key I,
and it doesn't have to be by much, it can just be by that. Now the
moment we've done that, we've actually broken up and we've created a series of
quads around the outside of our new hexagon.
Now when we do that and we select an edge loop,
when we hold down Alt, we actually get the edge loop itself, which is
brilliant! That's exactly what we wanted! Now the
tool, To Sphere, can be gotten at in two ways. You can
hold down Shift, Alt, and S,
and we see in the lower-left the command, To Sphere,
has appeared, and that is one of these
proportional things, so it goes from 0 to 1.
And, as we can see, it's going backwards and forwards, it's making
absolutely no difference to our hexagon, and the reason
for that is, because there's only six edges that is
already spherized as much as it can. So we need to
add more edges, even though the shape will be the same, but we need to
add more edges, so that it can spherize
or make it circular, in this case, since we're dealing with
almost a 2D object. So
I'm going to cancel that by hitting Escape. The other way you can get to To Sphere
is to hit the Spacebar. And ooh, you can see that was my
last search! So this is a very good lookup
for commands, if you can't find them.
And we can see, if I type in "sphere", it gives us a couple of
choices there and To Sphere,
and it also gives the shortcut keys Shift, Alt,
and S. So brilliant! But we know that's not working, at the moment, so we
have to subdivide this edge. So we leave that
selected and we can do two options, we can either go to
Subdivide, here on the Tool Shelf, or we can go to Mesh,
Edges, and Subdivide, or you can get to another
menu, which is on the W key, as well. And
if we go W, and Subdivide is right at the very
top, very powerful, and take note of what
else is on here, it's a Specials menu. So we just want
Subdivide, and that's cut every one of these edges
into two, because we've subdivided by 1.
So it's cut everything into two. We subdivide by two,
it's cut everything in to 3 and 4, etc., etc.
So now I'm going to go for 3 and see what happens
now, and we can go straight on and try
To Sphere. So Shift, Alt, and
S, and as we move the mouse to the left and right,
we can see at 0 it remains a hexagon shape. But now as
we approach 1, if you look in the lower-left there, as it goes
up towards 1, we get a lovely circle in our mesh.
Brilliant! That's exactly what we want! So let's hop straight into Face
Mode again, and select these six slices of that pie,
and try pushing that into the model, and let's see what's happens.
Let's go into Object Mode to remove all that.
So we're almost there but it still looks horrible! It looks now like
it's a circle cut, but we're seeing the extra
geometry, the hexagonal geometry around it, or the
series of triangles that make that up. So we need to do one more step to make that
nice and neat. So if we hop back into
Edit Mode and undo that step, we can do
one final thing and that is insetting this
by a little bit, before we then extrude
inwards. Now, once we've done that and we hop back
over, we see that that nasty geometry surrounding the hole
has gone. So by insetting, we have given it the opportunity
to not look so horrible. OK, I think
it's challenge time!
OK, so I'd like you to create the next two circles we need!
So if you have done it, undo the extrude into
the sphere. We're going to deal with that, in a moment, so it's correct.
Then, we're going to create two more holes,
and then, using reference materials, just so you get the
hole positions right... So use reference materials to
guide their placement. Pause the video now and give that
a go! OK guys, welcome back!
Let's hop over into Blender!
Alright, so we have our
one hole here, and I'm simply going to
go a bit further up and I'm going
to put two more holes... Let's see,
they have to converge relatively close to one another.
So designs, decisions, design
decisions. So I'm going to pop it in
Perspective Mode, I think, just so I can get an eye on the ball.
Yeah! That's going to be about right there! So we can see the line
coming up here, so no it won't be there, not at all.
It's probably going to be there and there.
Now, that looks far too close together! If you look at
reference materials and pins, that just won't look right. So
let's remove that, and that one, well I'll keep that as a reference
because I will need, that
will be the lower triangle of the next set that I can possibly use.
So that one there and that one there, and let's
follow the line down. No, I've got that wrong! I'm blind as a
bat, when it comes to this obviously! Let's zoom in a little
further and see if we can actually get things lined up. So there will be a flat
edge coming up here, so the next available one
is that one there and this one here.
Now you can see what I'm getting at there! I'm just trying to make sure that it's lined up appropriately,
and actually, that one looks a bit too
far apart. So is there anything in the middle of this one here and that one
there? Nope, so I'm going to leave it like that for
the moment. Now, because I've selected them both at once, you can do this
by the way, so we can inset at the same time.
Now I cannot remember how far I inset
before, so I'm just going to do it by eye. That looks about
right, and now, we need to select
those two edge loops. Let's try and do everything in
one fell swoop here. So that one and that
one. Great! I'm now going to subdivide those,
so we go to Subdivide, and we set them to 3 which is
great! We can do that! Now, with
them both selected, I'm not sure, at this point, if it's going to
sphere correctly. No it's not!
you see there, it's doing something weird, so we are going to have to select these
individually. So let's select this edge loop here, and then, go
To Sphere and wack that up to
1, so it's 100% spherized.
And now, just select this one and do the same so it's
Shift, Alt, S, or you can go Spacebar, To Sphere.
And there we go, we've got our next circle!
And of course, my instruction before was to undo your extrude here.
So if you haven't done that, what can you do?
In fact, what we will do in the
next lecture is correct that, as if you had made this mistake.
That's absolutely fine! And I shall see you very shortly!