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A7 - Donut Environment

Before doing the video:

  • Select your donut (including icing)

  • Press N to bring up properties

  • Press S to scale. Watch the dimensions in the properties. Scale it down to about the size of a real donut: roughly 0.10m along x/y, and 0.04m along z.

    • If the donut gets too small to see and/or the zoom-in feels too slow, correct this by pressing the dot on the number pad and it will realign itself to your donut again.

  • Similarly, scale your countertop to about 0.8m by 0.8m

  • Centre the donut on the countertop. I found the easiest way is to select the donut, bring up it's properties (N key), set the location to zero on each axis, then Grab Z (G, Z) to move it up slightly so it's sitting on top of the counter.

File Download

Reference image for the plate you'll be modelling.

[ Video Resource ] - We'll follow through the video together in class, and mimic the creation in the video as we go along.

Key Points from Video

  • Split window vertically (right click just below main menu bar)

  • Make left window image editor

    • Image -> Open; choose plate

Hot Key Reminder

1, 2, 3 (NOT numberpad) to change between vertex/edge/face select modes

Modelling the Plate

  • Create circle (0.12m radius, 100 vertices)

  • Edit mode, select all vertices

  • E, Z, raise

  • E, S (to scale out), slight angle out

  • E, S, then do lip of plate

  • Repeat process for next lip

Hot Key

Z to change view mode (same as selecting the proper icon at the top)

  • Go to wireframe mode

  • Alt-click on middle circle edit to select full circle

  • F to create a face

  • Edge select mode (Hot-key 2)

  • Select three edges where we need a bevel (alt-click the first one, the shift-alt-click the next two). Note - Alternatively, rather than bevelling all three edges at once, I think it's easier just to bevel each of these edges individually.

  • Bevel (Hot-key CTRL+B) - use mouse wheel while bevelling to add/remove geometry

  • Add solidify modifier (under Generate category)

    • 0.004 thickness
    • Apply
    • Bevel the two outermost (new) rings on the plate

  • Go to edit mode, vertex select mode, A for select all, M for merge, by distance (default value) – this merges overlapping vertices

  • Move donut onto the plate

  • Object mode, select plate, shade smooth.

  • Can make camera smaller by selecting it, go to the camera side tab, viewport display category, then change the size.

  • Adjust camera so that it will be able to a view pile of donuts on plate.

    • SHIFT+~ to enter "fly mode" - I will demonstrate this, as well as some other tips for adjusting the camera.

  • Now, start duplicating donuts to make stack. Rotate at bit to add some variation. In the video he did a stack of 4 and a stack of 3.

Tip

Double ZZ while rotating will rotate about the local Z axis – what was initially the Z axis

  • One final donut that’s rotated to face the camera.

  • If you did sprinkles: You can click on the icings, then geometry nodes, and change from round to long sprinkles. Also consider deleting geometry nodes from some donuts.

  • Scale the counter so that the corners are outside the camera frame.

  • Duplicate counter, rotate along x axis, use as a backsplash

  • Select an icing -> material -> name current material Pink Icing

  • Click on another donut -> material -> click the number beside Pink Icing -> Change colour and rename

  • Create environment collection (was initially done in an earlier video), and put into it:

    • Camera
    • Light
    • Plate
    • Countertop
    • Blacksplash

  • Rename planes to counter and backsplash

  • Select Plate -> Material -> New

    • Roughness about 0.16
    • Subsurface
      • Weight – 1
      • Scale – 0.001
      • Radius - 1 (all three of them)
    • Colour – slightly yellow