One of my YouTube subscribers asked me about how to build a pine cone in the
Rhino3d software so I decided to build a tutorial to show you the step-by-step
process of how to build this pinecone. Hi, I'm PJ Chen, an authorized Rhino 3D
trainer. Let's get started.
To build this pine cone in Rhino 3d software we will
need following command. First, we are going to use the curve to build the
basic structure, one of the element here then, we'll use the "Curve from 2 View" to
creating the curve for the surface, then, we'll use the "Curve Network" commend to
creating the surface, once we create one element, we will just need to rotate and
copy and we create a many layers. On the top of a layer is bigger and the bottom
is smaller so we're going to use the "Scale" and "Cage Edit" to edit it. Let's go
to Google and search for pine cone image. you will see there's a lot of the shape
here, most likely you will see some sort of a structure like triangle~ish at the
head and it's kind of taper to the center. They share really similar
structure let's take a look on this one. Once you make one of the element, then
you will use the "Polar Array" command and then having one layer. After you have the
first layer, then you will just rotate and copy, and size them in different
sizes. Let's start from the top view, so we're going to use the curve tool and we
try to draw/creating the first element there. What I try to do is create some
sort of triangle~ish shape and you can also use the
control point you can turn on the control point and edit it until you
feel like the form it will fit what you what you want, after that I will just
simply mirror to the other side, if you like it really organic look, it doesn't
have to be symmetrical, then I will use the "Trim" tool to trim off the extra
while they are selected I would like to round this corner a
little bit, so the command you're gonna use is "Fillet" curve. Let's set up the
radius to 1 on the command bar, hit enter, then you pick up this curve, and
that curve, and then it's kind of rounded. So we got that first profile on
the top view. If you are looking at this individual component you will see
they have kind of a curvature there, so I'm going to move it out one of the
layer making a copy here, and then let's take a look. I was basically just join a
group them so i'm going to ungroup them and just pick one of them and delete the
rest of it.
so by deconstructed, you know what i did is i make one part and mirror to the
other side and kind of blend in the middle, and work on the bottom part to
close it, to make it solid. Let's go back with this curve. Now this curve is flat
so, what we need to do, is to creating a curve from the front view, so let's just
simply draw a curve. I'm gonna use the "Arc" tool. I'm gonna click on 2 point and
kind of getting in like this. Let me enlarge the front view and you can turn
on the control point to edit. To make the curve into more of the curvature that
you like. The command we are going to use let's go to the perspective
view. The command we are going to use this "Curve from 2 Views" so make sure we
join all the curve first and then we want to use the command is livinng under
the "Curve", you have this icon here is "Curve from 2 Views"/ It will ask you to
pick up the first curve and the second curve I'm going to turn this new curve
into the red color so you will see better. Now we no longer need this
original curve I'm just going to hide it. and then, on the front view, what I'd like
to do is to draw a curve, starting from this quadrant and to kind of giving a
profile of how I like it on the side view. and again we can turn on the control
point to edit. If you don't have enough control point what you can do is you can
insert one more control point, so if you go into the "Point Edit" you have the
option to edit the point, for example, you want add 1 here, and so that way to give
you more control point to to edit so we kind of add it into the way we want it
and let's take a look on the perspective view. The hotkey for changing the view is
"CTRL+F4" then you will get into the perspective quickly. We want to use the
"A" tool to creating a profile so let's go with this start and end point on arc
snapping into this end point, end point and this end point. So to create art that
is touching all three curves. Don't forget to split this one on the bottom by the
black curve, so now we have the curve individually. The command we are using
living under the "Surface" then you have "Curved Network". You're
going to pick in the order of 1,2,3 and the profile here, o you will
get the surface like this. Now what you can also do... that's undo. before we do the
"Curve Network" we can hit the "Record History" on the bottom, then we'll do the
same thing "Curve Network" and we'll go you, you, you and
cross section and they look like nothing different but if we turn on a control
point of the curve in the middle, then while we are edit our control
point, the surface will follow. so you can kind of get the lifetime changing here
to edit the surface. Let's say we really like this surface. Let's get out all the
commend and I would like to creating the
straight line on the bottom, this time I want to use the "Sweep 2" so go to the
"Surface"- "Sweep 2 Rails". this is your rail 1 and that's your rail 2 and this
will be the cross section, so we can close the button. So let's join them. it
will say that breaks the history once you join. but that's okay since we're not
going to change the surface anymore. So now we finish one part of it. Next step
we will need to mirror this guy. So let's select all the curves and just
temporary to hide it. because we don't need it anymore.
