Flower Tutorial Section3 Hexagon2
by Aine
Last stage and one many would like to see.
Q: How to make those blocky looking leaves and petals smooth and flowing? In fact, now to make them real looking.
This is done with the use of smoothing and soft selection.
We built, or build items in very low poly form to allow:
- better control
- fewer points and edges to position
- less headache and hassle
Now lets up those Polys and get this looking the way we want!
Starting out:
1. Click on 'Select by Object'
2. Select your Flower.
3. Click on the Smooth + icon in the Vertex Modeling tab
You'll notice:
4. the Smoothing button in the Properties box will turn blue and the 1 will be blue. This is called a smoothing value of one.
5. The Dynamic Geometry box will have an entry.
6. Your blocky flower will now be nice and smooth looking.
Since we do want the final flower to look smooth.
We will except the new poly count and collapse the Dynamic Geometry.
7. Click on the Lightening bolt there next to the Form(number).
You'll now notice the flower is still smooth, there are more polys to the frame and smoothing button up there in the Properties box is again gray.
Time to use Soft Select!
Soft Select is one very powerful tool in my way of thinking. It can take anything you build and reform it like you would clay.
To show you a little of what it is like:
Flower object selected.
8. Click on 'Select by Point'
9. Select a point on the very tip of your top leaf.
Notice with soft select off, only the point you selected is a yellow color?
Now with that point selected:
10. Click on the Soft selection box there in the Properties panel.
Notice now the leaf tip point is yellow and points away from it are red.
If you look close, you can see the red is brighter the closer you are to the selected Point.
11. This is the 'Radius' of selection or how far the tool will work when used. The default value for 'Radius' is 3.000, and can be adjusted either in the value box, or with the slider control there next to the value.
12. Default value for Softness is 50.000%. Softness controls how much bend you want in your task. Smaller values are more ridged, larger values are more pliable.
With the leaf tip still selected.
13. Move the slider value for 'Radius' up.
For this example the value of 12.266 was used, in order to select as much of the leaf without selecting any of the stem. Use the value which comes the closest to this area.
Now turn the room so you are facing the front of the flower.
14. Click on the little white triangle between the Y (green), and X (red) arrows. Move it first up, then in toward the leaf stem.
15. Change the Slider value for Radius to 5.695, or where red selection covers about 1/3 (one third) of the leaf.
16. Click on the White Triangle and move the down slightly then toward the stem.
When you let go, you'll notice more of the leaf seems to be selected, this is okay and what we need for the next step.
17. Now click on the little hash line under the X (red) arrow. This will rotate the X plane surface to a new location. Pull it down and around to where you have what is shown.
Note: When you let go of the Hash line, the manipulator will return to true X axis, while the area moved will stay as it was.
18. Since I wasn't to happy with the end placement of the leaf point, I again Clicked on the Triangle between the Y (green) and the X (red) arrows and moved it in and down.
19. Up your 'Radius' value slider so you have most of the leaf selected in red again.
Turn the work to view the leaf tip straight on.
20. Click on the hash line to the Y (green) arrow and push it about 45 degrees toward the front.
This will twist the leaf and give it more character.
Now your task if you wish to do so.
Use the different values and settings to morph, push and pull the different remaining parts of the flower.
Work first with the other leaves, then with the flower casing, lower petals, upper petals, then flower center.
Soft Select can even work to bend the whole plant if you choose to do so. I selected everything from the flower stem edge up, to produce my bend and turn.
One word of caution before done. Remember when using soft selection that if you move toward mesh, it will reapply the radius to the new shape. So if you were wanting to do the flower casings all at one time. You would first move the points down, then use the resize box on the manipulator to pull them in.
Once you have your flower the way you want it?
Apply Smoothing one more time.
Note: Don't forget to collapse it to keep the change!