Blender Array Modifier Explained

modifiers explained is a series where i'll explain every modifier in blender today i will tell you everything you need to know about the array modifier basically the array modifier creates an array of copies of your original object to use it simply select your base mesh and add an array modifier under the modifiers panel change the count to what you like and now you have these offset sliders the three different types the relative constant and object offset where you can change the offset of each copy from the previous one and you can do this on the x y and z axis to create a shape that you like of course you're able to change the count afterwards and now i'll reset these values if you set them to zero of course all copies will be created within the original object of course later on i will talk a bit more about these different offset types now let's look at the fit types there are three different ones which determine the amount of copies which are created there's of course this basic count where you can put in an exact number there's the fit length option where you can put in a fixed length and change the relative offset to determine the amount of objects they will always stay within these bounds and finally there is the fit curve option to use it as the name suggests simply add a curve choose it in the curve selector now with your curve selected go into edit mode and change its size and this determines the final length of your array now let's talk a bit more about the offset types you've already seen the relative offset now let me enable the constant offset it looks basically the same there's no apparent difference but if we now go into edit mode and change the size of these objects the space between will stay the same not as with the relative offset where the space will shrink so constant offset really means a constant offset between between these objects no matter what finally there is the object offset let me add an empty and position it at the origin point of our mesh and enable object offset and now with that done let's select our mt and if we now move our empty the space between our objects is determined by the position of the empty as you can see here you can change the scale of your empty or its rotation and these changes will propagate through all of the copies and if we now create a few more copies you can really create some interesting looking shapes useful for shapes like stairs pillars fences architecture in general you name it now let's talk about the margin if we enable merge and decrease the relative spacing you can now see that these objects the vertices get joined together get connected the radius is determined by the distance slider down there oftentimes the array modifier is used in conjunction with other modifiers in this case we use the curve modifier add a new curve select your array object and give this one a curve modifier where you select your newly created curve go into the array settings and change the fit type to curve which now is very useful of course and now with the with a relative offset you can change the amount of copies a uv offset is a feature which becomes very useful if you're texturing to see it working let me first unwrap my base mesh go to the shading panel and create a new material i'll create a quick test material in order to see the effect of of this uv offset so let me add a checkerboard texture to our object and now you can see our little texture here if we now change the offset u or v you can see this changes the position of your texture of your uv map this is very useful if you want to create some texture variation in your array copies so they don't share all the same texture i personally don't use the caps features very much but i will show it of course anyways um to do use it um simply add an object in this case a sphere and set it as your start or end cap and now you can really see what it does it uses this object to position it at the start or at the end of your array no matter what the length of this array is i will now show you some little examples where the array modifier is very useful first let me create a fence i first select this first fence pole add a few copies and give them a bit a bit more space on the x-axis let's add some horizontal planks to this fence let me create one plank right here which we'll of course copy with our array modifier this technique is very useful very it makes it very easy to create a lot of copies of something like this it would be a very tedious job if you would have to create this manually so now let's select our horizontal plank and give this one an array modifier change it to the right offset type and increase the amount and the spacing to your liking and our fence is done very easy now let's create a 3d grid this is a very useful feature if you want to create a grid of any object type i will use a sphere in this case select it and give it an array modifier give it a few more copies and give them a bit more space with a relative offset now take this array duplicate it and change the relative offset to only offset them on the y-axis this will use all of your previous copies and spread them along in a second array do this the third time and now you have this 3d grid of objects very cool [Music] next up let's create a chain with arrays and now to do this add a circle with a lot of vertices select this and this vertex and press v to disconnect them press ctrl l and move it a bit up connect these two vertices by pressing f now let's object and convert it to a curve go into the curve settings go under bevel and increase the bevel amount to give it a bit of three dimensionality and in curve edit mode duplicate all of your vertices and rotate them so you have one final chain to this object add an array modifier and offset them on the y axis and as you can see here you can decrease the y amount so they intersect with each other and now you have your chain arrays are useful for creating brick walls as well to create one brick let's simply add a cube and give it its brick shape an array to this give it a few more counts a few more copies now let's add a bevel modifier and increase the bevel a bit so you get these chamfered edges now let's duplicate the array modifier as you've seen before and now we will duplicate it to the top we'll change the offset on the x-axis to give this typical brick pattern and now let's duplicate this array as well to the z-axis of course and create as many copies as you like and this is our final brick wall very easy and very fast let's create some stairs let's create one stair first in edit mode make it a bit bit flatter give it a bit more width and very important move it in edit mode to the side so the origin point stays in the center because the origin point is the point where we'll now create our empty which our final object will revolve around give it an array modifier and as you've seen before give it of course an object offset of our array with this array with this emptier selected rotated and to to give it the stair effect move it a bit up select our stairs and give them a few more copies and now you can can see that we have our final stairs very easy as well sometime in your modeling career you might want to create a steering wheel of some sort and this is exactly what we we're gonna do right here let's first create one object first it's always the same i will keep this very very simple you can add as much detail to this as you want make sure the origin is in the center and is where your empty will be as in the previous example add an object offset press ctrl a and apply the scaling this is very important a lot of a lot of times rotate your empty and give it some more copies and we finally created a steering wheel a common example where an array modifier would be very useful is window blinds first create one blind by yourself and let the array modifier do the rest of the work offset them on the z-axis make sure that they intersect a bit and create as many copies as you want in many occasions you want to create an object where one part repeats itself around a circle a race and especially the array merge feature can be very useful in this case as well make sure to center the origin of your object right in the center of the final final object give this one an array and empty as in the previous tutorial give it an object offset select your empty and rotate this one in this case about 90 degrees and give this one a few more copies merge these copies together and now we have one object um which we if we apply the array modifier now can edit perfectly in edit mode finally there are grid patterns in this case you want to make a honeycomb pattern select one shape one part first and give it an array duplicate this array as you've seen in the previous examples and play a bit around with the with the offsets um sometimes you you need to get the offsets very exact you can type in exact numbers there and in this case i always create two copies and add a third array to create our final grid and this is it this is everything you need to know about erase and blender if you want to download the project files feel free to do it and play around with it by yourself if you have enjoyed watching this and if you found this helpful make sure to subscribe to the channel and make sure to check out the series the modifiers explain series as well thanks for watching again and see you next time

Channel: Rescan

Views: 15,171

Keywords: blender array modifier, blender 2.9 array modifier, blender 2.93 array modifier, blender array, array modifier, modifiers explained, blender array modifiers explained, blender array modifier offset, array modifier caps, array modifier merge, blender array modifier curve, blender array modifier rotate, blender array stairs, blender array brick wall, blender fence tutorial, blender how to, blender array tutorial, array modifier tutorial, array modifier beginner tutorial

Id: E5m6zYZNisw

Length: 11min 49sec (709 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021