Shading a Cylinder

Nancyclair

I was using DAZ3D 4.6 to create a cylinder to use as a drinking straw and I noticed when creating the primitive that the cylinder had 12 sides to it.

I was wondering if there is any way to shade the individual sides of the cylinder, to create a striped effect on the cylinder?

BlackFeather1973

You can select faces with the Geometry Editor (it's in the menu under 'Tools').
Then, in the 'Tool Settings' pane (Window -> Panes (Tabs) -> Tool Settings) right-click on Surfaces and choose 'Create Surface from Selected...'. Give it a name and hit Accept, repeat as many times as needed.

Nancyclair

Thanks a lot. I am new to this.

I really enjoy playing with DAZ3D and your help is very much appreciated.

Herald of Fire

If you use lighting in your scene, the cylinder will naturally get shaded based on where your light source is. I guess it really depends on the sort of effect you want.

sriesch

Although this wasn't the question you asked, just wanted to let you know in case you weren't already aware; you can specify the number of sides a primitive has when you create it, so it won't necessarily always have 12. You can raise the number to get a smoother curved surface, although of course it uses more resources. Or in your case you may have found a unique reason to intentionally have fewer sides.

Nancyclair

I was trying to make a straw, similar to a fast food type of straw, with longitudinal stripes on the length of it.

I was able to do it, by using the assistance provided by Blackfeather1973.

I do use lighting sometimes, but I don't know how to use it exactly. I have a tutorial I downloaded but I haven't used it yet.

I can only use the distant light as of now. I have played with the others, but since they are more specialized I need to learn more about them.

Thanks for your reply. I will see what happens when I try turning some light on it.

BlackFeather1973

pittsville said:

I was trying to make a straw, similar to a fast food type of straw, with longitudinal stripes on the length of it.
I was able to do it, by using the assistance provided by Blackfeather1973.
I do use lighting sometimes, but I don't know how to use it exactly. I have a tutorial I downloaded but I haven't used it yet.
I can only use the distant light as of now. I have played with the others, but since they are more specialized I need to learn more about them.
Thanks for your reply. I will see what happens when I try turning some light on it.

Glad it worked out for ya.
Yes, there is a lot to learn in 3d, so many aspects to it.
When i started out, i learned a lot from joining the New Users Contest (link). Have a look and feel free to join in.

Nancyclair

Now I am getting excited about this new thing I have learned to do, and while playing with the rotating parameters and making my straw spin around, I was wondering if there is someway to apply changing the parameters of an object to an animation, in other words to make an object constantly spin, like a barber pole, for example?

BlackFeather1973

pittsville said:

Now I am getting excited about this new thing I have learned to do, and while playing with the rotating parameters and making my straw spin around, I was wondering if there is someway to apply changing the parameters of an object to an animation, in other words to make an object constantly spin, like a barber pole, for example?

In the 'Pose & Animate' workspace you'll find the Timeline pane (you can also access it from Window -> Panes (Tabs) -> Timeline).
By moving the yellow arrow you can scrub through an animation and set parameters where you want them.
By default the timeline has 31 frames, wich will give you a 1 second animation.

For this example i've set the number of frames to 60 (lower left corner : Total number of frames), thus to rotate completely my object will have to rotate 6 degrees per frame.
Frame 0 will be the starting position for the animation, with no rotation applied. With your object selected, click the Key with a plus sign. This will add a keyframe to the timeline, telling Daz Studio that at frame 0 we want the object in it's current state.
Frame 59 will then be our last frame, after that the animation returns to frame 0 and starts over. Move the yellow arrow to frame 59 and set the objects rotation to 354. Changing a parameter will automatically add a keyframe to the timeline.
If you now play the animation, you'll notice it doesn't rotate continiously. The animation starts slow, then speeds up and slows down again at the end. This is because Daz Studio uses 'ease-in ease-out', wich makes for nicer movements on figures.
However, we don't want that her. To get rid of that, set the object's rotation on frame 1 to 6 degrees and on frame 58 to 348 degrees. This way we force the animation to start and end at 6 degrees per frame. The rest af the frames will be interpolated correctly.

Hope this helps.
If you want to learn more of the basics of animation in DS, there's a free tutorial in the shop : http://www.daz3d.com/tutorials-old/great-art-now-bonus-animation-101.

Nancyclair

Thanks a lot. I will be trying that tomorrow.

I am working on an entry for the contest.

JimmyC_2009

If you want to see the edges of the cylinder clearly defined, and not shaded to look like a smooth cylinder, then go to the Surfaces pane with the cylinder selected, and at the bottom of the pane, you will find a parameter called 'Angle'

It is set by default at 89.90, but if you adjust it to zero (slider to the left), you will see all of the edges clearly defined. This is similar to 'Break Phong Shading' in Cinema 4D, and other apps.