Mayan Pyramid

  1. Translated the face for the starter block down to .5.
  2. Used the inset tool to go up by 1.5 and in to .5.
  3. Duplicate linked, then again used the toolbox rather than mouse to position. This time I used the / 2 operator for the scale to make sure it would fit exactly. I did end up positioning on z by eye though.
  4. Removed duplicate verts.

Not like the solution - but it has 6 steps so fulfills the challenge

Just watching the solutuion - wow that way of doing it with the shortcut keys and extruding looks way easier and cleaner than the duplicate and scale method I did for the above!

So I went ahead and recreated the pyramid as per the instructions in the solution - though I chose to use 12 as the scale rather than 10 (things divide in to that easier). Also attempted to use dimensions rather than scales. Realised that it does just alter the scale of the cube in the dimensions anyway.

To your question - I found the mention of i and e shortcuts useful. I used that method to recreate the pyramid quickly. I did somehow click about with the cut and create the cuts all at once with the R… not sure how I did that or if I could repeat it.

So this is the model after lecture 28

End of 29 it looks like this. I used the box select tool and also added faces to each step along the ramp

Not sure what happened to my bottom steps - but I liked the effect so kept it that way.

End of lecture 31

Remembered to do the all select and fix the normals. Also de-duped the verts.

Muscle memory has me pushing ctrl + a rather than a.

Also when we pushed “z” to get to global z rather than local z for the railings - that seemed a bit like magic. Useful, but magic.

Well Done , good job so far !

“Muscle memory” … “headache”

Thanks @FedPete :slight_smile:

So the way I’ve done my ramp messed up how I needed to do the stairs. I completed the array exercise but really wanted to have an offset and scale.

I feel like this is something else I might learn in further lectures so I’m going to leave it here for the moment and move on. Basically because my stairs have ratio from top to bottom along another axis the stairs spill over the rails. Tried to apply a scale to the top step but that also results in the step translating a bit. Ideally I’d like to skew all the stairs width at once across the array. Is that easily done?

If it is an array, then you can use the TAPER modifier. In that modifier, there is an SCALE property>
Working with modifiers is part of the coming lessons. But only a small part are used / explained.

But for your problem … you could investigate the taper modifier.
I’ve used it in lesson 7 Church. To build a pillar with array and blocks. Making the pillar smaller at the top (taper). And I even did a small z-ax rotate. Church pillar with taper modifier.

Good luck.

That church looks beautiful @FedPete! Well as I’m only on S02 I think I might have just accidentally got way ahead of myself so I’m going to leave that be for the moment (well… as long as I can get away with that for everything else using the temple!)

As you are ahead of me by quite a bit does this course cover creating and rigging low poly characters suitable for Unreal / Unity? That is ideally where I’m heading for all this. Actually want a placeholder unicycle vehicle for the prototype I’m working on. Was going to just use a sphere but in Unreal a sphere acts a bit oddly with the physics - ends up turning way too fast. Was hoping a vehicle (specifically a tyre) would rotate more sensibly.

Though of course I’d love to have enough skill to block out a few buildings and simple characters to give a real artist a gist of what I’m trying to do.

There’s a sale on Udemy right now so if I need to pick up any more courses I’d rather do it when they are $15.

Anyway I appreciate your pointers and interest in my programmer art :smiley:

Hi Paul, section 5 The lamp animation, is about rigging (armature) and use it in Unity. Lesson 3, the bowling scene is also learn how to step over into Unity. But I’m not that interested in Unity (I’m developer too, but I like the graphical stuff).

You learn a lot, not only how to use Blender but also project management for Unity, low poly, fast games …
The Church is like that. Start low poly, but achieve high quality unity render.

Be patient :wink:

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