3D Modeling with the Best: AutoCAD

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Do you guys want to get started? Cool. Well, welcome to 3D Modeling with the Best, is what I call it, AutoCAD. How many AutoCAD users in here? I'm hoping quite a bit. Cool. Anyone modeling with-- 3D modeling with AutoCAD? Cool. I'm Vince Sheehan. I'm your presenter today. I started using AutoCAD back in release 10, started in 1992, and just been pretty much obsessed over it ever since then. I probably started a 3D modeling, I don't know, maybe 16, 17 years ago, and just even then I've just been hooked on it every since. I was dabbling with it, and I finally made it to an AU, and took a 3D class. And I mean just the gears started turning. So pretty obsessed with it.

So yeah, this class we're going to start with showing you where the 3D workspace is. And then we'll get into the ribbon tabs, and which panels we'll be using. Obviously it's an hour and a half class, so we can't cover every single icon or tool on the ribbon. Then, we'll get into creating some standard primitives, and I'll call those the building blocks of 3D. Then, we'll get into creating 3D objects with polylines, and 3D polys, and polygons, and so forth.

So again, I'm Vince. The lab assistant we have in the class is Jerry Byrnes. He's in the back. Katie King, and Troy, I'm sorry I'm going to butcher your last name, so Troy. Sorry about that. Again, we're going to create some basic 3D, I'd say probably a little more than basic 3D objects in the class. We'll get into using solids, services, and mesh objects. Then, we'll get into editing those objects with the various tools. And as you can see on the bottom, the data sets are located in See Data Sets in the class description.

So a couple of examples of these are rendered in other software. But the objects are created in AutoCAD. The top left is rendered in 3ds Max interactive, which is their former game engine, which allows you to control your environment, kind of walk through it with a game controller. So is the bottom left. The upper right is-- most of them are going to be rendered in Max, but I'll pretty much draw everything in AutoCAD itself. Kind of same way with these guys. The bottom left, you know I bought a farm simulator game just so I can draw AutoCAD assets to import in and create my own environment. So it's kind of interesting.

So I have a couple of videos here. Like I said, I'm no going to display all of them. But this guy, the upper left-- shoot, I'm not connected to the internet. Anyhow, you can go through the presentation. It's just video links to what we have. So the top left, I used the 3ds Max interactive. The upper right, I pulled AutoCAD items and surfaces from AutoCAD into Unity 3D game engine. That particular one, I started developing it after Daytona Speedway. And it's fully drivable. I have an artificial intelligence car inside that I can race against. And like I said, it's all pulled from AutoCAD. The bottom left here, I got inspired when I rode the high roller just right around the corner and 3D modeled it in AutoCAD, and did a animation of it. The lower left, or sorry, the lower right, is an environment I created. I did a presentation a couple of years ago creating a game environment just from straight out of AutoCAD imported directly into a game engine.

All right, so let's get started. So you can have a blank drawing open for the moment. So what we're going to do is I'm going to show you where the workspace is if you guys know how to switch to workspace. Then, I'm going to talk about each tab at the top, the solids, surface, and mesh tabs, on how we-- when using the tools. So if you have just a blank drawing. So if you have the handout, there's a couple of settings that I like to set into drawing. It's not set by default when you open a new drawing. I guess you can create a template if you're constantly making these adjustments and use it all the time. So one is how many people adjust the UCS.

Cool. In 3D modeling you're going to adjust the z-axis quite a bit. So if you look at the bottom left here, you see the XY and the Z is actually pointing kind of down. So that's really your elevation from ground level, from zero to whatever or negative below ground.

So when we're creating poly lines, poly lines can only be drawn in the XY space. So if you want to draw a poly line at a different angle, you'll have to adjust the z-axis. There is a dynamic UCS, which is set down at the bottom tool tab. And this is all going to be based on how you work, how you actually use CAD.

So this is just me telling you where it is. I don't use it all the time. It just depends on the drawing. Sometimes if I have a lot going on with a lot of faces and might want to automatically change to a UCS that I just don't want. So more likely I'm going manually adjust the z-axis on my own.

