Stars

By Rodrigo Duarte

Strata 3D does not have a Star tool per se, as does Illustrator. Creating stars from polygons is quite easy, though. This quick tutorial shows you how.

The Polygon

We need a 2D Polygon to start. Using the 2D Polygon Tool, we need to SHIFT+drag on the modeling window to obtain a polygon.

To control the number of sides the polygon has, we have two options:

  1. Double-click the Tool icon in the Toolbar and adjust the number of sides, BEFORE drawing the polygon, or
  2. Adjust the number of sides of an already drawn polygon in the Object tab of the Object Properties palette, with the polygon selected, of course.
We’ll always need a polygon with twice as many sides as the star we are going to create.
Once satisfied with the polygon, we need to convert it into a polygon mesh.
Now we need to go into edit mode.

The Selection

Once in edit mode, let’s go into vertex mode.

We’ll use the magic wand tool select every other vertex.

Double-click on the magic wand tool icon and set the Skip Every Other slider to 1.

Click on a vertex, and voilá. Every other vertex is selected.

Now, using the scale tool, create your star. You can do it either with the mouse or using the cursor movement arrows (left/right), with Alt for nudging.

The star is ready.

From this point on, you can use this 2D star for extruding, skinning, etc. even though it has passed through the polygon modeller.

CX Beginner CX Modeling