Simple Closing Slices
From Sculpties
by Cheree Bury
The question about how to close off the end of a sculptie comes up quite often. I am going to try to offer some very simple examples to show ways to close off the ends of slices. These are sometimes called Custom Poles, but I refer to them as Closing Slices because they are not technically poles. A pole has all of its points in one location. These slices do not work that way.
For the first examples I will use the very basic 32-point circle that we get when we rez 32 blank slices.
The very simplest way to close off an end is to make the next to last slice a circle, and the last slice to the standard pole slice by clicking on the last slice and then selecting Load and then Pole. Since all the points in a standard pole are in the exact center, you will get lots of triangular shapes coming from the outer edge to the center. The resulting end will now look like this when a wood texture is applied:
If this works for you, great, you’re done. But if you need more control over the texture at the end, you may want to try something different. This is where the fun begins. We now want to make a custom closing slice. One way to do that is to move all of the points of a slice to a center line like this:
<sliceshape points="32"> <texture uuid="35845e8c-5453-b82b-7196-525b2118b8c2" /> <sculpt uuid="12b623c0-e673-9c73-dadb-ed4725d7da02" /> <p p="0,0,-0.49756,0" /><p p="1,0,-0.47844,0" /> <p p="2,0,-0.44094,0" /><p p="3,0,-0.3865,0" /> <p p="4,0,-0.31719,0" /><p p="5,0,-0.23569,0" /> <p p="6,0,-0.14512,0" /><p p="7,0,-0.049,0" /> <p p="8,0,0.049,0" /><p p="9,0,0.14512,0" /> <p p="10,0,0.23569,0" /><p p="11,0,0.31719,0" /> <p p="12,0,0.3865,0" /><p p="13,0,0.44094,0" /> <p p="14,0,0.47844,0" /><p p="15,0,0.49763,0" /> <p p="16,0,0.49763,0" /><p p="17,0,0.47844,0" /> <p p="18,0,0.44094,0" /><p p="19,0,0.3865,0" /> <p p="20,0,0.31719,0" /><p p="21,0,0.23569,0" /> <p p="22,0,0.14512,0" /><p p="23,0,0.049,0" /> <p p="24,0,-0.049,0" /><p p="25,0,-0.14512,0" /> <p p="26,0,-0.23569,0" /><p p="27,0,-0.31719,0" /> <p p="28,0,-0.3865,0" /><p p="29,0,-0.44094,0" /> <p p="30,0,-0.47844,0" /><p p="31,0,-0.49763,0" /> </sliceshape>
Note that I have moved points 0-15 from the left to the center and points 16-31 from the right to the center without moving them vertically. This way will give you absolutely perfectly straight lines from the outer edge to the center. Once you use this slice as your last slice in place of the standard pole, you get something that looks like this:
Looks like a dining room table that is missing all its leaves, huh?
One advantage of this way of closing it is that you can follow the closing slice with a standard pole slice so that you can disconnect one section from another without disturbing the texture on the end of this section. In fact, you may want to bury that standard pole back inside the section just a bit if you use one.
Another way of closing off the ends of a section is to move all of the points from one side to match the points on the other side. Do this by copying the position from point 0 to point 31, point 1 to point 30, etc. all the way to point 15 to point 16.
The resulting slice will look like this:
<sliceshape points="32"> <texture uuid="182865dd-a804-340a-248a-e477fb07cee1" /> <sculpt uuid="712080ef-c7cc-22f9-eff7-953fe1a9989d" /> <p p="0,-0.049009,-0.497592,0" /><p p="1,-0.145142,-0.47847,0" /> <p p="2,-0.235699,-0.440961,0" /><p p="3,-0.317197,-0.386506,0" /> <p p="4,-0.386506,-0.317197,0" /><p p="5,-0.440961,-0.235699,0" /> <p p="6,-0.478471,-0.145143,0" /><p p="7,-0.497593,-0.049009,0" /> <p p="8,-0.497594,0.049009,0" /><p p="9,-0.478471,0.145143,0" /> <p p="10,-0.440962,0.235699,0" /><p p="11,-0.386507,0.317198,0" /> <p p="12,-0.317198,0.386507,0" /><p p="13,-0.235699,0.440962,0" /> <p p="14,-0.145143,0.478472,0" /><p p="15,-0.049009,0.497595,0" /> <p p="16,-0.04901,0.49763,0" /><p p="17,-0.14514,0.47844,0" /> <p p="18,-0.2357,0.44094,0" /><p p="19,-0.31719,0.3865,0" /> <p p="20,-0.38651,0.31719,0" /><p p="21,-0.44096,0.23569,0" /> <p p="22,-0.47847,0.14512,0" /><p p="23,-0.49759,0.049,0" /> <p p="24,-0.49759,-0.049,0" /><p p="25,-0.47847,-0.14512,0" /> <p p="26,-0.44096,-0.23569,0" /><p p="27,-0.38651,-0.31719,0" /> <p p="28,-0.31719,-0.3865,0" /><p p="29,-0.2357,-0.44094,0" /> <p p="30,-0.14514,-0.47844,0" /><p p="31,-0.04901,-0.49763,0" /> </sliceshape>
If you make the closing slice this way you will get an end that looks like this:
The texture now goes completely across the end of the slice. As in the previous example, you can now follow the closing slice with a standard pole so you can separate the sections. However, in this case, you MUST bury the standard pole into the section in order to avoid disturbing the texture on the end.
If you need more room on the end for texturing, you can go back into the section’s slices and morph the slices from there to the closing slice. For instance, if the closing slice is at slice 14, you could set the To slice to be slice 14 and the From slice to be slice number 10. Then click on the base and Slices 10-14 and Morph. That will cause slices 11-13 to change to modified slices with more area to texture on the end of your section like this:
Notice that there is more detail in the wood texture than in the previous section even though it is the same unchanged texture.
