Quick Tutorial: The N-Line Lathe!

[weswes]

Hello Friends,

I want to show you a cool feature that is very easy to use since Curvy 3D 4.0 and the introduction of new curve tools. The many lined, or "N-Line Lathe" (no we aren't talking about rollerblading).

The benefits of using this technique are clean edge lines, more control over shapes so you need to do less mesh editing in other programs, and better mesh toplogy for exporting into other rendering and animating programs like Blender.

The tutorial images for this tutorial is in the google share link below. The image numbers match the steps of this quick tutorial. The first image I would like you to look at has "N-Line Lathe" written in sky blue (the last image in the album--I have not yet learned how to organize google photos forgive me)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HW5ekUNwxRqw8SxW8

N-Line Lathe) Example image of a twelve-sided lathe. The pectoral is what we are looking at.
00) The pectoral turned into a normal mesh and smoothed with sculpting tools.

I will show you how I achieved this pectoral in the abstract so anyone can implement it into other shapes.

01) The abstract shape we will end up with.

02) The first line is drawn in the left view. Take note of the "Object Properties Panel. I've turned "B-level" to zero and polys up really high so I can see the shape I am making, also you can turn off the "rounded b-level cap" option if you like.

03) For the second lathe line I copied the first line and then "add curve from clipboard" -- found in the "Curve" drop menu. Moved and Rotated.

04) For the third lathe Line I repeated step 3. Then I turned on "Mirror" in the "Object Properties Panel".

05+06) Cloning multiple lines for the fun of it. Then I mirror cloned all the curves that are on the left side of the mesh that were not represented on the right side of the mesh using the "mirror clone" tool in the "Curve" menu.

07) I've now turned off the "Mirror" option in the object property panel. Now you can erase the lines created in steps 02 and 03 if you choose to do so to give the front of your object a smooth shape. Warning, doing so will make "Mirror" and "Mirror Clone" tools unusable so please give this step thought.

08) Going back to my pectoral sculpt. I have erased the lines mentioned in step 07. Turned the object into a normal mesh. I am now preparing to smooth the lines for a cleaner mesh.

09 and 10) Show smoothing options and how I inverted a selection mask in order to isolate the parts of the mesh I chose to smooth. In the "Sculpting Tools" Panel, I have turned on "Mirror Sculpt", turned off polish, and turned off subdivide to preserve the topology.


When I sculpted the pectoral lathe, I didn't just copy and paste lines, I drew them in precisely as I could. I used "soft move" tools at different settings to get the right shapes for the curves. I used transforms and rotate tools to move the curves around. Another really helpful trick is rotating the entire lathe itself to the position where the line should be drawn in the left view. drawing the line and rotating back.


I hope this helps some of you achieve shapes that you want!

Have FUN!

-Weswes

[Simon]

Not seen this technique done like this before, thanks for the tutorial. You'll love the custom cross section lathes you can make in 5!