So another couple of things, we're on page three of the handout. So a couple of other things we're going to do is adjust the views. And there's multiple ways to see the views. You can go through the Home tab.

Are you guys displaying-- I don't know if you can see at the top. Are you guys displaying the viewport controls? So you have them turned on? So if you don't haven't turned on, it's called VP control. And I like using it. It's right there. I don't have to really flip through the ribbon or whatever.

So you can adjust your views, top, bottom, left, right and get into isometric views. And I use this quite a bit. If you guys have-- I'm not trying to promote the company-- but if you have one of the 3D connection Space Pilots. Man, those things are awesome. It allows you to 3D orbit while you're CADing up. I didn't bring it, it's just one more thing I had to lug out here. So it works well.

The visual styles is basically how the object is displayed on screen. So again, initially it's going to be default 2D wireframe. So as you can see, you can display it as a conceptual.

Hidden, which will hide the wireframe that's in front of you. Shaded, realistic. Sketchy's kind of cool, it kind of gives you the hand-sketch sort of look. So you can change those, you don't have to. It's kind of a non-rendered type of style.

Let me see, there's another variable called facet res. And this will display-- how many people know a view res? OK, so obviously it'll display the sharpness of your curves, and arcs, and stuff in CAD. Well, facet res is almost similar, but it'll sharpen the quality of the solid.

So if you have it turned down-- by default it's set to 0.5. And if you have it turned down, you'll see your solid object will be a little jagged, not too bad. I kind of think with most graphics cards people have today, you're not going to have an issue turning it up to make your object quite smooth. So I typically set it to 10 at maximum. If I start to have an issue with the latency of anything, I'll kind of tone it down.

Step down to the bottom, surf tab one and two. Surf tab one and two adjusts the density, the end to end density of your mesh objects. So by default, it's set to six. And as we start creating objects-- and again, it's almost sort of like view res, per se. But it's actually creating more faces along the object to give you a really nice, smooth surface, per se.

And the bottom one is 3D orbit. 3D orbit, again, you can get to it several different ways. If you don't have the device, the 3D connection device, you can get to it through there. You can type it in.

AUDIENCE: Is VHR the one how you switch your work spaces?

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Oh, yes, sorry. Yeah, if you're not on a default, sorry, I can't remember. I work in the same workspace all the time. So at the top you can pull it down and it's set to 3D modeling. You can do 3D basic, but 3D modeling will have the better the better tools.

AUDIENCE: Sure, 3D workspace doesn't drop down. Workspace does not enabled to drop down by default.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Oh, it's not.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, the option there on the end.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: You can also-- there's a couple of different ways you can-- if you get down to the-- I call them the little hash marks at the bottom. You can turn it on in the toolbar at the bottom. Again, there's a couple of different ways. Or you can hit the little pull down at the top. Go to the far right, there's a little pull down and you can turn on workspace there as well. And set it to 3D modeling. Is everyone set? Cool.

All right, so the first thing we're going to get into is standard primitives. Standard primitives are, like I said earlier, your basic building blocks of 3D objects. It'll consist of spheres, boxes, wedge, polysolids, cones, and so forth.

And you could create-- there's standard primitives in the solids and mesh objects. So we'll actually start creating some of those. What I'm going to do is create a couple of them and I'll let you guys play. And you can follow along with me. You don't have to create the same exact primitives as I do.

So if you have the 3D modeling tab or workspace set, click the solids. I'm not going to go over the Home tab. It's kind of basic of AutoCAD. So click the solids tab.

So the primitive objects are right on the first pane. And the first thing I'm actually going to ask you to do is set the-- a little bit easier to see. Set your view to-- you can pick any of the isometric views. That way you really get an isometric view of the box.

So if you're creating a box, if you had it on the top all you would see is just a box and you really wouldn't see the depth of it until you flipped it around. So you can pick box. You can just click anywhere.

