Advanced Arrays, Instancing & Curves| Learn Blender 2.9+ Through Precision Modeling | Part- 28

by the end of this video you'll understand an  incredible set of features of how to do arrays   within blender not just using the array modifier  but using instancing using curves using vertices   you name it we're going to cover it what's up  i'm jonathan and welcome to maker tales where   i'm sharing my maker journey to help you go  further in yours so don't forget to subscribe   and hit that little bell icon to never miss  an opportunity to keep making this video is   all about the array modifier and things that  are very similar to the array modifier as   well as how the array modifier works with other  modifiers it's a very intensive video this one   it's going to be a little bit longer and a little  bit more complicated be sure that you've watched   the first video before you jump into this one  and probably best understand the entire course   before jumping to this because we're going in deep  starting from a fresh blender file let's go ahead   select everything and delete it because we're  about to do a really deep dive into the array   modifier and things that are very close to the  array modifier remember that if you haven't gone   and seen the first video i really suggest you  go and do that first so i'm going to bring in a   cube here we're going to make it quite small i'm  going to go with 0.5 millimeters and now let's   go and do the simplest thing out there which  is an array modifier with a constant offset   of one millimeter and let's set this to 10. so we  now know exactly what's going on when we do that   now let's go ahead and let's add another modifier  to it i'm going to add another array modifier   and this time i'm going to do a constant offset  on the y by 1 i'm going to remove this one to zero   and as you can see as easy as that we now have  a 10 by 10 array now the key thing here is this   is all controlled by this one cube right here  so if we go ahead and we edit this one cube   well that's going to go ahead and edit all of  them now if we wanted to have mesh here that   we wanted to edit we would have to apply both of  these arrays so then we would be able to go ahead   and manipulate these cubes of course if you just  apply one of these that means you will have 10   cubes which are then being arrayed 10 times that  way so you have 10 different ways of editing it   of course the key thing here is this is perfect  distances from each other so no matter what you   cannot go ahead and edit this now i would be wrong  to tell you that this is the only way to do this   because it isn't and let's go and cover that  right now so the other way of doing this is by   something called instancing now i did mention  instancing in the last video and i might have   led you a little bit astray here because these  are not instances yes they are technically but   no at the same time because instances in blender  don't really have real mesh as you can see here   in our scene statistics we have a whole bunch of  vertices faces edges so this here is technically   all real mesh because if we delete one of these  arrays you can see the numbers go all the way down   because this is all coming from one object right  so let's talk about instances now i'm just going   to get this cube going to bring this up a little  bit on the z and then we're going to bring in a   plane i'm going to make this plane 10 millimeters  and then i'll take this plane into edit mode and   we're going to right click and subdivide it by  9. this number is very important because you will   understand in the future why it's so important but  for right this minute just take a look we now have   10 faces by 10 faces right let's go back into  object mode now we need to make this cube a child   of the plane so get the child take it to the  parent then we'll go ctrl p set parent to   object done let's select our plane and go into the  object properties here and now you can see there's   the instancing menu let's just quickly read what  happens here on the faces if not none object   instancing method to use faces instant child  objects on all faces having read that and knowing   that we have a 10 by 10 faces on this plane  you can imagine exactly what's about to happen   we click this and there you have it we have  now instanced our cube all over this of course   you still have this cube right here well you can  just go and find it within here and go ahead and   hide it you don't need to have it up anyway so  with that there let's talk about the power of this   we still have the ability to edit that cube and  we can still edit all the cubes all together   not only that we also have this plane so if we  edit this plane and let's just select a face here   and bring this up you can see that it's also  arrayed along 3d geometry okay fantastic   now i don't really use it with faces i use it  with verses so let's go ahead turn on verses   this will now turn into an 11 by 11. this is why  that number is so important so if we really wanted   to we should have done this by a subdivision of  eight and then we would have got a ten by ten   but anyway with that we can now go ahead and let's  select an edge let's go with this edge right here   select that entire edge and now we can just  move that edge and there we have it we can now   do so much more precise instancing if we really  wanted to and we can affect our array however   