In this lesson video, we will continue modeling our robot. Now we will focus on the arm, we are going to create the arm using a cylinder and a NURBS curve. Now from this point forward, I won't be explaining too much detail on most commonly used keyboard shortcuts. I assume you already know them as you heard me explaining those shortcuts dozens of times before. First, we need to move the 3d cursor to the center of the hole at the shoulder. So select the upper torso, go to Eric mode and select these phase shift s and then just cursor to selected, go back to the object mode and create a cylinder for the cylinder.
We don't need 32 vertices. Let's change this to 12 instead. Now we need to rotate this 90 degrees on the y axis. Previously, I always rotate inside the edit mode to prevent changing the origins default orientation. I'm good To show you another way, which is basically using the apply transformation operation. So press R y and then type 90, then we need to apply the rotation by pressing Ctrl A enters rotation, the end result is the same with you rotating the mesh inside the edit mode.
Next scale this object so it is about the size of the hole. I think this is too big. Let me scale this down a bit. Now because we read scaling on the object, let's apply the scale also. Next, we want to create a repeatable mesh unit for the robots snake like arm, select this face and move it like so. Instead and then extruded Now, before we exit the wireframe mode later, we will need to create a curve object to deform the our mesh.
To be able to do that perfectly, the origin of the curve has to be at the same location as the mesh origin location. Because we move the mesh before, the 3d cursor is not aligned anymore with the mesh origin. So we need to press Shift s again and then choose cursor to select the now the 3d cursor is aligned perfectly with the mesh origin. This way when later we create the curve and deform the arm, we will don't have any alignment problems. Let's go back to object mode and add the array modifier. Oh, sorry, I forgot to fix the smoothing group.
Right click Share the smooth, then turn on the auto smooth option and make this 50 degrees just like the rest of the objects in the scene. This is actually enough As the corners for 90 degrees angle, but let's assign the H sharp attributes to the corner ages just to be safe. Select all of these h loops. Right click and then mark sharp. Okay, looks good. Next, we want to repeat this mesh over and over again.
We can do this by using a modifier called array. So add modifier, and then choose array here. If we input 12. Here, for example, we'll get 12 copies of the original mesh. Now by default, the array modifier uses a relative offset of one, meaning the mesh will be repeated exactly for one of its length, the stuffing vertices will meet the n vertices perfectly. I actually want it to overlap a little to do that we can reduce the relative offset value here to around 0.8 So until now we have something like this.
Next, we need to create a curve to deform the arm. We can do this in many different ways. But I like to work with Point to Point modeling techniques first and then later converted to a NURBS curve. We already have the 3d cursor in place. So press shift a and create a single vertex object. Now we have a vertex here and automatically went to the edit mode.
Make sure we are in a vertex mode. Now, go to the front view, turn on the front reference, hold CTRL and then right click here. Now, I think I want to make this a bit further from the initial plan. Let's just see what happens. So Ctrl and right click here. Let's see this from the side view.
Hide the front reference and unhide the side reference. Move this vertex here and it's vertex toe bought this location. Next we can bevel this vertex to create more ages. So Shift Ctrl V and make it like so. Next we need to convert this mesh network into a curve. The reason for this is because later we will use a modifier called curve to deform the mesh which only works with curved objects.
So go to Object Mode. In the Object menu, select Convert to and then choose curve here. The object now is a curve type object, but it is a poly type curve. If we want the curve object to be able to bend smoothly, we need either a Bezier type or a NURBS type. I prefer the NURBS curve as it has less complexity than the Bezier type. To convert it, we need to go to the edit mode in a curve menu, find fine set spline type, and then choose NURBS here now we Have a NURBS curve.
The problem with the default NURBS setting is that the resulting curve is floating at the center like this. Of course, we don't want the arm to float in the air like this, we want it to exist from the start to the end of the control points locations. We can fix this by going to the golf data Properties panel. In the active spline section, turn on the endpoint new option. Now we have the resulting curve from n to n. Let's take the control points first. So we have a nicer pose for the arm deformation.
Okay, let's get back to the object mode. Next, to make the arm object follows the curve, we need to add a curve modifier on the arm object Select the arm object, open the modifier panel. After the array modifier, we add the curve modifier. Next, we need to tell the modifier that we want to use this curve object. To do this, we can use the eyedropper tool here or just use the list here. Because we only have one curved object in the scene, we can only see one listed here selected, and we can see the arm now bends following the curve object.
Let's rename the curve object so it will be easier when later we need to select it from the Outliner. Name this arm the curve for the mesh object, let's just rename these two arm necks to have an arm also on the left side, we can use the mirror modifier. So we are adding the mirror modifier after the curve modifier By default, the mirror modifier uses the origin as the mirror plane location. This is not what we want, we want to use the center of the world as the mirror plane. To do this, we can create an empty object at the center of the world. Or we can just pick the mirror plane reference from any existing object that already has the origin located at the center of the world.
Currently, we already have two objects located at the center, the upper torso and the lower pole. So let's pick the upper torso by going to the list here and choose torso upper. Now we have two arms that are symmetrical