You can either type a length in or you can just randomly pick. I'm just going to randomly pick. Then it'll ask you for a height. Cylinder is kind of the same. So almost like you're drawing a circle. Just pick and pick the radius of it then the height. Sphere, just click and set the radius.

So under the polysolid tool you see several other objects, the wedge and cone. They're similar to the others. I'm going to start with the wedge first. We'll get to polysolid in a minute. Create a cone. Pyramid, torus, torus is kind of cool. I just prefer to call it a donut.

So just look at the command prompts at the bottom. It'll ask you for radiuses and heights. I'm going to go back to polysolid. So polysolid is almost like you're creating a or polyline. But it's also creating the height of it.

So you could use this guy for walls. I mean, just name it. You could really use it for anything.

And as you're drawing around, I'm just randomly clicking spaces. So if you ever hit C for close for polygon, you can do the same with this. C Enter, and it'll close it.

So as you can see, all these objects are 3D. And I'm going to click the view style and just set it to shade. I'm going to use the 3D orbit to-- the system variable I was telling you about earlier, you could see how the cone, how it's little jagged at the bottom. Not too bad. But if you set facet res to 10, it's like view res for polylines.

Now, if you have a pretty complex file and your graphics cards a little lower end, if you're trying to 3D orbit it might lag a little bit, but. I'm going to give you guys a couple of minutes to play around. Any questions so far?

So mesh objects have primitives as well. So as for solid objects, you can actually run a command that will calculate the volume of the solid, which is really cool. I've helped with our design group, who was designing a pool and he needed to know a quick volume of water that would be in the pool. So I just ran a solid that would represent the water within the pool, because it was a very irregular shaped pool and, yeah, I was able to quickly get him a volume.

So the mesh objects, I kind of look at it as surfaces of mesh objects, I kind of look at them as a piece of paper, if you want to say. It's just taking and shaping that piece of paper so the inside is kind of hollow. So it's not really giving you a volume, per se.

But mesh objects has the same standard primitives. So if you want to try a couple of mesh object primitives. So click the mesh tab. It's really the same commands and clicks, sort of. You just pick your point, click your radius.

So there's a box. Draw a cone and a sphere. And as you can see, the mesh objects have 3D faces that kind of make up the object in itself. We'll get into editing those objects to kind of make them a little more smooth. Right now there they're very primitive. A mesh torus.

And you can use these objects to build whatever you like to build. Like I said, you can use to start building a house, a pretty generic house if you want to say. The polysolid, you can start using it to build walls or build a Coke can out of the cylinder. Whatever your imagination has, I mean.

So at the bottom of page four I have drawing objects. Probably 90% the time I'm 3D modeling, I'm creating objects because they're very custom or have an organic shape. Whatever it may be, I'm using anything from lines to polylines, 3D polys.

Has anyone ever use the helix command to draw a helix? Or if you want to say a spring. Anything from circles to six-sided polygons, hexagons, octagons, ellipses, 3D faces. Let you guys play for just one more minute.

All right, we're going to move on to the next step. So if you want to open solid shapes 01, it's under the see data sets. The class description might be DWG. Just let me know if you-- does everyone see it?

So in this file, like I said just a minute ago about creating shapes from polygons, just closed polygons, polylines. So what we're going to do, we're going to use a couple of of the tools, loft, sweep, extrude, revolve.

Revolve is probably one of my favorite commands. You can create just about anything with revolve. It's really cool.

The pushpull, thicken, and so on. Does everyone have a strong open? Good? Cool.

Right, so the first thing we're going to do, click the solids tab. And again, this is AutoCAD so it depends on how you work. If you're a typer or if you're a button pusher.

Like I said, I started with Release 10. Not many menus were in release 10. So I'm kind of an old school typer. So I'll set up two-letter commands for most of the commands. But we're going to use the ribbon today.

So the first thing we're want to create, we're going to extrude these basic shapes. So into the solids panel, click extrude. Then right-click and you can pick a point or type in a distance.