we're wanting okay let's say for whatever reason  um this back here is exactly what you're wanting   you know that this is not real mesh because our  vertices edges and faces have not gone up and   that means we can't really use it for much so how  do we turn this into real mesh to be able to truly   use it once again well we have to apply reality to  it yes i'm trying to get you to take a look at the   apply menu where we apply our scale make sure  you have your plane selected and you will see   right here make instances real so we click this  and now all of a sudden we have a whole bunch   of origin points everywhere but have you  noticed something a little bit strange   our vertices and edges have not gone up now  i think this is a little bug but for now   best way to fix this is select one of these  cubes join it all together into that there   and then we can go back into edit  mode go p part by loose parts   then we go back here and then just go right click  set origin point origin to geometry and there you   have it you can see we now have a whole bunch of  vertices and edges all over the place down here we   have our plane and our cube ready to go once again  but all this here is now real mesh to play about   with and that is instancing in a nutshell there is  so much more to instancing and we will be using it   even more in this video now let's go ahead and  tackle the next part to start off with we need   to introduce the curve modifier to you so we're  going to bring in a mesh a cube here going to take   this into edit mode i'm going to scale it on the  x sum and there we go so we have that like that   now i'm just going to move this down on the y  a little bit and we're also going to bring in   a bezier curve i'm going to scale it by the  radius right here because if you scale it   normally and even if you apply the scale right  here on these points if we go into our menu here   this needs to be 1 1 and even if you apply the  scale they don't go back to 1 1 in my experience   so let's go ahead and do this curve modifier now  the curve modifier basically deforms mesh so i'm   going to select this here and we go add a modifier  we're going to go for a curve which modifier along   which axis we're doing it on the x-axis the red  axis and we're gonna go okay great pick this curve   right there now what on earth has just happened  you can see it just looks like it's made a big   mess what why it's okay it means that the origin  points aren't working in relationship to another   we know how important these points are so let's go  ahead and fix that right now i'm going to go right   here we're going to go to our tools origin points  so we're moving our origin points so with this one   it's a nice and easy one we're just going to do  a snap vertex bring the 3d cursor over here and   we're just going to set the origin point to the 3d  cursor okay that's a good start now i'm going to   turn off the visibility of the curve modifier on  this we're going to select the origin point of   here we're going to go with our cad transforms  go g space o so we can snap to our origin point   space to clear shift f for face center i want  to say the face center of this here because we   want this entire x-axis to be affected by that  okay let's turn off our origin only let's turn our   curve back on but hey this still looks like a mess  what's going on here well we need to bring this up   to there it needs to be in the same spot as well  okay so we'll bring that to there we go origin   oh sorry 3d cursor selected to cursor oh make  sure it's selected there we go selected cursor right this still is not working how we're wanting  why is that well we're deforming here and edges   are needed for deforming so let's go into edit  mode and let's just go and give this a whole bunch of loop cuts and now when we take this   into object mode you will see that we have gone  ahead and deformed our cube to that right there   i hope that makes sense because that's as  simple as i can make it i know it's incredibly   complicated and at the end of the day this is  the only way that it works you need to have this   all working together the key thing here is origin  points must match and then you must give this   enough information now before we go further with  the whole idea of arrays and all the rest let's   say you wanted to create some sort of pipes or  ducting or something like that doing this is not   the way to do it curves have this built into them  so i'm going to go ahead and turn off this curve   we're going to get this cube once again i'm  going to select this face right here i'm going   to go ahead and part this selection delete what we  don't need which is that right there and now right   here we have this face now with this face i'm  going to go ahead i'm going to go into edit mode   select this face and i'm going to go and delete  only the face so we're left with this edges why am   i doing this because this lets us turn this into  a curve this is important because you can only   do this with a curve so i'm going to bring that  curve back over there so we're going to bring our selection to the cursor great now we're going to  select our bezier curve right here and go into the   options of the bezier curve now within the options  of this you can go all the way down to geometry   now you might think okay great this is  everything i need so we increase the depth   you can see it creates a pipe fantastic