Tutorial 2: Polygon modeling

We will start with the piece at the bottom of the mast.

First make sure that your interactive Creation is unchecked. CREATE_POLYGON PRIMITIVES_INTERACTIVE CREATION. And then create a polygon cube.

With your object still selected go to the Channel Box Editor under Inputs and give the cube a depth of .2 and put 2 for the Subdivision Width.

You should be familiar with the channel box by now, but you can take a look at the image below if you don’t know where to find the value for depth.

To delete half of the object press and hold right click and select FACE so that we can edit the faces of the poly. In faces mode select half of the faces and hit delete.

To get the radius on the top we will use the wedge command. In face mode select the top face, then go into edge mode and select the inside edge while holding shift.

Create the wedge. EDIT MESH_WEDGE. In the Channel Box Inputs give”polyWedgeFace1” 5 Divisions.

Delete the Face and Edge seen below.

Go to the MESH_MIRROR GEOMETRY menu by clicking the box to the right. If your model is the same as mine so far you select the +X Mirror Direction and hit apply.

Next we will work on the Mast.

This time CREATE_POLYGON PRIMITIVE_CYLINDER. In the Channel Box change the Radius to .5, change the Subdivision height to 2, and change the Translate Y to .5. Select the faces on the bottom half and delete.

To make the round end CREATE_POLYGON PRIMITIVE_SPHERE. Change the radius to .5, and change the Translate Y to .5 too. Delete the top half of the faces. You should have three objects in the scene like below.

To combine the geometry of the mast select the sphere and cylinder and select MESH_BOOLEANS_UNION. To make the slot create another cube and put in .25 for the Depth and 2.1 for the Height. Select the Mast then the new cube and subtract the geometry, MESH_BOOLEANS_DIFFERENCE. The object should appear as below. You’ll notice in the Channel Box that the objects have accumulated a number of inputs (HISTORY), since we won’t need to go back and make any changes to these operations we should EDIT_DELETE BY TYPE_HISTORY.

Next we will make a whole and chamfer like below.

CREATE_POLYGON PRIMITIVE_CYLINDER. Translate Y .5, Rotate X 90, Radius .25, Height 1. Select the faces on either end of the cylinder.

Go to Side View by mmb (middle mouse button) drag the “side view” camera from the outliner into the scene. Make sure under EDIT MESH_KEEP FACES TOGETHER is selected, and then select EDIT MESH_EXTRUDE. Extrude the faces out a bit by dragging the blue arrow out. Before deselecting, click the blue box at the end of the blue arrow on the gizmo. This will put the extrude action into scale mode. Select and drag the light blue box at the center of the gizmo to create a chamfer like below.

Get out of face mode and select the object. Use the r hot key to scale the object 1D (drag the green box in) until the chamfer overlaps with the cylinder.

Make 2 duplicates (shift d) before we difference the objects. Select the mast then the peg and go to MESH_BOOLEANS_DIFFERENCE. Repeat for the tab we made before with one of the duplicated pegs. You can use the g hotkey to repeat the command. To make the peg that fits in the whole select the remaining peg and insert an edge loop EDIT MESH_INSERT EDGE LOOP. Drag a loop like below and repeat for the other side.

Go into face mode and delete the faces on the chamfer beyond the loop.

Select the peg and go to MESH_FILL WHOLE to close the geometry.

With the top faces of the mast selected extrude, EDIT MESH_EXTRUDE. In the Channel Box under Inputs_polyExtrudeFace1 type in 50 for Local Translate Z. Then delete the faces.

Next we will make the wings on the sides of the pole/mast. Select the pole, go to faces mode and select the 2 faces under the loop that are in line with the slot. Like below.

With the faces selected open up the menu for EDIT MESH_ADD DIVISIONS. Set Add divisions to Linearly and the Divisions U to 3 and hit apply.

Select two faces in the middle, go into edge mode, and shift select the edges along the bottom of the faces, then EDIT MESH_WEDGE FACES.

You could set the options in the wedge faces menu before hand, or we could just make changes in the Channel Box. Put 45 for the Wedge angle, and 8 for the divisions. Repeat for the other side.

Next we will make one of the cross members.

Group the geometry, MODIFY_CENTER PIVOT, turn on grid snaps, and snap the group to the origin.

CREATE_POLYGON PRIMITIVE_CYLINDER. Radius .25, Height 2., Rotate X 90, Scale Y 10

Select the faces on the end (cap) of the cylinder. EDIT MESH_EXTRUDE. Click on one of the boxes at the end of the arrows, and scale the faces out uniformly to create a small lip. Extrude again (hotkey g), this time drag the faces out with the blue arrow, and uniformly scale outward to create a taper. Extrude one more time just pulling out with the blue arrow, perpendicularly. See sequence below.

CREATE_POLYGON PRIMITIVE_SHPERE. Press w for move, and holding v snap the sphere to the center of the cap . Rotate X by 90 in the Channel Box. Scale the sphere until it is close to the same size as the end of the cross member.

Scale the sphere until it is close to the same size as the end of the cross member.

Delete the half of the faces of the sphere where the two overlap, and delete the cap faces on the end of the cross member. Instead of union we are going to merge the vertices together. First select both objects and go to MESH_COMBINE. Then select EDIT MESH_MERGE to merge the geometries cleanly. In plan view delete half of the geometry.