Soccer balls can be created really quickly starting from an icosahedron using the polygon modeller. We will show how.
You can either create your own icosahedron or use this one. If you use the one provided, ungroup it first, because it is a shape.
In Vertex mode, select all vertices.
To do so, we will need to use GL Outline shading (S key).
Using the Bevel element tool, we bevel the vertices until we get regular hexagons in the faces. This will be done by eye.
Now select all faces and perform an Extrude Inset. Then move the polygons outward with Normal Move.
We now select just the pentagons (there are 12 of them).
Expand the selection to get the large pentagons.
We now create a new subset with these faces.
Texturing
With the subset created, we can now apply textures: one for the white part of the ball that will get applied to the object as a whole, and another for the pentagons, that will get applied to the subset we defined earlier.
In addition to the white and the black textures, a slight Corrosion bump is used here.
White base texture
Black texture for the pentagons
Corrosion bump
The three textures applied to the ball
Let us see how to apply the texture to the subset we created, as this is new functionality in Strata 3D CX 7.
Apply the textures as shown above. Then select the black texture. Right under the Subset Selection drop down menu, it should say All Subsets. To avoid confusion, I first select None to clear everything, and then select the subset I want.
First, clear everything
With subsets clear, select the subset we want to apply the texture to. In this case, the pentagons are in subset number 4.
Now select the subset we want the texture to be applied to
If all is well, the ball should look like the one below.
The ball is ready.