as you can  imagine there's resolution so if you want to make   this however you're wanting it's right there but  here's the important part there is a profile and   an object so profile is a little bit weird you  can go ahead and play with this however you're   wanting to play with it i don't find that it's  that great it's great for some molding but not   what i'm wanting i want an object i'm  going to select this object here okay   what's just happened why is that going so weird  and in this way does it because the orientation   of our mesh is wrong if we go into here and then  we take this into edit mode and we rotate this   on the y you will see that once we hit 90 we have  our duct right there now of course right this   minute is shade did flat now we can go ahead right  click and say shade flat sorry i meant to say   shade smooth we call this golden shade it flat and  there you have your ducting now the great thing   about doing it this way is that you still have  your curve here to edit so if you wanted you can   go ahead extrude this out you can see it's a very  powerful way of creating things like this and if   you're wanting you can go ahead and let's increase  the resolution now so we're going to go over to   our curve properties shape resolution increase  this all the way up you can get crazy with this   okay so now let's talk about arrays because this  is very similar to array you're basically arraying   this shape along here and joining it all up that's  what we've basically just learned but how do we go   about and do this with an object and instead of a  curve and extruding along a curve we want objects   along a curve well that can be done so let's  delete everything let's take our 3d cursor back   to the world origin and we're going to start  right from the beginning here which is let's   bring in a single vertex so we bring in a single  vertex i'm going to go into our vertex selection   go to the top view we're going to extrude this on  the y by five great extrude this on the x by five   great and extrude this just a little bit out in  this weird direction that way why am i doing this   because i'm creating our curve so let's go ahead  we have this selected let's go object convert to   curve great you can take this into edit mode you  can see we have a nice polyline curve you know   what this one i don't really want a polyline curve  i want this to be a little bit different so i want   to select it all and go right click we're going  to set spline type to bezier and then i'm going to   select this handle here i'm going to go g y bring  that so we have a nice little weird little curvy   bit right there that's exactly what i'm wanting  okay so let's go ahead and let's array some cubes   so let's bring in some mesh let's go for  a cube let's make this nice and small 0.5   great okay so key things to note right this minute  our origin points are exactly in the same spot   that is so incredibly important so let's go ahead  and let's array our cube first so let's go into   our modifiers add an array array we're going to go  with a constant offset and be sure that you know   what's going on here i'm going to go and set this  to a constant offset on the z by one millimeter   now what i'm also going to say is the length of  it i want it to be as long as this curve okay   so that's the length up done but it's still  not going along the curve well we now just   learnt how to curve mesh and believe it or  not write this this modifier is seen as a   mesh by modifiers so that means if we were  to apply our curve and we say deform axis   on the z because that is the way that we are  arraying and then we set this curve we have   now just arrayed along a curve and that's it now  yes you can see the problems instantly right here   this is a deform modifier it is going to deform  whatever mesh it's on it so as you can see our   mesh has gone all sorts of wacky here and it's  definitely not precision modeling to the slightest   but there's a few things that we can do so first  of all we can edit our entire curve select it all   and we can turn this into a free which all of a  sudden now you can see that it's a lot more snappy   and it's only right on the corners that things are  going weird we can give it some more resolution so   i'm going to select everything we're going to go  here set this resolution 1024 all right zero to   four and there we go now it's as sharp as it can  be but it's still not perfect this is not exactly   what i'm wanting now the key thing that i do wanna  do here is we're gonna go and do a little bit of   advanced material stuff because i want you to be  able to see what's happening we're going to go   into our edit mode right this minute we're going  to go into our face selection and select this face   right here we're then going to go into our meshes  we're going to add a material and we're going to   add another material now we're going to click a  new material we're going to make this material red   and this material we're assigning it to that face  now why am i doing this so that we can go into our   material preview mode and you can see where that  face is in relation to our cube so you can see   it is on the outside so it's gone ahead and done  some weird stuff there so let's go ahead we can   grab this we can take this into edit mode and hey  i want to be able to see what's going on like why   is this going in that direction and all the rest  is