Took me ages to model this as well. As for the material zones took twice as long as modelling in the first place; intended to render it made of glass. Ho hum! Back to the drawing board…...
Ha! Funny you should ask that; I remembered over the weekend and after a bit of searching found it.
I’m afraid it’s not rocket science just pick out the areas required then on one of them zoom in.
Holding the shift key extrude a bit, alter to taste, extrude a bit more if desired - save after making shader domain. Then click more faces and repeat the next selection and so on until all done. There may be a more efficient method out there, but I only have a simple mind so look for simple methods.
Hells teeth, have been having some grief today. This pesky old computer has been continuously seizing up on me. The PSU is 800w as far as I can remember and I can see I’m not running out of memory. No new hardware has been installed so I suspect the cpu is overheating because I haven’t cleaned the inner workings for eons, it probably looks like thick undergrowth in the Amazon basin.
However, onwards and upwards. So, how did I make the mesh round the blue sphere thingy ? Fig 1
What follows is a brief description on ‘ow.
Select orthographic view mode and then the line tab followed by the circle option fig 2. I used the x2 point circle snapping it to the base mesh I then increased the number of vert’s around it’s periphery to x300. Fig 3.
Next I selected the edge of the circle, the surface modeling tab, followed by the coons tool. Fig 4.
Collapsed the DG with the resultant diamond mesh form shown in Fig 5
This mesh is intended to basically follow the curvature of the blue sphere as in Fig 6. Therefore after rotating the circular mesh 45 degrees, I elongated the outline in the X direction and reduced the height in the Y. To get a reasonable coverage trial & error may be necessary. Fig 7.
I created two separate curves; one for the Y/Z axis and one for the X/Z axis. Fig 8. Then having selected the mesh form and ensuring that I view the mesh at 90 degrees to it’s face I clicked on the bend tool followed by clicking on the Y/Z curve. Fig 9.
Fig 10 shows the X/Z bend, to bend successfully the profile of the curves must always be viewed as both Figs 9 & 10 relative to the object being curved. Fig 11.
Fig 12 shows the resultant object from which we will produce the mesh. With the object selected in the tree, transparency selected from the bottom tool bar and using the line tool, select the mesh; then copy and then paste. Fig 13.
