Though this isn't meant to be covered until next Semester, I've been told about a wonderful little trick, which I just have to share with you lot. It's about using bones to aid movement! "Movement!? But we're not doing animation!" I hear you exclaim... (Please exclaim it now. Shout it at your computer monitor, it'll make me feel special). Whilst it is true that bones are tailored for making moving joints and limbs so much easier, there is nothing to stop them being a practical tool in still life! Observe:
Look at this cylinder. Wouldn't it be nice to make a tree branch out of it? Obviously, tree branches are not that straight. They're normally jagged and almost like a zig-zag. Now, if you want to bend it, you could just use the 'bend' tool. But what if you need more than 1 bend? Multiple cylinders? Sit there for ages with the 'Vertices' tool, pulling it this way and that? You can do that if you want... or you could do it like this...
First up, you need to make the bones. In the sub-menu where you can create normal shapes (Top left arrow), look for the little set of cogs at the far right (The arrow furthest right). Select this, and then select the 'Bones' option (Bottom arrow).
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Before you can start to move them, however, you need to 'attach' them to the cylinder. So click on the cylinder (Make sure that is the one selected, not one of the bones), and under the modify tools, look for 'Skin'. You should have a small menu appear on the left. Above the blank white box, click 'Add', to add components (Specifically: Bones) to the skin. A window should come up in the centre. From here, pick the bones you want to 'connect', and add them.
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