That's moving this one to the right side a little bit, and I do like it to having
more curve, first, let's use the "Mirror" to
mirror to the other side, so once we mirror it. we can do is to use the "Blend" tool.
You're going to blend from this surface to this surface and once we finish we
can either blend that as well, or we can use a sweep too. Either one, so we're gonna
use the "Blend" tool again. Blending from this edge to that edge as well. Okay so
once everything is done. Let's join them.
We need to rotate this guy about every 30 degree. but look like it's kind of
blocking. or it's touching each other. so I'd like to do is do the 1D scale
first. so they are a little bit more elongated. and I'm going to use the
"Rotate" tool Center type it 0, enter, and then every 30 degree, and then it is
still touching. but at least it's not overlapping too much, so every 30 degree
increment, I'm going to make a copy so that's 90, 120 degree then 150 degree so
then I have this shape let's take a look on the perspective. once you got
everything make sure you group them, or you can go ahead "Boolean Unit" them. So
now we have one layer. Let's take a look on the Google image. This is the pine cone
images on the Google so the good-looking one... and look like... it almost like an egg.
it's just upside down. For what the direction we are going for. So let's go
back to the Rhino, and what I like to do is... if we go on the top view. I'm going
to Ctrl C the mean copy and Ctrl V to copy and
paste the same object at the same place. Okay, and I'm going to move this up a
little bit so you can see there are 2 objects since at the
beginning we were doing this every 30 degree so I'm going to rotate for 15
degree he enter and then you are going to see they are like 15 degrees apart
and on this one I actually need to make it smaller, so I'm going to scale it down
a little bit more, and bring it up a little bit more if you need it look thicker you
can actually scale 1D to make it thicker so if we take a look at the
render (view), we're going to get some shape like this okay so I'm going to fast
forward here to finish all the layer up and down, and then you can watch me in a
faster speed. What I'm doing here is moving the component up, and while it's
using "Gumball" to move up, I hit the "Alt" key, so that's how I make a copy. Each of
the copy, I will rotate 15 degree and then keep moving up to get the shape
that I want. Now I'm not going to move it down, and at the same time I'm holding
the "Shift" key on the "Gumball" scale tool so I can scale them
in 3D, if you need to make them thicker you can do is to use the "Gumball" and then
scale 1D, which is dragging one of the square and then that way will help you
to only go on 1D instead of 3D. Again, if you holding a "Shift" and drag
any of these square, and then you are doing 3D scaling
so I'm about to finish here to the very last one. On the very bottom here I would
like to use another command it's called "Cage Edit" so we type it here
"Cage Edit". What it does. it's going to build a bounding box so click on the
"bounding box" on the command bar and then you hit ,enter, it will ask you XYZ how many
point you want ,at the preset you have 4 for X Y Z. so once you click
Enter, it will come up a box. you will come up with these control point and the
reason we want to do that is, sometim, I did not want to keep getting thicker I
just want them to come closer. so you can choose all the bottom points and then you
can use the scale tool to scale it down so that way, it will come down a
little bit more, and maybe where's on the second half of the points, and I want to
scale it down again so this piece is more like close on the bottom
okay. Once you're done hit ESC and then you can delete this bounding box and
let's turn on the rest of the layer so it look like it's coming down together.
Alright, and at the end what I need to do is put the post in the middle if you
want to cast this. this is for rendering purpose. if you do want to cast
it. you may want to consider the thickness and everything (else), and have a post
right in the middle to connect all of them, and making this post is quite easy.
We just need to have a straight line and we'll go ahead and
pipe it. using a "Pipe" tool here
Once I done it we can look at the perspective, we can just move it this guy
to the center, and then the easiest way to move is you can go on the top view
you can pick up any layer, and also this post. Let's usually "Align" tool to align
right at the zero point so it will come to the center so now the post is right
in there. Some of it. It may like..., for example, this might need to kind of come
in down. scale it down a little bit, and you can tweak it into the shape that you
want. so let's take a look on the render this is, will be our pine cone. I hope you
enjoy the video thank you for watching don't forget to like, comment, and share
my video. That helped me to create more tutorial for you. See you next Monday.
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