Original subtitles

hello everyone as well as buying a new

microphone which hopefully makes my

voice

sound uh much more easy on the ear i've

added

um a sweep mode to curves to mesh now

it's as a new option under uh conversion

method

um and uh there it is sweet to mesh and

uh what this it does and it came in as a

request a few months ago

uh is to take multiple uh cross sections

which are these uh these curves here

and then loft them um along a path um i

initially thought blender did this out

of the box

uh but um i don't think it does i think

uh i think it will loft

a singular curve across the path

but it won't do multiple ones so i've

spent a bit of time

making this making this working curves

to mesh

so i'm going to go through how it works

and show you some examples and the

example files are also bundled in the

samples zip file that's available for

download either from

blender market or gumroad

so um so i'm just going to launch into

it and

and hopefully my microphone is going to

hold up uh for the duration of this

tutorial

so this um so so this is

base basic example um where i've got

um several curves here um

that are that are spread across um a

singular line here

uh and um you can easily add things like

stars and stuff

i'll just show you under preferences

there's actually

a bundled add-on with blender called ad

curve extra

objects which gives you a lot more uh

curves to play with

um so you can add things like stars or

n-gons

and all sorts and spirals and lots of

things

so uh i've um uh so

i've i'll just show you the show you in

action

um so this is ju this is just a example

of the completed

mesh i'll delete that for now so and

i'll take you through the options

of how to use this so so once you've set

up your curves

and the curves have to be aligned um

along the path uh you can um

you can just um click enable if you want

on preview mode just to see it in

preview

um and you can already see it's it's

it's taking the

basic um star shape which you do

which is here um and you might want to

increase the

um the subdivisions of the cross

sections here to about 20 maybe

so that you get more detail in the star

in the star at the end

and that that that blends between the

curves all the way along

uh and while it's in preview mode at

least

you can change the orientation

of the curves you could add add new

curves if you wanted

and so on and so forth but i'll just go

ahead and create that mesh

um and

there you go so i'll do a little bit

more slowly now

just to just to start with a new file to

take you through

all the options uh so um so hopefully

you won't get lost because there's a

couple of gotchas

uh to uh to the way the add-on works

that um that i want to highlight

so let's start a new um a new blender

scene

uh let's d delete the default cube

uh i'm gonna hit n to bring up the

side panel where curves do mesh lives

uh and let's let's um let let's just

let's add a pipe and also let's add

something that can be uh like a twisted

pipe uh because somebody requested that

on twitter

um so i added added in a twist option

um to the to the to the add-on as well

so

let's just uh let's just start by

creating the um what i call the sweep

curve to start with which is the

curve that guides all the other curves

so let's just um

uh press shift a and you get the menu up

and under curve you can click bezier and

that

uh and that creates a bezier curve and

remember curves to mesh at the moment at

least

um only works on bezier curves but you

can convert

pretty much all curves into bezier

curves so

uh so that shouldn't be too much of a

problem so

um the important thing to do um when

you're rotating the curves

and everything is to is to try and do it

um

in world mode and what i mean by that is

not

in edit mode because what the add-on

will do is

take the position of the curves

in in in non-edit mode in world mode

and use that to extrapolate the shape um

so so just keeping uh in non-edit mode

for now you can you can move the

points in edit mode it's okay but um

it's best to when you come into rotation

and movement to keep it outside of that

so

i'll just hit g um r

and 90 degrees uh just typing in 90

and not quite right um

g r and y and then 90 to

rotate in the 90 degrees access and then

i'll

hit g and z

and move it move it up in the z

axis so the bottom is about here and the

tops about here you don't have to be too

accurate in this mode luckily

so so let's uh as long as as long as the

as long as the um the shapes cross

you'll be okay

so um i'll add a sli i'll add a

slightly sophisticated um curve here

so if i go to under the extra objects

curve profiles

and select flower and i know that's a

bit strange but

