Drawing a torus in Motion?

Question

Level 1

52 points

Drawing a torus in Motion?

I need to draw a 3D torus (some say doughnut, right?) in Motion. I mean a static 3D object. Not an animation. So I did what was obvious to me.

In a 3D group, I first draw a circle, say 50 px. Change to X anchor point to 70 px. Then, I press K 7 times in order to get 8 copies of my circle. Change the Rotation Y of each of the copy, incrementing 45 deg to each value. So far so good, with 8 sections altogether, my object starts looking good in 3D.

Understanding I need more (well, a *LOT* more) circle sections, I try duplicating the 3D group, hoping I'd get 16 new #D sections... Wrong: the duplicated group is flattened losing its 3D properties, making it unusable to what I planned to do. What did I do wrong?

So, plan B's obvious solution is to press K on the selected original section... say... many times... But the obvious sounds error prone and I thought there must be another way that duplicating eg. 360 times the K button and incrementing the rotation Y parameter accordingly. Ie. 360 sources of error, right?

It looks like I miss something important here. Any help?

--

Claude B

Posted on Jan 8, 2024 10:49 AM

Reply

Answer 1

fox_m

Level 6

12,511 points

Jan 8, 2024 1:53 PM in response to claude_210

You can do a fairly good job with 3D Text:

This unicode character is a decent starting point: ⃝

It is unicode character U+20DD.

The thickness is controlled by the Weight parameter in Appearance > 3D Text. Dial down the Front Edge Size and manipulate the Width and Depth parameters to get as round an effect as you can. The specifics of what I used for the image above is:

Font American Typewriter Regular, Size 395, Baseline -149.5, Offset X -40.2

3D Text > Front Edge Size > Width 80.51, Depth 100.71 [Back Edge: Same as Front]

Substance Generic Color (White - default)

Add Layer > Finish > Custom Specular (default settings)

If you change the Size or weight, you will have to rework the Front Edge Size parameters. It's really not all that hard to do.

The advantage of 3D Text over 3D models (usdz) in Motion is all of the Material and Lighting options available that are not available with the 3D models. Also, all (most) parameters you have access to in 3D Text can be animated whereas, 3D models give you nothing except "orientation" and other Transform parameters.

https://youtu.be/v6aB20netRU

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 8, 2024 11:05 AM in response to claude_210

If you are trying to emulate a torus using circular sections, it seems pretty natural to instead use a Replicator.

Change the Group from 2D to 3D;

Draw a circle, rotate it by 90 degrees around the X axis;

Press L to repLicate (that is how I remember the shortcut, by the way :-))

Change the Shape to a Circle, and the Arrangement to Outline;

Adjust the number of Points.

Adjust the color mode of the cell, or the Replicator.

Add a camera and you can view the "torus" from different perspectives.

Now, if all you want is just a torus, and are not concerned with how it may interact with other objects in the Motion project, you can simply use an existing model in USDZ format. There is a torus already in the Motion Library:

Reply

Answer 3

claude_210 Author

Level 1

52 points

Jan 9, 2024 7:07 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

That works fine, tx Luis. I might be the only one here having troubles tweaking the replicator right. I got it working anyway. I know about the existence of the USDZ torus, but interaction with other 3D objects is a requirement...

Reply