Beginning modeling in hamaPatch

This tutorial was written assuming you have general knowledge of hamaPatch or have at least browsed the hamaPatch Help. At the least, click Window on the menu and turn on and off the Dialog Window and the Tool Window.

You can Download a zip file containing 9 models from various stages of the tutorial. These models will be referred to at the end of the section to which they relate.

Start the program and a patch_obj is created (also called a layer).
Rename it in the Dialog Window by pressing the ... button and typing in Vase.
Switch to a Front view only by expanding the XY window (window C in my setup) via the two overlapping squares button in the upper right corner of the desired window.
Pan down by choosing the Camera tab on the toolbar and the Pan tool. Click and drag the mouse to move the view.

Click Show in the view window and change the Grid Setting to .5 and turn Grid Lock on All. The Add Point tool actualy creates 2 points for you which are connected by a line called a curve. When you click in the view window at the insertion place of the new points one will be created and deselected and another will be connected to that one and be selected for you. So as soon as you left click for insertion continue to hold the left mouse button and drag the other point where desired. When you insert the second point(s) you should click exactly where you want the second point to be and then drag the other point near a point in the other pair. Without letting go of the left mouse button, click the right mouse button once and the points will be combined together as one point (a process called welding). So using the Add Point tool, draw the first 6 points starting from the bottom of the outline, then turn off grid lock and draw the other 2 points. We draw the other 2 points so that the vase will look rounded and more solid when lathed. However, we do not need to go further inside than these 2 points because no one will see the inside of the vase. (vasetut01.hmp)

Choose Select and All from the menu to select all points and click the Lathe button on the Patch toolbar. My lathe setting (the number of times the selection appears in the final lathe) is set to 4 you can change yours in the Dialog Window by clicking the etc. tab and following from the Configuration option to the expanded etc. Setting option and typing in the entry field below this, next to Lathe Setting.

Create a new patch_obj by clicking New under the Object tab on the Dialog Window and rename it Petals as above. On the Dialog Window, click the etc. button under the Object tab and choose Show Only Select Object. Remain in the current view window and Pan down once again using the Camera tools until you see the axes. We are going to use the Array feature and our model needs to be close to the origin. Turn the Grid Lock back on and draw the petal outline using the Add Point tool. (vasetut02.hmp)


The Extrude tool creates a copy of the current selection and connects all corresponding points to make a solid face. The copy is selected for you after creation, but you will not notice a difference until you perform some action on it (such as translation). The Extrude tool only works on one spline at a time. A spline is simply an open or closed set of connected points belonging together based on the order and method of their creation. Although a set of points may be connected they may not neccesarily belong to the same spline. If you extrude a set of points belonging to different splines you will produce odd results and must Undo the extrusion and select the proper points.
Change the view to Right and Select - All (meaning choose Select from the menu followed by All from the options which expand from Select). With all points selected, click the Extrude button. Choose Model on the menu, click Translate and type -.25 in the Z field of the dialog box which appears. Use the Camera tools to Rotate and Zoom in until the model looks something like this:

Connect the corresponding points of the bottom face with the Add Point tool and repeat on the top face to make the object solid. (vasetut03.hmp)

Restore the view to the way it was before either by clicking Undo under View or clicking Ortho and Front under View in the View window.

Select - All points again and choose Edit - Copy from the menu. Click Edit - Array and type 3 in the first entry field and type 90 in the third entry field to the right of Rotate. The array feature only works if there is some set of points currently in the cut/paste clipboard of the program. So you must always cut or copy what you are planning to array. The axis we cannot currently see is Z so this is the axis we want to rotate the arrayed objects around. We want three copies of the object besides the one currently there and we want them to have an angle of 90 degrees between each one hence the entries specified above.


Create a sphere via Model - Insert on the menu. If the sphere is not centered between your petals Translate it with the patch tools until it is close enough.