it'll become apparent in a minute um you

can

um we'll reduce the petals to about

three reduce the inner radius

there um we'll convert it to a 3d curve

which is important and also convert it

to a bezier curve and this creates

a sort of a more curved shape anyway

which is going to be useful for us

when we're going to create this cable um

and i'll just i'll just play around with

the uh the parameters a little bit of

petal width

and the inner radius and stuff and

uh that should be okay for this for this

demo

um and then if you uh it so so that's

created kind of like this

this kind of glob shape what i'm going

to do this is to is to

use this is to extrapolate up and then

and curve it around the mesh but also

and

but also twist at the time same time so

if i

if i hit s to scale it down

to about there and then i'll

hit shift d to duplicate it press said

and move the end curve up so this is

going to be a fairly simple example

to start with where i'm just i'm just

extrapolating between

the same curves so in order to in order

to

um to to use sweep mode go to the curves

to mesh panel

and under the conversion method

you'll have sweep to mesh the collection

to operate on is the default blender

collection

and the sweep curve i want is going to

be

that middle bezier curve so so

if i click enable now you'll see a basic

curve created and if i were to hit

create mesh now

you'll see that it's kind of created

this sort of basics

shape but let's let's let's delete that

and

and uh and play with a few options so if

i click enable now

um uh first of all uh you can increase

the amount of subdivisions

on this on the on the curve on the

length of the curve

the default at the moment is 10. if i

really ram that up to say about 100

you can see that you can see that those

subdivisions at work there

the cross sections are probably not very

well defined at the moment the defaults

about 10

um again more about 50 maybe

let's see what that gives yeah that

might give a bit of a

um a a bit of a better shape

so if i if i hit create mesh on that now

um wait a moment yeah here we go

you can see a little bit more definition

a bit of a smoother curve there

so um if i wanted that kind of twisted

cable effect

um i can press uh i'll press delete and

i'll re-enable preview mode

and what you what you have here is an

option called funnily enough twist

and that's in degrees and what i can do

is type 360

and say 360 times five i can do star

five uh and that will think about it for

a little bit and it will create

it'll create the curve the preview mode

here

isn't isn't too great but i can go ahead

and create the mesh

uh and there you go you can you can see

it's so what it's

doing is it's it took that first um

that that first shape and has twisted it

around multiple times as it goes through

the curve so hopefully that's that's a

useful option

and just to show you this uh working not

with just duplicated

uh curves i'll delete i'll delete the

main mesh

and i'll delete the top shape i'll add

say a simpler shape like a rectangle

i've made sure the rectangle is in 3d

mode

it's a bezier and in this case it's a

vector and auto would

create create a more curved shape but we

want a vector in this case

uh and i'll hit out a tab

out of edit mode because i want to move

things in world mode

so if i scale it down and i press g

and z to move it up here and if i click

enable here you can see see

quite a severe twist going on i might

zero out the twist

here um and you can just you can see uh

one of one of the potential

gotchas here is that because the add-on

works by the orig checking the

orientation of the cross-sections as

well

my guess is that um is that this

rectangle at the top

might be flipped so uh if i select that

rectangle here

and uh pre and shield key will be

s for scale and then minus one

and i type and then press enter um

that will that will sort the curve out

so that might be a gotcha that you

that you want to watch out for i can i

can

set the twist to say 90 degrees or

something like that and then i'll uh

i'll hit create mesh just to show you

that in action so you can see

um you see you can see that there's a

there's a general blend

from one end to the other here

and to also show you this uh this

extrapolating between the middle

so there's a the middle shape in them

in between these two i'll hit shift a

and let's say add a polygon i've made it

six sided

uh bezier and vector 3d all looks good

and i'll tab out of edit mode i'll scale

it down

and i'll press g z to move it roughly to

the middle

it doesn't have to be in the middle and

i'll

i'll position it in the mid just on the

on the guiding curve there

uh i'll click enable and it'll think

about a little bit

