I've got all my arrays and macros and splines "working" - I get a render that
approximates what I'm going for.

It also leads me to wonder about some of the finer points of creating these
complex shapes.

As you can see from the attached png, I use a loop to draw cylinders starting at
the "top" of the propeller hub, and work my way around halfway - with the other
endpoint returned by the spline value corresponding to the loop value.  The
weird thing is - the spline appears to give values for the sphere sweep that
don't match up with the cylinder endpoints. (Orange sphere sweep vs multicolored
cylinder fill)

Things get really weird when I replace the cylinders with triangles.  The
vertices are the hub edge, the spline-loop value, and the spline-loop+step
value.  As you can see, there's a big blank space around the hub as though
there's no longer a semicircular path around the hub edge.

I'm confused.

If anyone can explain this strange behaviour, I'd like some insight.
If anyone can suggest some better, faster, or more interesting ways to fill in
the space between the hub and the sphere sweep, I'd love to hear some
suggestions.

I'm specifically looking for a way to get a slight convex curve along the top of
the propeller face.

OR - a way to get a crackle / Voronoi pattern like a dragonfly wing.

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'propeller2_cylinders.png' (93 KB)

Preview of image 'propeller2_cylinders.png'