And you can do multiple polylines at one time. And these objects can be edited through your general AutoCAD properties menu. So you can change the height of them. You can also group edit to change the diameter or if you would like to taper.

I'm going to move onto the presspull, just right below extrude. And each command follows along with the text below the object. And presspull is it's kind of near. You don't have to select the object so basically hover your pick box in front of whichever face you would like to presspull.

So I'm going to pick this guy. And just either drag your mouse whichever direction. I'm still in the command, so I'm going to grab another face.

All right, we're going to do revolve. So the red closed polygons and circles, that kind of represents a lamp. So a lamp, typically, is 360 degrees.

So it's like the revolve command under a presspull. Select the two polygons. And there's two little circles in here. Then right click. Then it's going to ask you for an axis that you want to revolve.

So basically what this is going do, it's almost like a sweep. It's going to take the red polygons and kind of rotate them around. Whatever angle you like. We're going to do 360 degrees. But if you want to see a cross-section or like a slot or a section out of it, you can do 270 degrees and it'll-- you'll see in the second.

So what I want to do is pick the lower, left corner, the 90 degree corner in the upper left corner. The lower left. And again, you can pick a point where you'd like to create the object or down at the bottom, look at the command line. You can see 360 is the default. If it's not, then you can type it in.

All right, I'm going to move onto sweep. So what I want to do is pretty much extrude the circle along the polyline. So when I select this, I'll select the surface and as you look at the command line, it'll ask you for a path or an alignment that you would like that circle to follow.

So click sweep. It's just to the right of extrude and presspull. Select your circle, right click to enter. And down at the bottom, you'll see alignment. It'll ask you, do you want to keep the circle perpendicular to that alignment? For this case, yes we do.

Then select the polyline alignment. Try to mimic a paperclip. But you can use this method if you're drawing pipes or just anything, an arch of some sort.

We kind of do the same with the helix beside it. So I'm going to again, select the circle. Right click, select alignment. And I'm going to pick the helix.

So if you're creating a car spraying or just whatever. Is everyone good? Yeah?

AUDIENCE: Can we [INAUDIBLE]?

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Right, yeah, actually I should've told you. That was kind of a little afterthought. I can go over real quick on how to create a quick helix.

All right, so we're going to do loft real quick. Loft is kind of one of my favorites as well. So loft is under the suite pull down.

So I have two circles and an ellipse. So they're pretty much on the same z-plane. Yeah, they're just set at different elevations.

So when you click loft, you can select them all at one time. But I'm actually going to pick individual-- is it a little dark? Very dark, OK. Sorry, I'm going to change my background because that seems pretty dark.

Why is it not-- maybe this will do it. I don't know if that's any better or any worse. Yeah, sorry. Is it the magenta? I'll change the-- Is that better? Do we maybe you want to dim?

AUDIENCE: Go back to it for low res. The gray really needed--

AUDIENCE: Yeah, the gray background was good.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: The gray background was OK?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: OK. A little bit darker gray, maybe that'll-- better? Cool, thank you.

All right, so loft. So what loft is going to do is connect each shape and create a solid based on the shape. So the first circle, it'll be obviously a circle at the bottom. But when I select the ellipse it'll kind of morph into the ellipse. And I'm going to select the upper circle. So it kind of gives you a little bit of an organic shape. So I'm going to do this guy. So I'm going to select the bottom circle. And just keep selecting the circles as you go along.

But it doesn't have to be in that particular order. Just playing around with the class. I'm going to pick the circles and in a different order. As you can see, it really changed the shape of it.

The mesh objects and surface objects, they're very similar. It's just creating the surface objects instead of the solid objects. I'm going to get into editing some of these objects.

So just pan down a little bit, you can see the union, subtract, fill it, chamfer, taper, extrude faces and so forth. So these [INAUDIBLE], I always pronounce that kind of backwards. So let me try this real quick.

So basically, union will join, for an example, the two spheres together and create one solid object. So right now there's two spheres. Subtract will subtract one sphere from the other and it'll leave the impression, if you want to say. Intersect will leave a solid where are the two spheres intersect with each other.