i can't really understand what's happening   well in our modifiers you can turn this on  in edit mode too and there you go now you're   seeing it in edit mode as well so we can select  everything that we have here we can go ahead and   rotate it on our y and you can see as we rotate  it on our y we can go ahead and set this by 180   and there we go that's all our faces now facing  the same way that we wanted them to be in the   first place okay great but jonathan this is still  not workable for me i'm talking about precision   i wanted a cube right there why can't i have  a cube right there okay let's go into the   next step of this to fix this issue we're  basically going to be using instance thing   to help us so let's go ahead let's click our  cube here let's turn off our curve our array   so we have just our object right here along with  this curve right there okay i'm going to go ahead   and i'm going to go back into this view here  and i'm just going to bring this up a little bit   there we go like that yes i know it's not ideal  but you'll see in a moment why i'm doing this   we're going to bring in a plane we're going to  make this plane 0.5 it doesn't really matter what   size it is you can imagine what's about to happen  keynote this plane is one face that's it nothing   else to it so we have this one face i'm going  to go ahead and i'm going to array this plane   on the constant of z by one the exact same setup  as we just had we're going to go with a fit length   of the curve of this one right here great great  that's perfect and then i'm going to go ahead   and we're going to add a curve on the z of  this curve okay that's looking pretty good now   you can see no matter what if you are perfectly  on the corner here you are going to get this angle   so if we were to go ahead here into our arrays  and just set this to 0.99 you can see we are right   there like there is nothing we can actually  do so we have this back to one doesn't work 0.999999999 it's just not going to happen  this is as close as you can get it that is   just the way the cookie crumbles when it comes to  curves and to be honest when it comes to arraying   a longer curve you're usually not going to need  more precision than this because whatever your   array that is right on the corner of something  you're wanting something pretty sharp and that's   what's happening right here it's something  very sharp so if you're perfectly on the   corner you're trying to play something this is  not the way you want to do it i will show you   a different way though anyway so with that said we  now know that if we go ahead and select this cube   then we select here so the child to the parent  we're going to parent it now and you've got this   we're going to select this plane object properties  faces instancing there we go we have now just gone   ahead and instanced this we can also go into our  shaded view and you can see that our instances   are as so now we can see that our object  is right there we can actually go into that   plane hide that cube and there is our object now  arrayed again all the same applies to instancing   and all the rest that you want to do there you  can go ahead and edit this however you want it   so let's go into the next part of this as you can  imagine we're working with instance in here so we   grabbed this we could go ahead and set vertex  but this is going to give us a four by four   this isn't what we're wanting in the slightest  okay well how else can we do this well   the simplest way is right this minute we have  this plane here we could go ahead and create a   single vertex and array a single vertex but for  the sake of this demonstration i'm just going   to go ahead we're going to go into edit mode i'm  going to go m and we're going to merge at center   which gives us a single vertex right there in the  center and now when we go back out you can see   that we have all of these vertices arrayed  along this now why is this so important   well let's think this through what does a vertex  have a point position in space what does a face   have well has lots of vertices a point position  in space and a rotation and a normal so a whole   bunch more information so this basically  means if we were to instance off a vertex   there isn't the rest of the information is  there there will only be this cube this vertex   and an array so let's do exactly that let's array  that along vertices and you can see that it's gone   ahead and arrayed without rotating your object  at all that is how you do a non-rotation based   array of an object okay now with that done let's  talk about well being perpendicular to a surface   and the rotation of curves all right let's  go back to basics here i'm going to select   everything delete it and we're going to create  ourselves just a bezier curve we have this bezier   curve right here i'm going to make this a seven  so it's nice and big i'm also going to go ahead   and create ourselves a cone this time so we're  going to go with a cone i'm going to go with a   3d cursor changing here because i want to do  a little bit of editing to this so it's more   visually appealing i'm just going to scale it  this way and i deselect this top and i'm going   to scale that down so it's more of a sharp point  like this all right now we're snapping already so   i'm going to go and snap all of our origin points  and everything to the beginning of this so let's   go and do that we