PDA

View Full Version : Tutorial on how to create a swagged curtain



Spacepig
24th May 2006, 08:52 am
In response to a pm I had I thought I'd put this little tutorial on here for anyone else that's interested -
(sorry the images are very faint - when I export them form bmp to jpg they go that way :x )
I was asked to show how I'd create a "swagged" curtain - I've only done it as a surface mesh - but you could turn it into a solid easily by using the m2s routine...
The first step is to create the curves for the top, middle and bottom of the curtain. I used a polyline and then splines them. For the sake of speed I simply created one poly and then copied it down twice and scaled. This creates "even crves in the curtain - if you want the curtains to be a bit more "messy" then create a different polyline for each...
Once the three polylines are created and positioned correctly, then you need to join the ends to make the vertical edges of the curtain. I've used a straight line for one edge and an arc for the edge representing the front edge of the swag. You should end up with a shape similar to the picture below...
http://www.cadimage.net/postimages/swag1.jpg

Now you need to set the surftab1 and surftab2 variables to a value that gives a smooth mesh - the higher the number the smoother mesh - in this instance I used a value of 50 for each.
Using the edgesurf command I clicked on lines 1, 2, 3 and 4 in order and a mesh was produced as shown in the picture below...
http://www.cadimage.net/postimages/swag2.jpg

I then moved that mesh out of the way (otherwise you won't be able to click on line 4). I adjusted the surftab2 variable to 13 (so that the vertical distance in the mesh looked the same as before) and repeated the edgesurf command, this time clicking on lines 4, 5, 6 and 7 in order. This gave me the picture below...
http://www.cadimage.net/postimages/swag3.jpg

To create the tieback I moved the second mesh into place under the first and deleated the lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 - leaving line 4. Looking in plan I drew a polyline around line 4 and splined it. I then copied the polyline down, scale it up a bit and rotated it to suit the size of the swag. Using the end point of line 4 I moved the 2 lines over to the meshes as shown on the picture below...
http://www.cadimage.net/postimages/swag4.jpg

I then used the rulesurf command to create the tieback by clicking on the two lines. The curtain should look like the picture shown below...
http://www.cadimage.net/postimages/swag5.jpg

It's then simply a case of erasing the 2 polylines and mirroring the meshes to get the picture shown below...
http://www.cadimage.net/postimages/swag6.jpg

Hope this was of interest to you

All the best

Spacepig :D

CADTutor
24th May 2006, 09:57 am
Nice work Spacepig. You definately deserve a gold star for that one.

:star:

Also, I'm moving this to the Tutorials forum.

Joro--
24th May 2006, 08:25 pm
It's really a nice idea of graphical representation of curtains in Autocad. I tried it myself and the result was great :thumbsup:

StykFacE
24th May 2006, 09:14 pm
oh very nice!!

fuccaro
25th May 2006, 05:10 am
On the third image you moved away the upper part -otherwise you can not select the curve to draw the other surface. The usual practice is to have the curves on a layer and move the surfaces as you create them to an other one. If you freeze the layer containing the surfaces you can select any of the curves.
Good work Spacepig! :)

Spacepig
25th May 2006, 07:11 am
Thanks guys...all the best

Spacepig

JBullseye74
26th May 2006, 11:05 am
hey hey kewl tutorial spacepig.. check out my theatrical curtains.. :-)

http://www.cadimage.net/postimages/curtains.jpg

Just got some wow's from the rest of the office.. Love this 3d stuff and im learning more everyday from this site... chuffed :-)

Spacepig
26th May 2006, 01:37 pm
Way to go Jimmy :D

Spacepig

Raider
31st May 2006, 05:43 am
Jim I like the curtains alot but the rope part needs to be scaled down or redone to look more realistic. I dont have any suggestions but if you could come up with something more like a rope it would look more realistic.

1twopass
1st Jun 2006, 09:54 pm
I wanted to try out the swagged curtain because I am new to edge surfing.

How do I join poly lines to splines? PEDIT doesn't like the Splines. I have made sure that they are meeting up in the same plane but they are not joining or making the surf.

thanks sarah

1twopass
1st Jun 2006, 09:59 pm
I figured it out! There were some lines that needed to be trimmed.

FazBear
6th Jun 2006, 12:56 pm
On the third image you moved away the upper part -otherwise you can not select the curve to draw the other surface. The usual practice is to have the curves on a layer and move the surfaces as you create them to an other one. If you freeze the layer containing the surfaces you can select any of the curves.
Good work Spacepig! :)

Or simply send the mesh to the back (using the draw order)