Gimpdome

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to create a 3D Egg/Teardrop in Art of Illusion (AoI) in just a few simple steps.  Here's a screenshot of the final output:



My screenshots may look differently than what's appearing on your screen.  This might be due to using a different Display Mode.  You can easily change yours in the main AoI window by going to Scene > Display Mode and choosing the desired mode or in the Triangle Mesh editor by going to View Menu > Display Mode and choosing the desired mode.  Additionally, I may switch between modes for better access to the edges/vertices on the backside, for a better overall view, or just because I can! 

Step 1

Open AoI and click on the Create Sphere Button

While holding down the shift key to make it a perfect sphere, drag out a sphere in any of the windows like so:



Step 2

Now, right click on the Sphere name in the Objects List and choose 'Convert to Triangle Mesh...' (This is so we can edit the individual vertices)



and accept the default settings in the following dialog window.



Step 3

Now, double-click on the Sphere name in the Objects List to open the triangle mesh editor and select all of the vertices by using the Ctrl+A keyboard combination.  The results should look like so, with the selected vertices being highlighted in pink.



Step 4

Next, click on the Taper Button

You'll notice that there are 4, two-headed handles at each corner of the object like so:



Egg Shape

Click and drag on one of the upper handles while holding down the Shift & Ctrl keys just a little bit (which will cause it to taper to the center in a uniform manner).  If you click on the left handle, drag to the right.  If you click on the right handle, drag to the left.

Do this until your shape resembles this:



Teardrop

To create a teardrop shape, do the same steps for the egg, but instead of dragging with the Taper Tool just a little bit, taper until the tool pinches the vertices together at the top (remember to hold down the Shift & Ctrl keys while dragging to taper uniformly to the center)



Step 5

Now, smooth your model, Mesh Menu > Smoothing Method > Approximating







Step 6

Click the Ok button at the bottom of the Triangle Mesh Editor Window, apply some textures/materials, and render.

Also, instead of turning on the smoothing, leave the edges faceted....would look really cool with a glass texture/material!

My results.  Some smooth, some not, all glass
[mnote]Branch out from glass.  Yes, it's shiny, but you're in a rut![/mnote]



view larger

Thanks, I like the teardrops best too!  Thanks so much for the tut!

Thanks sponge.  Actually, you don't necessarily need a 3D procedural texture for that, although it will work.  Here's a quote from the AoI manual regarding procedural textures:

Procedural textures are those in which the various properties described above are defined by mathematical algorithms. There are two types of procedural texture in Art of Illusion: procedural 2D and procedural 3D textures. The 2D textures are essentially thin sheets of texture that are wrapped around the object in a way defined by the mapping (see 5.1.4). Procedural 3D textures on the other hand are 'solid' textures and objects assigned to them will look as if they have been 'carved' out of it.

You can map a texture to your object using the following: Scene-Menu >Textures, click on New and choose Image Mapped.  Here's a link to the section of the manual describing the use of image mapped textures:

http://www.housepixels.com/aoimanual/textures.html#image_tex