have our that selected brilliant  selection to the cursor great this origin point   gonna set the origin to the 3d cursor so  both the origin points and everything is   right there we should now be familiar on how  to go ahead and array this along this curve   once again you select your mesh you're going to go  and we're going to add a modifier an array i'm not   going to do it on the z this time i'm going to do  it on the x so we're going to constrain constant   offset i'm going to set this to a 0.5 i want to  do a constant offset of a fit length curve of this   curve right there so it's a nice long array like  that perfect right now i'm going to go ahead and   deform it we're going to add a curve deformation  modifier keep it on the x and we're going to say   this curve here great so that's that now we're now  set up to talk about curve normals what yes curves   these lovely little things take it into edit mode  go into our overlay and you will see normals let's   turn the normals on let's increase these handles  and you'll see that all these little arrows come   out these arrows are the normals of the curve  so if we select one of these object points here   and we go ahead and start playing around with this  handle here you can see how the normals move with   the curve not only that the normals also increase  in density as you increase the resolution and   on top of that they have a rotation as well  every single point if you go into our item   you can see we have a radius and a weight and  a tilt what on earth is this let's go ahead and   play with the numbers so this doesn't do anything  right this minute well it's not really going to   happen until you deal with soft bodies but it does  work with radius so you can thin down second up   it's all right there or we have this tilt so we  can tilt our curve so we can go ahead and give   this a lovely 180 tilt and you can see now all  the normals how they're changing by 180 degrees   along the curve because every single control point  has its own tilt amount all right so now with that   explained let's talk about the issue that we have  when we go ahead and create a curve from mesh   so once again let's go and bring our 3d cursor  to the world origin and let's create ourselves   a uv sphere this time so we have this uv sphere  i'm going to go back into our solid mode so we can   see this a little bit clearer great so we're going  to go and make this a little bit bigger i think   because if not we're just going to be stumbling  all over the place great nice and big now we're   going to take this into edit mode i'm going  to select some random verses here select this   select that path there select this path here that  down there over here and we'll go back to that   okay great we have an edge all the way around that  we're wanting to curve in some way now this here   isn't going to work for us so let's go ahead let's  go back into here let's deselect that right there   so there we go that's a nice curve that we could  array along okay so how would we do this well we   know how we would do this we would do a shift d to  duplicate it then we would go p part the selection   separate the selection and now we have this edge  that is just here floating about let's go ahead   and convert this into a curve right now we've  just learned about normal so let's go take a look   at what's just happened to the normals of this  so let's go here let's take this into edit mode   all right so the normals are going into the  mesh that that doesn't quite look right does it   let's take a look at what would happen if we  tried to array along this so if we do a snapping   right there we need to first of all set the  origin point to the 3d cursor let's go ahead   let's create ourselves a cone once again i'm just  going to quickly scale this just a little bit   so hey you scaling you scale down like so let's go  uh scale z so you're nice and pointy great so we   have this pointy point and we're wanting to array  this along the curve let's go ahead and do that   once again remember we now know the process of  this we're going to grab this we're going to set   an array we're going to array it along whatever  distance we're wanting so i'm going to array this   every 0.5 and let's set it to the length of the  curve that we have here fantastic and now with   that done we're going to deform it now keep in  mind we're going on the x here so we're going   to go ahead and now add a curve deforming on  the x yep which curve this curve there we go   oh wow that is a mess isn't it well yeah it's a  mess but you've you've already shown me jonathan   you can just go ahead we can select our object we  can go into edit mode we can go here like that and   then we can start playing around with the rotation  okay let's go and do that rotate okay let's go   rotate this on the y a bit okay that's that's not  quite what i'm wanting maybe it's on the x there   we go and rotate that on the x that's looking  more perpendicular right that that should work   great but it's perpendicular at this point but  it's not perpendicular on that point and what's   happening to the whole scale of things things  are just going so you can see just the problems   that were happening here it's just not quite right  and that's all got to do with the normals of our   curve here being into the mesh so to fix this  there isn't a way to fix this you could go in   manually to every single one of these