[3.x] How to Bend Objects In Blender | Simple Deform Modifier | All Settings Explained With Examples

in this tutorial we will learn how to bend objects like these in blender you might already know that we can bend an object by using a simple deform modifier but if you are new to blender you might find it little difficult at times to control this modifier and the bend angle may not work correctly so we'll take some suitable examples and discuss how to use this modifier to bend any object let us start with a blank new file we'll flatten this cube and then we'll enlarge it in the x dimension so that we can bend it so let us change the z scale factor to 0.1 and then we'll increase the x scale factor maybe we can change this to 6. now one important step we need to ensure that the object has enough number of subdivisions along the direction in which we want to bend it so go to the modifiers tab and add a subdivision surface modifier switch over to the simple option and then increase the levels maybe to four or we can go for five for a very smooth bending now let us minimize this modifier and then add one simple deform modifier switch over to the bend option before we discuss about anything else let us first focus on this field called origin you can use this modifier even without an origin but it always helps if you use an origin object in order to control the direction of the bend correctly it's very useful and we can use any kind of object as an origin so we'll add one empty object because it remains hidden in the render output and we can use any type of empty let us go for a sphere it is very important that this empty must have the same location as that of our target object for example let's say our target object has changed its location it has got some displacement like this so we need to bring the empty as well to the same location or to the origin of the target object this object has a location transformation 303 so the empty must have the same location transformation we are done with the location of the empty we'll now bend this object so select the object and go to the modifiers tab in the simple deform modifier in the origin field we have to select the empty object here this angle determines how much we want to bend and this axis determines the direction of the bending but as you can see even if we change this bending axis we do not really get the correct bending style that we wanted to create that is when we need to rotate the empty object to get the correct result we need to manipulate these rotation angles suitably for the empty let us first change this x rotation field to 90 degrees and we can see that the object is now correctly bent in the direction that we really wanted you can change this rotation angle in the positive or in the negative direction to create an upward or a downward bending so the obvious question that we can ask is how to know which angle to be changed for the empty actually there is a complex relation among this rotation the local axis of the target object and this bending direction that we want to achieve but instead of trying to get into all those complexities i think the fastest way is to use a trial and error method with these rotation angles you just need to change any one of them to 90 so change the first one and check if it yields the desired result otherwise change this to 90 degrees or you can also change this one of them will surely work and for each of them you need to test with each bending axis in the modifier section for the target object it might sound a little hacky but even blender officially thinks that these are not very intuitive so the trial and error method is actually not that bad and you may not need to change these angles always many times it will work correctly without any manipulation so we have already seen that we can change this angle field to change the bend amount and if we change the bend axis here we can get another style of bending in a different direction like before we can change this bend angle here as well to bend the object either upward or downward like this now we will look into the next thing so expand this section called restrictions we have two fields called limits which you can use in order to restrict the bend on any one side of the object so if you increase this lower limit you can see that the bend effect is limited to this side and this side remains just flat and instead of that if you change this higher limit the bending will be restricted to the other end of the target object you can also keyframe these limits to animate them over time and if you want you can also use both of them together to create a bend profile like this you can change the curvature of this band by changing this angle let us change this to perfect 180 and here let us use point three for the lower limit and point seven for the higher limit as a result we'll get this u-shaped bend for our object let us take one more example we'll bend this flute which is a cylindrical object you'll notice that this object is not aligned to any particular axis it is in an inclined position since it has got these rotation values let's see how to bend this object in this position just like before we'll first add one empty we need to move this empty to the center or the origin point of this object so select this object then go to the object menu and under snap select cursor to selected we'll get the 3d cursor moved to this origin point now select the empty object and from the object menu under snap select selection to cursor as a result the empty will be now located at the same origin point as that of our target object then select this object go to the modifiers tab and add one simple deform modifier switch over to the bend tab in the origin field we'll select the empty although the flute is now somewhat bent you can see that there are abnormal distortions at these ends so this does not really give us the correct result even if you change the bend axis the distortion is still present and moreover the bending itself is also not perfect we have already added enough subdivisions so that is also not an issue the problem is this object has got some rotation transformations like this and we need to copy the same to the empty we have already copied the locations here from the target object now these rotations should also be copied from this object so take a note of these values and then we have to change these fields instead of manual edit you can also add a copy location and a copy rotation constraint to the empty to automate this step now let us select the flute and in the modifier section if we select the y-axis we'll see that the bend is now perfect without any distortions you can change this bend angle as you wish the object is now perfectly bent and no distortions at all so this way you can bend any object even if it has location or rotation changes and in the restrictions you can use the limit values in order to give it any kind of shape like this so this is what we finally get that's all for today i hope you now find it easy to control the bending operation in a simple deform modifier please let us know if you like this tutorial thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe to this channel

Channel: 5 Minutes Blender

Views: 126,993

Keywords: Blender 3.2, Blender 3.1, Blender 3.0, Blender Tutorial, How to use blender, Blender basics, Blender tutorial for beginners

Id: KgM-nWTHAJU

Length: 7min 37sec (457 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 30 2022