So back under solids tab. To the right of loft, you'll have union. And you're really not going to see a difference, but now when you click on it. And if you were to extract the volume out of it, you'll see that now they're one object. Subtract.

So you'll select the first object, right click and select the object you would like to subtract from that object. So if you were to have a cylinder and you had a smaller cylinder inside, say if you you're creating a washer for nut and bolt. You could subtract the inner cylinder from the outer to create that ring, if you want to say. That's another example.

Intersect, you can select them both. It's creating these two little half-dome-looking solid. As anyone-- yes.

AUDIENCE: Could you demonstrate object creation as an option in interference checking?

VINCENT SHEEHAN: I'm not going to do that today. We can talk about it after, I just don't have it included in my hand out.

AUDIENCE: OK, sorry.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: So who has used fill it? Chamfer, typical AutoCAD type of stuff. Well, fill it, you can use the same fill it command to fill it the corners of any object. So if you had a part and really no object out there has a very, very sharp corner. Majority of the parts or objects that we touch in our lives don't have super sharp corners.

So you want to give it a little fill it. So I usually use the F command. I'm going to give it a-- I think my default radius is-- I'm going to do a 0.5.

The reason why it's showing up green is I set the color to not by layer. And I'm just on a different layer. If you set the object to by layer, it'll change. Yeah, it's just typically using your typical fill it, your average AutoCAD fill it command.

All right, I'm going to go through one more. Then we'll jump to the creating a couple of assets. I'm going to chamfer the-- so you're fill it is actually on the solids editing panel. So with the chamfer, like you were to chamfer a polyline. Just select your corner.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and jump to page seven of the handout. We're going to create a little mailbox, a little dropbox if you want to say. So you want to open the dropbox EWG file under the data sets.

So I do already have it pre-modeled to the side. And I have the view style set to realistic. So as you can see, the polylines off to the side, that's all I uses to create-- let me go back to the gray, sorry. The view style kind of flipped it. Is that easier?

So there's five polylines that make up this dropbox. So the first thing we're going to do is create the legs. And as you can see, the legs kind of extrude up and arch over, then come back down.

So under the solids tab, I'm going to extrude. And I'm not going to just pick a distance, I want it to follow the path of the magenta polyline. So down in the command line, select path and it follows that path.

Second thing we're going to do we're going to extrude the bottom. So click your extrude command. Select the blue closed polyline. I'm just going to snap endpoint to the bottom of the green polyline.

Use the extrude command again. I'm going to extrude the green polyline. I'm going to snap endpoint to the corner of the cube that we just made. I'm going to turn off the-- and put it back to the 2D wireframe.

If you're not on 2D wireframe, go ahead and do that. That way we can see this white closed polyline inside the box here. I'm going to use extrude again. Extrude the white closed polyline. And just pull it out, it doesn't matter what the distance is. Just far enough beyond the cube.

Then I'm going to use the subtract. I want to subtract this guy from this guy. So click here, subtract. Select the top part of the dropbox. Then select the shape.

Then I'm going to union the two objects together. You probably really don't have to. But it kind of makes it easier for texturing if you'd like to add a large texture. I don't know if you guys saw, I had a little flying mail logo off to the side.

Then last thing I'm going to do, I'm going to mirror the legs. So type mirror or use the ribbon, however you'd like to do it. Snap to the midpoint of the cube and mirror to the other side. And no, I do not want to erase the original.

So as you can see, it's really simple. It's going to be based on how you set up your polylines. Sometimes CAD might have an issue with how you set up those polylines, sometimes it just may not be able to create the object you want to do. So you might just have to do some manipulation. It'll tell you if it doesn't work.

All right, so the next file is going to be the canopy. And we're on page eight of the handout. So I'm going to use the surface network to create the top of the canopy. As you can see, there's a little bit of a wave to it.

I'm not really worried about the thickness of the object. Just like it's going to be a piece of fabric. It's going to be wavy, it's not perfectly flat. So under the surface tab, there's network at the very upper left.