points  and then just take a look go for a tilt tilt   this the way that you think it should be tilted  and then go to the next and the next and the next   yes it is a real pain now there is a fix for  this i've gone ahead and we've created an   add-on called perpendicular curve this add-on is  completely and utterly inspired by a great add-on   called curve array pro unfortunately it's a pay  for add-on which is 15 pounds and we're all about   basically open source here so i'm going to go  ahead and i'm going to show you what we have going   on right here so we're going to select our curves  once again that we're wanting so select this here   we're going to create a weird one going down  that way we're going to go all the way down here   then we'll go back up there along down and select  up back to there and we'll deselect those because   that's not how a curve is going to work so  with that all selected you install the add-on   the add-on is linked down in the description and  then you click this one button curve from edges   we click that and that is the curve created now  what exactly has this done we're going to select   this curve and take it into edit mode you can  see now that all of the normals of the curve   have been averaged to the faces that they connect  to so it's as perpendicular as you're going to get   with a curve i'm not saying it's perfect precision  perpendicular because it's taking all the faces   that are connected to it and basically averaging  it so this is sort of the best you're gonna get at   the moment i have a feeling that the developer  of the curve array pro add-on is planning   on making this and he has a thing called magic  curve and he's wanting to making that free at   some point but he doesn't feel comfortable doing  it just yet so i've gone ahead and created this   in the meantime so let's go ahead let's set  our origin point to the 3d cursor once again   and then let's create ourselves our cones once  again so take this into edit mode scale it down   then i'm going to scale it on the z up  a bit there we go we have our cones now   again we know the setup of this exactly how it  should go now so we're going to go an array we're   arraying this with a constant offset on the x by  0.5 for me and then i'm doing this by a length   of the curve of our perpendicular curve right here  and then with that we're now going to go ahead and   add a curve modifier on the x of the perpendicular  curve and there you have it simplified as quick   as possible of course you can see there's still  little problems we can go into our curve itself   select the whole curve turn this into some free  handle curves let's go and do that so v so free   there we go they're now free handle we can also  go here make sure that everything has a mean tail   or not mean tilt a mean weight of one great and  there we go it's just sort of going crazy with it   seeing how you're wanting it i found that  the best results usually for the curves   is if we set this all the way down to one  because then it's very much a set angle that has   on all of these so there we go that's that now  as you can see we are deforming so how do we go   about and fixing this deform you should know this  by now we're going to be talking about instancing   for that so if we undo to the point that we have  just our cone once again i'm going to go ahead and   we're going to create our plane so our plane is  there so let's go and do this once again add an   array we're going to array it this time on the x  so we're going to go here array sorry on the z i   meant not on the x because we have to make this  nice and flat and straight so we have this now   on the z great that's that there we're going to do  this by the fit curve length of the perpendicular   curve and then we're going to go ahead and curve  to form this along the z because we've done   an array along the z of this curve great that's  gone all the way around there that's looking good   except this doesn't look quite right let's go  and fix that quickly so we're going to go here   select everything go v say free there we go now  we have a whole bunch of free curves everywhere   as you can see it's gone ahead and done that quite  nicely i'm just gonna set the resolution all the   way down to one that's probably not what i want  to let's go 1200 and just give it to me as flat   as possible there we go so with that done we now  know that the plane the original plane not the   array plane is right there so we're going to go  ahead and select that we're going to parent it   so object parenting then we're going to select  the plane once again we're going to go to the   object properties of it and we're going to do a  face instancing and this isn't quite right but as   you can see it is right it's just going along the  wrong way because we've gone ahead and done this   all through the z and the z is what's being  arrayed this way so technically it's doing this   correctly all we have to do is go into edit mode  and we just have to do a little rotation on our x   to by 90 degrees exactly in the right  direction and there we have it now we have   this perpendicularly arrayed as best as we can do  it right this minute i'm not going to say this is   precision perfect but it's damn sight a lot  better than what we've got right this minute   and there you go that's how we're going  to do some perpendicular arrays along   mesh lastly let's go ahead and recover