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Possibly Dumb Questions

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Old Codger:
I'm sorry to have to bother the community but I need some help and I cannot for the life of me see the answers in either of the (excellent) user manuals. Oh, and if you disbelieve in dumb questions, see if there are clips on youtube of the press at the daily briefings SecDef Rumsfeld gave during the 1st Gulf War. I promise those bozos asked some genuinely DUMB questions. Such as (for the umpteenth time) "When will the war be over?" To which Sec Rumsfeld would patiently answer, "When it's over."

1) Can I make a polygon (face) from just a selected group of points? If so how? For example: when you create a cylinder and select end caps, the end caps always have a point in the center. I'd like to be able to delete that point, select the points at the end and generate a new poly/face without a point in the middle. Can I do that?

2) I would like to move the axis of a solid around within the solid. Can I do that? If so how?

3) I need to be able to generate cylinders oriented other than vertically. Yes, I know I can rotate it but I want to keep the axes of the new shape aligned with the axes of the 3D workspace. How do I do that? A simple rotate command results in axes no longer aligned with those of the workspace.

4) Can I rotate an object about its axes without rotating the axes? Conversely, having rotated an object, can I then rotate just the axes such that the axes are once more aligned with the workspace axes? The reason I want to do this is because I have been noticing some odd effects when scaling and moving rotated objects.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer an old man who suddenly has tons of time on his hands.

Kevin Gales:
1.Well to make a face from points you need to join the points with edges use the "Add edge" (next to UV in edit mode)

tool then after you do that select those edges and use the "Fill holes" (key - J ) tool

also for cylinder caps you can just drag select only the top points and edges then "Fill holes" (key - J) tool
 

2.As far as I know the axis can only be moved to center using "edit > pivot"

3.I have a trick that works for that Let's say you have a cylinder rotate as usual then go to edit mode drag select all

faces,points and edges of that particular object until the entire object is selected then "edit > detach faces" (key - D)

4.Sounds like Number 3 you could just rotate the object then reverse the axis using the trick in 3

Old Codger:
Thanks for the response, Kevin. I did some tinkering and finally figured out how make a face from a group of edges. Still thinking about and internalizing your other answers. Not arguing, mind you, it's just that my learning disability precludes me operating by rote so I have to "understand" something new (to me) before I can internalize it. Yeah, it was a stone b***h back when I was in elementary school. In some ways I was the smartest kid in the class but in others I was the dumbest. Often I'd start off as the dumbest, hit the knee in my learning curve and end up understanding something better than the teacher. For example: I understood multiplication before the 3rd grade teacher finished explaining but my inability to rote memorize meant that I could not reliably recite the times tables until late in 5th grade. Got a lot of multiplication problems wrong simply because I couldn't remember the times tables at all well. {sigh}People didn't know a heck of a lot about learning disabilities back in the 50s (I started 1st grade - no K or pre-K for me - in '57) and 60s and they're still not all that together on non-verbal learning disabilities. But I suppose we all have our individual crosses to bear.

Kevin Gales:
I thought you were kidding by the name "Old Codger"..talking of 60s you must be that old(no offence)
Well lucky for you anim8or is pretty easy to learn of course 3d art in itself requires great skills..but anim8or will surely get you close to professional work take it from me I have done some serious work with anim8or.

Old Codger:
Kevin, my next birthday will be the Biblical 3 score and 10. If I survive past my birthday in '24 I will have lived longer than my Mom. If I make it to the next but one general election ('28) I will have lived longer than my Dad. And if I see the summer of 31 I will have outlived not only my parents but all my grandparents. Heck! Even though I was the firstborn, I have already buried one sibling and may well bury another. I'm old, son. I've felt the Grim Reapers cold, foul breath on my neck several times. Hmph! Back in '10 I was diagnosed with an extremely rare and invariably fatal disease with a 5-year survival rate under 10%. But I'm still here.

Two observations: 1) It IS possible to teach an old dog new tricks. It just requires a lot more time and a WHOLE LOT MORE patience.
2) You remember that old saw "What does not kill me makes me stronger."? HORSE HOCKEY!! I am no stronger for having survived what I did back in 10-14. In many ways, in fact, I am weaker - far weaker. But I AM still alive and making trouble. So my version of that idiotic saying is simply, "What does not kill me leaves me alive."

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