Hi there,
I just got started with Alias and so this is a very basic question. I tried to construct the grip surface of a flashlight as shown in the work samples from Alias by using the revolving tool. The curve path is a circle with the CV points pulled out > rounded square and the extruded curve is an open curve. The result is rather disappointing. The curve does not follow the path at all.
Increasing the amount of spans made the problem worse. What am I doing wrong. Thanks for your help. I am stuck.
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by JohnDixon8251. Go to Solution.
Kind of hard to see from that image, but you may want to check your curves' pivot points.
@KevinDeSmet wrote:Kind of hard to see from that image, but you may want to check your curves' pivot points.
Thanks a lot for your reply Kevin.
I tried all kinds of positions for the pivot points (profile curve and path curve) but the result always looks the same. Does the path need open ends in order to work for an extrusion? But how would you construct a simple ring? Why would Alias show it then as a practice work for the extrusion tool? I usually select the extrusion tool, pick the profile curve and press the GO button. After I select the path. I run Alias on a Mac platform. Is that the problem?
I hope you guys have a minute or two to help me out of that one.
Thanks
Martin
I don't really understand what you mean by an extrusion in Alias, are you using the Draft/Flange tool?
Maybe you want to use Rail for this, could you post some more pictures of the situation?
Hi Martin,
Your image seemed strange so I recreated what you had done and, to my surprise, got the same results. Fortunately a simple problem. All you need to do is move the section curve (the curve to extrude) to the start/end point of the path. You will need to reorient the section to the new location. Extrude is a little freaky in this situation. Pay attention to the section of the extrusion, it may be different from the section you started with. As mentioned by Kevin, you may want to use the rail tool in this situation. Set your generation curves to 1 and your path curves to 1 and have the sweep mode on natural (this is the default, but if you have changed it, it will stay on what you changed it to) Then select the generation curve and then the path. This will work without needing the generation curve to be at the start/end point and will keep the section you have started with. I tend to stay away from the extrusion tool except in simple extrusion situations.
Hi John and Kevin,
thanks for your help. First I enclosed a picture of the tool I used. In the meantime I also found a solution to my problem.
The path curve was created out of a circle by scaling some of the CV > rounded square look. Problem is that the path curve has no beginning and no end. After cutting the path curve and having the section curve positioned to the start/end point of the path curve (as John pointed out), it worked.
Since I just started with Alias and in the learning program of Alias is no mention of the rail and cutting tool yet, I thought I have to get it resolved with the tools they introduced at this stage. I am looking forward to learn the rail tool.
Once again thank you very much.
Martin
Oh man, there it is, an extrude tool. And here I was thinking Alias didn't have that.I look like such a newb