you can see that gotcha happening again

when the um

the curve is flipped uh i'll just reduce

the

amount of subdivision so you can see

uh and what i'll do is i'll just hit s

and minus one again to flip it

and that should that should produce um a

smooth curve there

and remember i've got some example files

of this happening

to uh to show in the download section

and again if i wanted to say scale that

up

i'll just zero the twist so it's not

twisting anymore

and you can see that's producing uh

producing um as well kind of like an

abstract shape

um and if i hit create you can see that

see that being extrapolated there um

uh sometimes uh you might uh

uh you might see kind of kind of this

ribbing effect you can just about see it

and that's to do with this

accuracy setting so you shouldn't really

need to change this accuracy setting

a lot but um it's a

accuracy is about um what it does in the

background the add-on is it it samples

each

bit of the curve and the sweep curve

um and and aligns the shapes to that

sometimes you might get a

slight sort of zigzag shape and if you

create

if you say double the accuracy um

it will make it a smoother effect so if

i i've doubled that accuracy to about um

about a thousand and if i create create

mesh there

you'll see a lot of a lot a lot less

kind of

artifacts in the in the result so

um so i hope that's useful so i'll just

show you some

of the other example files that i've

bundled and uh talk

talk you through how i create them um

so what i haven't spoken about yet is

the fact that this will work with cyclic

uh curves being used as a sweep curve

so if i say let's open

uh let's open

sweep ring simple sweep

ring simple so here we go so um

so it's produces uh produces this shape

um this uh these this was produced by

this set of curves if i select them uh

you'll see what's going on

so the the main circle in the middle is

the

is the sweep curve uh i've put i've put

um i put circles here here and here

um to guide guide the shape and i've put

a square here at the end to show it

extrapolating between the two

um so if i if i hit enable there

you'll you'll see you'll see this ring

shape appear

you can just about see there as well

that the

uh it's extrapolate it's extrapolated a

rectangle there and a circle here

um some things to note when you're

creating these

uh these these shapes so if i were to

delete

um to delete that it would lose

it would lose the information uh and not

create a smoother

smoother curve there you also if i undo

that

also watch out for that kind of flip

state so if i

if i uh if if i rotated that

um say 180 degrees

uh you'll see that kind of flip

happening

um so um

i'll have a look into that but i it but

hopefully that's a decent workaround for

now

so if i hit s and minus one again or

r z 180 to flip it in the right way

um uh you you should you should be able

to avoid that but do contact me

if you're having that sort of issue um

so that's a that's a basic ring shape

you with the twist option you can make

more sophisticated rings uh so and this

was actually

from the original request actually

somebody had asked about could they

create rings

uh with with this um i think that the

person was a jeweler

so that would be really interesting if

you're still still out there i'd really

like to see if you do anything with this

um so let's i've got i've had simple

ring twisted

let's click the advanced file so

this is slightly a slightly more

intricate

file so what i did here is um i didn't

actually use the twist option here what

i did is i actually

rotated i put in put in a kind of a cog

shape

uh on each side and each side and then i

played with the rotation a bit um so

that

as it as it moves around the the curve

um it's uh it could create this shape

uh you can see here i've also put kind

of two squares at the end

where i'd imagine the uh the diamond

would go

uh and uh and produce that shape so i'll

just

i'll just show you show you that um in

preview mode

so you can see that that shape's been

being created there but there the the

twist is actually zero i've actually

decided to put it uh put it on them

on that um that side so

uh let let's let's just uh create a ring

from scratch and

actually well let's let's use this twist

mode as well because it's worth it's

worth showing that in action

uh so if i delete uh the ring here

oh well let let's start a new let's

start a new file

so i'll delete the default cube

i'll add a curve here

scale that that circle

curve up and then i'll i'll create a

set of um not circles

let's create a set of um

curve profiles let's go with

i think i used a cog wheel in the uh

in the example files again i set this to

3d

and bezier i kind of want to keep

