CREATING CYLINDERS AND SPHERES IN RHINO
BY DARKSABER

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Darksaber's X-Wing Station

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To make the prefect symmetrical Cylinder or Sphere is quite simple really, I'll start with a cylinder, from the menu bar select Tools/Polygon Mesh/Primitives/Density.

And this box will appear: -

This box is for making the size for the cylinder you wish, for this example well will create a 8 sided cylinder, so do as I have done from the picture: -

You can make with as many faces as you wish by just replacing the number in the Around Box.

Press OK, next from the tools menu select tools/polygon mesh/primitives/cylinder, next place you cursor in the centred of the grid as so: -

Practice this a few times to get it right, but you should have something like this, next select the mesh and apply the control points.

(I had better mention you can not use the faces as they are as they are polygons and not actual 3d faces)

Next from the tools menu select tools/polygon meshes/primitives/3D faces.

Next start tracing over the points clockwise: -

Next select All then hide the face you just created, and delete the other faces so now you left with this:-

One cylinder, join the faces together by selecting tools/polygon mesh/join

Now say you want to create a small gun, so select All and press copy and paste the move the new tube like this: -

Next copy the one you have just made and paste and move copy this one, paste and move, repeat this until you have about four cylinders as so: -

Select all the meshes and press control points and snap all the meshes together into one line as so: -

Now you can start to shape it so select the these control points: -

From the tools menu select the Scale button: -

And place the cursor in the centre of the mesh and start scaling to the size you wish:-

So now you should have something like this picture: -

Stretch it around a bit to get the right shape: -

Add a few more faces and you have a basic gun or laser barrel

Creating a sphere is very similar to creating a cylinder, follow the steps as above but in the vertical box you have to enter a number so let say we make a sphere with 18 sides, so open the Density box and enter 18 in to the Around box and 17 in the vertical box as shown: -

Next select tools/polygon mesh/primitives/sphere and follow the steps as above and you should have something like this: -

One tip I find easier to trace it, is to chop the sphere in half so select all then control points select half the sphere and delete those points it should look like this: -

Now from the top view start tracing from the centre outwards: -

When the mesh is all traced select All and hide the faces, next press delete and un-hide the face you have just created and join them. You should have something like this: -

Now you only have half a sphere so select All and press the mirror button select the centre of the sphere and create a mirror as so: -

Don't forget if its mirrored you might have to Flip the faces you just mirrored, so in the command line box Type Flip and press Enter (remember the command line box is case sensitive so type as I have shown).

You now have a sphere to do with as you wish.