how do I spin an extrusion in Blender?

**Soquili** · 21 September 2011, 04:34 PM

James it wasn't so much having patience but planning. Start the render then take a few days Holiday.

**ODdOnLifeItself** · 21 September 2011, 05:24 PM

Re: Holiday

How many renders a year is that?

You did make me think of an important point about Blender since we were discussing rendering times. While setting up the scene and doing test renders, it is a good idea to change the image size under Render tab. It is specifically set up to allow percentages, so you don't have to mess with dimensional numbers. Set your end render image resolution to whatever you want. Then, when doing test renders, decrease the percentage slider so that you get relatively quick feedback.

If you set the slider to 67%, that's in both horizontal and vertical, so 2/3 * 2/3, which is 4/9, which means you get 2/3 the finished image size, but less than half the time to render it. Set it at 50% and it has 1/4th as many pixels to render. 33% image size takes 11% time-wise.

This usually only becomes pertinent if there are significant refracting or reflecting surfaces... (or some of the more advanced features like simulating hair, etc.)

James

**angelize** · 21 September 2011, 05:29 PM

That's a great tip James, thanks. I have an idea for something I'm going to try later, if I can make it work I'll have that vase filled

**ODdOnLifeItself** · 21 September 2011, 07:09 PM

One for Bill...

Click image for larger version.

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**angelize** · 21 September 2011, 07:29 PM

That's cool, did those begin in Xara?

**ODdOnLifeItself** · 22 September 2011, 06:08 AM

Hello Frances,

Yes, that did start in Xara. I drew the batman logo and then SVG imported it into Blender. It wasn't quite as smooth as I wanted it upon importing. When I imported, applied SubSurf modifier and then the Array to make the copies, it was 2,100,000 faces! That many faces makes Blender move a bit slower.

It also increased the rendering time, of course. This one took 17 minutes and is one of the longer renders. Since first working on this one, I've learned how to do similarly but lower-poly.

Glad you liked it...

James

**angelize** · 22 September 2011, 06:27 AM

I've noticed that when you convert a curve imported as a svg from Xara to a mesh you sometimes get a lot of faces is there a way to simplify these meshes?

**ODdOnLifeItself** · 24 September 2011, 11:25 AM

Hello Frances

There are several ways to simplify the meshes.

One approach is to manually go in and make more logical faces. Look also into the Beautify Fill function. ( <- under Faces) You can even go back and get rid of the faces and many of the vertices and then refill the object using more logical/structured face-creation.

Another approach is to load the object (or an image, actually) and just trace the object to create from scratch. Smooth objects especially work with this method as the SubSurf modifier makes it look smooth like the original.

Another approach is the cloth simulator. If you drop a cloth exactly on an object, it's possible to use that cloth then as the object... it will have the geometry that was used when creating the cloth, but shaped to the object.

There are other ways, of course. To find some of them, just do a search for "Blender retopo" and you should find plenty of articles.

If an object needs to have an exact shape, then the SVG works very well. It's a little sloppy when converting to a mesh, but that can be cleaned up if necessary.

When there is a little "artistic license" possible (ie. the object doesn't have to be to an exact cut), then I would tend to bring in the shape and just recreate it manually. It's easier than it sounds... Really, only when you start getting a very high number of Vertices/Faces do you really have to worry about these resources. (enough memory for the faces you've created)

Peace

James