And as you can see, on the canopy I have yellow polylines and red polylines. So when you select network, pick the two yellow. Then right click, then pick the two red.

Basically it's asking you for your M and N direction of the surface. I'm going to pick the yellow first, right click, then select the red and right click. The cool thing about it-- it should have went with it. But you should be able to adjust the polyline in your surface will go with it.

I'm going to turn it back to wireframe so we can see through the surface. So to create the sides of the canopy, I'm going to use loft. And again, we're creating a surface instead of a solid object just like the canopy edge. Then the green polyline. And you can do this all the way around.

The post and the little shelves, they're using the extrude command. I'll get through those really quickly. So you can click the-- surface has extrude as well, if you would like to use solids.

Select the circle. Then I'm going to pick the path. Select the cyan line. I'm going to repeat extrude. Extrude the base of the shelving. You can just pick an arbitrary distance.

Yeah, so as you're selecting an extrude, you can type in the thickness. You can also type negative that same distance and it'll push it the opposite direction. Then I'm going to extrude the shelves, I'm going to use an arbitrary distance.

If we have time at the end of the class to go over texturing and materials, AutoCAD has a pretty decent library of the Autodesk standard textures and materials. You can apply, say, a wood material to the shelf. Or create your own material if you take it from a photo or use anything as simple as paint to create the texture. Or if you're really good in Photoshop, you can apply those as the textures and materials as well.

But as you can see, it's very quick. Yes, I do have the polygons already set up and that's probably key. But they're very basic polylines. I mean, pretty much all of this you have used, circles, and lines, and arcs.

All right, so the next drawing we're going to get into-- we're on page nine of the handout. This is going to be a little bit more complex. It's kind of what I sort of get excited about. It's a car wheel.

We're going to use revolve, extrude. How many people have used array to array objects? So they so they have a 3D array that allows you to array in a spatial, 3D environment.

So if you look at the wheel, the barrel and the inner part of the wheel are the green, closed polygons. And again, to get those polygons in that spatial space, I use the z-axis.

So I changed my z-axis, as you can see, at the bottom. That's a default, to your XYZ. You can go to the Home tab. You could just watch what I'm doing here.

So when you click the z-axis vector, this will allow you to change the z-axis. So basically it's pretty much 90 degrees from-- and you can pick really anywhere. I'm going to turn on ortho.

So as you can see, the z-axis is pointing in towards the right of the screen. And this will allow me to draw those polygons in that space. So being that I have polygons in both default, I used world UCS. And in the modified UCS, you will have to adjust the UCS when creating an object like this. I'm going to set it back to world. So you can pick the top icon, UCS. Set it to world.

So under the solids tab, I'm going to revolve the green polygons. I want to revolve them around the red center line. So snap endpoint to one end and snap endpoint to the other. I'm going to revolve it 360 degrees.

I do have layers setup for these objects. I'm a huge fan of putting objects on layers. If you don't, then you'll just start pulling your hair out. You just wouldn't be able to turn things off and see what is behind the objects. Even if I were to set it back to the 2D wireframe, some of your line work, it'll just get lost.

So right now I have created these solid objects on guidelines. I'm going to put them on wheels, a 3D wheel and turn it off. So the next thing I want to do is create the bolt holes. So I'm going to turn it back on and show you the example.

There's a typical car wheel that has five lugs, one, two, three, four, five. So I want to create the cylinders to subtract from the center solid shape. Oops, turned everything off. Sorry, I accidentally turned everything off.

So I'm going to revolve the blue polygon. So under the solids tab. Then select for your center line, it's going to be the yellow center line. I'd like to revolve it 360 degrees.

Now we're going to use 3D array to create the five cylinders for the lugbolt holes. So you can type in 3D array. Select the cylinder. So

Are you guys familiar with rectangular and polar arrays? Very similar. So I'm going to use polar array.

I'm going to create five objects, 360 degrees around the red center line. That's the central line of the wheel. Click yes to rotate the objects. And specify center point. Again, it's going to be around the red center line.

