Hi! I have been trying to learn this program for a few days and have watched a good number of tutorials but like the virgins of all things I am having some some problems.

It's not that I don't understand the basic premise of procedural modeling. It's just that because of my lack of familiarity with the program I have no idea how to execute my intentions. Currently I have made it my goal to model a screw bolt. Something like this: https://cdn.tutsplus.com/vector/authors/sharon-milne/alex_tut_screw_0.jpg [cdn.tutsplus.com]

So I placed down a box and reduced it's thickness, but now I can't seem to figure out how to increase it's number of edges until it has turned into an octagon. Is this something you tweak somewhere? Do you create a new node? How do I do this? I'm sure this has a painfully simple solution that I am just not aware of.

Also, anybody know which tutorials are best for getting me started? There are so many but I don't even know in which order I should be watching them!

splattenburgers
So I placed down a box and reduced it's thickness, but now I can't seem to figure out how to increase it's number of edges until it has turned into an octagon. Is this something you tweak somewhere? Do you create a new node? How do I do this? I'm sure this has a painfully simple solution that I am just not aware of.

I'd put down a Tube SOP, set Primitive Type to Polygon, turn on End Caps, and set Columns to 6, (since the image you linked to has a hexagonal bolt head, instead of octagonal). Then, you can adjust the height and radius. Hopefully that's what you were looking for. I've attached a HIP file with that and an example of how to group the 90 degree edges and bevel them, like in that image.

Unfortunately, I'm not very familiar with tutorials to recommend, so hopefully someone else can recommend some.

coz by definition….a box has 4 sides…in any software…

so say in Max, if you use a box…there's no settings for ‘Number of Sides’…sooooo, you use either a cylinder or an Ngon.

Same as in Houdini, you use a tube as suggested above…or a circle…then the world's your oyster

Hey splattenburgers,
I found the gametutors tutorials quite nice for getting started with procedural modelling.
look for the free houdini tutorials on their site.

[www.gametutor.com]
Cheers
CYTE

Thanks for your replies! I just created a hexagon and put a sphere on top of it. How can I slice the sphere in half to create the upper part of the bolt?

clip ?

vusta
clip ?

Thanks!

Any idea how I create the screw part? I created another cylinder and capped it and then applied the twist node. But the cylinder doesn't appear to twist correctly/it doesn't look like a screw for some reason

here's one way…

In the Y line to Helix, that's simply a Point SOP, in the VEXpression, if you click on the dropdown list, you'll see a bunch of presets, so I used Y line to Helix, which turns a line in the Y direction into a Helix….yes, I did this preset myself, very proud of the fact that SESI has implemented quite a few presets I put together here:

http://forums.odforce.net/topic/30324-vexpression-presets/ [forums.odforce.net]