Xara plus Blender questions

[angelize]

I am trying to create a piece of textured fabric This is what I've done so far I created a 1pix curved line in Xara exported as a svg and imported that into blender. My line has come in as a curve I want to now extrude it to create my piece of fabric that I hope will follow the curve but when I tap E all it seems to do is move the line about it doesn't extrude it obviously I'm missing something what am I doing wrong?? eventually I hope to have a mirrored sphere sitting on my fabric and perhaps maybe a sky to add to the reflections (I haven't decided on that yet)

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Frances,

Select your curve and go into the Object menu (at bottom, leftish) and go up to Convert to make your curve into a mesh object. Once it's a mesh, go into Edge mode* (once you're in Edit mode by pressing tab) and select it. You should be able to extrude to your heart's content.

Something to remember...when you extrude a point, it becomes an edge. When you extrude an edge, it becomes a plane (face).

Hope this helps!

James

* - there are three major editing "modes"...working with Vertices, working with Edges, and working with Faces. In more complex modeling, you will find the need to switch among the three depending on just what you're doing at the moment. (more on that later)

[angelize]

Thanks James, now I have another problem I have added some planes and joined them together behind the fabric which is looking more like plastic at this point and the mirrored ball but the image I've imported into blender doesn't seem to want to map to them.

Here is my blender file I'm not sure if the textures will be saved with the file I haven't figured out how to pack it.

Any help will be much appreciated! Note: I zipped the file as the forum wouldn't accept the blend file.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Frances,

I'm happy to look at that for you.

To get your mapped images (and other "assets") to be included in the blendfile, just go to the menu item ("File" on far left, top) that says External Data. The first option there is to Pack the blendfile. Once you've activated this, then saving the blendfile will also automatically include all graphics, etc. Remember that (depending on the size of those graphics) the blendfile can get quite large.

Though the graphic was not included, I simply replaced one of mine and it did NOT render or map. I'm not quite sure what you did, but when I deleted the texture and simply added another, it worked fine. Take the one that I included and just hit the X to get rid of my texture and reload yours and see if it now renders... [The mapping will be slightly stretched at the place where the fabric object "rolls" (is ruffled). See note below.]

By the way, I notice that you have the rotator tool normally activated... I never use that. I think you will have it a lot easier if you mainly have the tool selected as per the following graphic. If you want to rotate, just press "r" and it will allow you to rotate, you don't need the circular tool thingy that gets in the way. Remember that, unless you enter a constraint after pressing "r", it will rotate based on which view you have. In other words, if you're looking from the TOP, and you rotate, it will rotate only in X and Y. If you're looking from the FRONT, and you rotate, it will rotate only in X and Z, etc. With the transform tool, as mentioned just above, when you need to position objects, it really helps, since you can grab hold of any particular axis and only move along that axis. Makes it much more intuitive and easy.



In the object that you're trying to map to, it doesn't fit one of the normal mapping types, Flat...Sphere...Tube...etc. Because of this (ie. that your fabric object is NOT planar), it really needs to be unwrapped to map perfectly and that is a slightly more advanced topic. Though I'd be happy to show it to you, in time.

Hope this helps!

James

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Intermission:

I was just playing around in the modeler and come up with I don't know what. Still, it looked kind of cool (looks like an artsy ashtray for some reason or perhaps alien robot fallopian tubes) so I share it.



Also, here's a little text "appetite whetter" for Frances...



We return you now to your regularly scheduled programming...

James

[guyke]

Though the graphic was not included, I simply replaced one of mine and it did NOT render or map.

I have the feeling that Frances and I are making the same mistake when trying to map an image as texture to a plane. It just doesn't work. I tried it for the beachball scene and it never rendered, so I imported a picture (the sandy beach) as a plane.

I didn't bother too much, as I'm working my way through the blender for dummies book, and 'giving models texture' is the next chapter. If I find out what i did wrong I'll post it here.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

Hello Guy,

Normally, I use that technique (mapping images to planes) all the time, and normally it works. In Frances' file, I could not figure out why it appeared to have a texture applied but would not render. Even after switching the graphic, it would not render. Some setting had to be set wrong, but I couldn't find it. I deleted that texture and reapplied another one (from scratch) and it worked fine.

If you do find out why you were having problems with the mapping, please do post it (as you said), because I am very curious. As I said, normally, no problems whatsoever with that feature.

Are you enjoying the book? It was highly recommended, so I have a feeling that it will surely help in step-by-step approaching this (wonderful) beast that is...BLENDER.

Have fun!

James

[guyke]

Are you enjoying the book?

Enjoying might not be the right word, but it's a good reference and yes, one chapter at a time, you get introduced to the different aspects of Blender.
Also, there are quite a number of exercises that one can go through, and results are on a dvd that goes with the book, along with a few tutorial videos.

[guyke]

I haven't figured out how to pack it.

I can help with this one: file => external data => pack into .blend file


as James mentioned ....