My sphere is a little small for the gap between petals so I need to scale it larger. Turn off the Z-axis on the Patch toolbar (this will make the sphere slightly squished) and choose the Scale tool. Left click and drag slowly until the sphere looks large enough and release the left mouse button when done. (vasetut04.hmp)


Click the etc. button under the Object tab on the Dialog Window and choose Show All Objects. Again use Select - All from the menu to select all points. Click the Translate tool and turn on the Manipulator via the Patch menu. Click and drag the green arrow (Y-axis) as far up as you can. You may need to click the Camera tab and Pan up then repeat the translation steps until the flower is near this position. Change to a shaded preview by choosing Light and Enable Light (for preview) and Use Default Light on the view window (you must also have Show - Surface chosen or else nothing will happen). (vasetut05.hmp)


The flower is partialy concealed by the vase, so I need to move it. On the View Window, click View and choose Right. If the Manipulator and Translate tools are not turned on within the Patch toolbar, turn them on and move the flower along the Z-axis (the blue arrow) until it is clear of the vase.

Let us see how we are progressing. Restore the expanded view window by clicking the overlapping squares in the upper right of the view window again. Turn off Show - Point and Curve while turning on Surface under Show and Enable Light (for preview) under Light in the Perspective view window (default window B).

Well, the flower is on the opposite side of the vase from us. Leaving all four view windows up, I once again use Translation and the Manipulator to translate along the Z-axis (blue) in a Right view (window D) until the flower looks correct in the Perspective view (window B).

Usualy the center of the flower is a different color from the rest of the flower, yet they are in the same layer which means the color will probably be the same. I must make a new layer in order to have the colors be different. First use File - Save to save the model, however, because we are about to delete something and it is always a good idea to save before deletion just in case something undesired happens.

Choose Select - None from the menu and click the Square Select tool from the Patch toolbar. In whichever view window you find easiest (I used Front), pick out one of the center points of the sphere and draw a small selection square around it.

Choose Select - Connected from the menu or use the shortcut key (default C) to choose the entire sphere and choose Edit - Cut from the menu. Create a New patch_obj named Center using the Dialog Window and use Edit - Paste to insert the center into this new layer/patch_obj. I wanted the center of the flower to be yellow, but it came up blue. Click the colored box on the Dialog Window next to the button that we used to change the name of the patch_obj, and choose a yellow color from the box that pops up.

Now that I look at it the flower should be rotated some what. However, the center of the flower and the petals are now in different layers and cannot be selected together in the usual manner. Click the Multi Obj tab and choose Petals and Center.

Click the Rotate tool and rotate in the Top and Front views until the model looks somewhat like this: (vasetut06.hmp)


Now we need to add a stem. Make a new patch_obj. called Stem and change the color to green as we did above. Expand a View Window again and change the view to Right. Add new points to form a curve from the center of the flower to the inside of the vase like so: (vasetut07.hmp)


Switch the view to top, Select - All points, turn on the Manipulator and click the Rotate tool from the Patch toolbar. A yellow and a green circle should appear around the selection. We want to rotate around the Y-axis so click the green circle and drag until the selected curve is aligned with the center of the flower. Translate along the X and Z axes as well until the stem is aligned with the flower correctly (disregard the relation to the vase for now).

Use Multi Obj again to translate Stem, Petal, and Center as one object so that the stem curve falls within the vase. (vasetut08.hmp)

Either Square Select only the bottom point of the stem curve and click the Select Curve tool from the Patch toolbar (default shortcut key is the Tab key) until the curve extending from the selected point is highlighted or use the Hand Select Curve tool to directly click on the desired curve with the cursor to select it.

Select Model - Extrude(select curve) from the menu and type .15 in the Radius field. Before clicking anything else Select - Connected (default C on the keyboard) and delete/cut the guiding line for the stem. The Extrude (select curve) feature works much like the extrude tool. A four point circle of the specified radius is created and centered around the first point of the curve you selected. The new circle is extruded, rotated, and translated as necessary until it is centered around the next point on the curve and so on until the entire curve is surrounded by a solid pipe. (vasetut09.hmp)

Restore to all four views and check your progress in the window we made for our shaded previews earlier. Pan or Zoom out a little in the shaded preview window so that the entire model is visible. Expand this window and look at your new model.


Submit question, comments, or ask for further instruction from draven2561@hotmail.com
Tutorial created by Jonathan Lee Sep. 19, 2001. Updated Jul. 12, 2002 for version 2.8.1.

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