radial  arrays because i don't think i made a very good   example of showing you just quite how powerful  they are so i'm going to delete everything   we're going to move our 3d cursor to the world  origin and then let's bring in a cylinder great   cylinder so we have 32 vertices here key thing  here is to make sure that this can be divided by   four as you can see it can because every single  one of these axis goes perfectly through an edge   right there okay now i'm going to take this into  edit mode and we're going to cut this up so we get   a wedge so i'm going to select these two go with  the j and then i'm going to select those two and   go with the j i'm going to do the same on the  other side as well so these two right there go   with the j and these two right here that one  right there and that there and go with the j   now i've created all these faces so i can select  that face that face that face invert my selection   go delete and say faces so we have this wedge here  and that perfect origin point in the middle there   great so that's not quite where i want it  though i want to bring our origin point up   to this point there so let's go ahead let's  go right click set origin point to 3d cursor   and now because we're about to do a radial array  we know that we need an empty so i'm going to go   ahead bring in an empty great that's exactly  what i want now let's go and do our modifier   add an array we're not doing it by relative offset  we're going by an object offset of our empty grate   so now we know both of our origin points are right  at that point and we know that we have 32 of these   so what would it be well we have this z here that  we can rotate now how much do we need to rotate   this well what would that be that would be 360  divided by 32 because remember one of these faces   counts as one of the sort of wedges so with that  done we can now go back into our object here and   set this to 32. now if you're not sure you can  always go back one you can see that it opens up   okay 32 and make sure that we merge this because  that's basically what we're wanting to happen   now why have i gone ahead and shown you this  well the reason why we can now go into edit   mode we have this right here so we can give it i  don't know a loop cut do something like that we   can go to a face selection we can extrude this  face and then we could extrude it once again   grab this and extrude this up fantastic  look at that something that complicated   made so quickly but let's say that we wanted  there to be a space between every other one   how would we do that well let's just undo  that quickly it's actually pretty simple   what we're basically wanting to do there oops i've  gone ahead and turned all that on there we go and   what we're basically wanting to do here is double  the distance right so we would have the number   here so let's just go ahead here let's go divide  that by two okay so that gives us half a segment   and then we would also have this rotation we would  want to times this by two right because we have   half the amount so times that by two okay so now  you can see every other one isn't quite there   so how do we fix this well all we do is  go into edit mode select all this here   we're going to go and do a shift d and then we're  going to just go from our 3d cursor or rotation on the z by do we know the fixed amount  that we need to rotate no we don't know   that fixed amount so what are we going to use  use cad transforms so turn on cad transforms   go r we're going to go from the vertex this vertex  here to that vertex there snapping it like that   we'll select everything merge by distance and  then let's go here by distance we've taken out   five vertices and there we go is our cylinder  closed again now here's the great thing we can now   go back here we can extrude this out here and go  ahead and extrude it once again and extrude this   up once again and that is just sort of showing  you the power of what is the array modifier the   array modifier has so much use to it is literally  it's impossible to cover it all but i've done   my best to cover as much as i can within this  video well done for getting through this video   yes it's probably one of my longest one and  probably one of my most complicated but i think   you can see just quite how powerful it is to know  all of these things together in one spot a huge   thanks to my patrons you guys are absolutely  awesome and it's the reason why i'm able to   create all these videos completely for free and  if you're enjoying what i'm making here you think   i'm worthy of your support i would love to see you  there too don't forget that we have a discord and   that's linked down in the description thank you  for watching keep making let the quest continue

Channel: Maker Tales

Views: 14,825

Rating: 4.966197 out of 5

Keywords: modeling, how to, tutorial, technical drawing, accurate, modelling, precise, mm accurate in blender, blender 2.9, blender, precision, how to learn blender, hard surface modeling, learning, how to use, 2.93, blender modifier tutorials, blender modifiers, blender array modifier, blender array modifier tutorial, blender array modifier step by step, radial array, instancing, pipes, curves, array along curve, perpendicular array, curve normals, instancing array, advanced, extrude along curve

Id: MBvT6RiSEj0

Length: 43min 3sec (2583 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021