I'm actually going to put these on the 3D wheel layer. You might have to zoom in, sometimes it gets a little tricky when you see the mesh or the solid object. You just have to really look at the object and see where things are. Things can really start to blend in with each other.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to subtract each one of these guys from the center object. So you guys with me on this one? So under the solids tab on the ribbon, I'm going to subtract.

I'm going to It pick the center wheel, right click. Then pick the cylinder. Yeah, this is what you were telling me with the error. Yeah, it's creating an error for some reason on a couple of these. It worked on that one.

So again, repeat the subtract command. Select the center and select the cylinder. You guys with me so far?

I know this is probably a little more complex of a-- yeah, try one of the other cylinders then go back. I think it's the original cylinder that I arrayed that's giving me the error. So try one of the other cylinders first and it seems to work. I think it might be because, I don't know, maybe array is doing something to that particular cylinder or not. I'm not too sure.

I'll let you guys get caught up, if you haven't already. But the next thing we're going to do, we're going to create a spoke from the two white polygons. Then I'm going to use the cyan line to kind of give it a little bit of a curve just so it's not a straight loft.

So again, on the solids tab I'm going to click loft under the solids panel. I'm going to select the two white closed polygons. When I select enter, I do want to completely close out of the command. Like before, there is a path option at the bottom in the command line.

So select it and then select the cyan polyline. Kind of give it a little bit of curvature. And just one little quick thing, as you notice, I had already set up the white polygons with a fill-ited corner.

So you can either do that before in your polylines and polygons. Or if I did not, I can go through and use the fill it command and do it after the fact, after I create the object. Sometimes it's easier to do it beforehand.

Then we're going to 3D array the spoke. I'm going to do polar. And you can select how many spokes you'd like to have. I'm going to use five. And yes, we want to array it 360 degrees.

Rotate the objects, yes. And everything is a ring around the red center line again. So I'm going to pick snap endpoint, snap endpoint. That's pretty much all we need to do. I'm going to put them on-- I do have a layer for spokes.

Then the magenta closed polygon is going to represent the center cap of the wheel. Again, I'm going to use revolve, snap. You can use the whole red center line as the center point or snap to the corners.

You guys still working, or? So I'm going to set the view style so you can actually see what we actually created here. And like I said earlier, you can go back and use your properties dialog box if you want to create a nice little cut cross section of the wheel. Just use the plain old properties dialog box or fly out.

I'm going to give you guys a few more minutes before we move on to the-- probably have time for one more drawing. Then if we have a few minutes I'll try to get into some texturing and materials.

So I'm going to go ahead and skip to page 12. If you're into creating assets, interior assets, tables, chairs, and so forth, we're going to create a table with a table cloth. If you'd like to open table under the data set.

And again, you can see that it's just a series of circles, a couple of closed polygons. The lower blue line is actually a spline. How many people have used splines before? So splines, you can kind of create this really organic shape.

As you can see in the tablecloth, you can create how it drapes over the table in itself. It's very cool. I would probably suggest playing around with it, just creating yourself some splines and just draw all over the place. It actually has some group editing so you can change the shape of it. Similar to a polyline, but it's really fluid, very organic looking.

So the first thing we're going to do for this guy is create the table legs. So I have a green closed polygon at the bottom. Again, we're going to use solids. I'm going to extrude the solid. And obviously I want to use the cyan line as a path. So click path in the command line.

Then you can use the typical AutoCAD array or 3D array. I'd probably still suggest using the 3D array. Do polar. Just, like, how many legs you would like to have. I might just do five just to make it kind of odd-ball, I guess.

I'm going to rotate it 360 degrees. And for the center point of the array, I'm going to do the center of the circle. Pick the center point of the circle and just drag up or down and select your other point.

Like I said, you can use the regular AutoCAD array. The only downfall with it, you have to explode it after the fact if you would like to add materials to it. Because it'll kind of be one object.