the the cog like shape at least uh so

i'll click vector so 3d bezier and

vector

then hit tab and let's um

let's go to work so click r and y

90 degrees again i'd probably be more

accurate

with lining it up but this is just for a

demo purpose

hit shift g and then a y

to move it to that side as well um

uh well let let's uh it won't be perfect

now yet but let's let's

uh let's show it uh not perfect to start

with so

i've i've i've gone to the curves to

mesh menu

i've selected sweep mode sweet uh

sweep to mesh and i'm going to select

the um

the bezier circle is the sweep curve if

i click enable there let's see what it

gives us

so it's sort of a almost a ring at the

moment

um but um it is doing that

that bit of a flip thing as well

um and it hasn't got a lot of definition

on each end

as well so we need to sort that out i'll

disable preview mode

for the moment sometimes preview mode

helps

uh sometimes it hinders but uh let's uh

let's um let's rotate that those two

curves i've duplicated them

so that they're kind of uh uh

at each quarter uh i'll click enable

because i probably have to

um yeah i'll probably have to uh rotate

the uh

the curves in a in a decent way uh

so let's um

let's select this curve and i'm going to

rotate it in the z direction 180 degrees

and see if that starts to tidy things up

so it's tidied that side up

let's see if it if we can just if we

select this curve i hit

r and then z direction 180

and then cross fingers and there we go

looking okay to me um

and there we go so

um so again you will need to update up

the resolution

because it's because it's only um it's

not covering the whole shape at the

moment

and we also want to introduce a twist

i'll introduce the twist

uh before i up the resolution just to

show you the twist in action so

so let's go to the twist parameter and

let's

increase it to well that's about about

500

and it'll do its do its twist now you'll

see um at the start and beginning

of the curve it's it's not lining up at

the moment

and when you think about if you want to

do a cyclic twist well first of all

um you you need to do it in 360 degree

revolution

so for them to join up so

let's just start with 360. and

it's it yeah and then and then it will

then it will start to join up with the

original

shape especially if those the shape

start and shapes the same but which they

should be

um but that's also um

let's also increase the subdivisions uh

of the sweep curve to well let's go

gingerly about 30

uh so that makes it smoother a smoother

um

uh curve uh and um let's also

increase the the cross-section

subdivisions

uh to get to get more of the shape in uh

and that should be enough uh to start

with uh

and let's just create the mesh

and there you go um so it's it's quickly

created that sort of twisted ring effect

uh for you uh so um

uh i'll uh so that there'll be examples

of this

in um in the download section as well

and i'll i'll save this exact file for

that

um so

while i'm saving that i'll also show you

some of the um

show you some of the other sweep

examples we've got so

i'll call that a sweep twisted

ring uh

let's uh let's leave it at that

uh and then let's open some more

examples so

what have we got so far so um

there's uh the twisted cable that we

went through earlier

there is um

the simple sweep that will be bundled

with it as well

um there's uh

there's the slightly more advanced

example of the twist

and

there's the there's the twist that we've

just done

um and

[Music]

there is uh the war

a slightly kind of warped twist example

where the curve is just not a circle

um it's it's a deformed curve to show

that in action as well

these are helpful for me to test with as

well

um uh and what else have we got

uh we've got um

[Music]

a kind of a a demonstration of like a

basic surface that you've seen in other

modes in curves to mesh but this is

actually using

one and two and three curves with a

guiding

curve underneath so for instance you

could

um change the direction of the

guiding curve and it would update

accordingly

so and so you can do those sorts of

sorts of effects with it

um so i think that's about it um so

thank you for listening to me

um if you've got any questions uh it is

a new feature i'm not guaranteeing it's

completely bug-free but i am on hand

if you um if you run into any issues

especially that kind of

that kind of rotation issue at the

moment i'm always

um looking to develop the plugin

and add new features so if you have got

some ideas

drop me a line i'll add them to the list

i can't promise to get

to them like the day after but but they

are on a list

and i do work through them um so um

i shall see you for next time bye-bye