I'm going to extrude the two lower magenta circles. It's kind of going to be the lower base of the table itself. So in my handout, I'm going to extrude them a distance of 0.333. I'm going to switch back to-- as you probably notice, I actually switch back and forth of my view styles quite a bit. Because I kind of like to see what it looks like, no not just in the 2D wireframe.

But as you saw, I would like this to be kind of one piece of wood and have it hollow in the center. So I'm going to use the subtract, almost like what I mentioned earlier about creating a washer, per se. I want to subtract the inner circle or solid from the outer.

So pick the outer. And I would like to subtract the inner from that. So it creates one object. I put it on the table layer. Now I'm going to extrude to create the top part of the table, the actual table surface itself. I'm going to extrude it 0.08333.

I'm going to isolate the tablecloth guidelines layer. So you can select the lower spline and isolate that layer. So now we're going to create the tablecloth in itself using the loft command.

I'm actually going to use a surface for this one. So under the surface tab on the ribbon, the create panel is loft. You can select the lower spline. It doesn't matter which order, so if you selected the circle first it doesn't matter. Then pick the upper circle and just click enter a few times.

But as you can see, it created-- I don't know why my orbit keeps disappearing. It doesn't have a top on it. So I'm going to use a command called patch. And it's under the surface tab of the ribbon.

If you hover your mouse across it, so you can fill in the holes. It's pretty neat. So I'm going to use patch to create the top part of the tablecloth. And it will automatically know where the edge of that surface is. So as you can see, I highlighted it.

So select it and enter, enter or right click. So the cool thing with the patch, this has some pretty cool little options that you can modify. So when you click on it, you see the little blue inverted triangle.

When you select that, you can change the shape of the patch in itself. So if you're, I don't know, if you're creating a difference object, per se. So you can kind of round it off. It's kind of neat.

But our table was flat, so I'll select it, set it back. I'm going to put these two objects on-- I do have a tablecloth layer. Then turn on my table. I'm going to turn off-- you don't have to follow this. I'm going to try to get this guy in a 3D view for you.

So very cool, creating interior type objects. You can use the same method on creating, like, couch cushions to really get that organic look. Or make it look like it's been sat in for a while, it's kind of a little worn out.

We have about 10 minutes left. I'm actually going to go through materials real quick. So I'm going to skip a couple of the other drawings. Yes.

AUDIENCE: All these ones you've shown us, are they all able to be exported out to FPL so they can [INAUDIBLE]?

VINCENT SHEEHAN: The solids can. I think it depends on what program you're going into where or not the mesh-- what's that again, sorry?

AUDIENCE: I have a heck of a time with splines.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Yeah, so obviously since there's no thickness to the surface, that may not be able to. But I know for sure that 3D solids will. I've 3D printed multiple items that were just 3D solids. Like I said, I've never used a surface because it's really paper thin, if you want to look at it that way. So I just don't know how some of the software, I don't know, like Ultimaker's Cura or whatever might handle it. You might go to, in their software, maybe add a thickness to it?

AUDIENCE: All the kids love to use wiremesh.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Yeah, yeah.

AUDIENCE: But you can't 3D print it.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I would probably advise using solids. Like I said, it has a volume to it.

AUDIENCE: You need to expand the thickness.

VINCENT SHEEHAN: So you can run the tool in CAD. It's a pretty lengthy command. Shoot, I can't remember it. But it'll actually give you the volume of it. So that way you can quickly see how much plastic you might be using.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE].

VINCENT SHEEHAN: Yes, so in one of the-- we're just kind of run a little bit on time. So one of the shapes-- I still might have the file open. Yes, so right here I have a-- I went back to the solid shapes. And I also have one of the surface shapes drawing in the data set as well.

Yeah, so you can run the thicken command. And it's a flat plain. It'll give it a thickness. That is on page-- it's in my handout. Page five in my handout.

All right, so we have about seven minutes left. I'm going to actually get into a little bit of texturing and materials. I'm going to go back to the tablecloth for the moment. So with a little brief description, it's not really in depth of materials and texturing.