Step 6: Rayguns

1. Create a Barrel

• Choose LEFT VIEW (Numpad 4)

• Turn on SNAP TO GRID at the top of the screen

• Create a Cylinder (a primitive)

  • ANIM8OR 1.0 only lets you draw cylinders vertically. Make that vertical cylinder, and then use the ROTATE tool with the RIGHT mouse button to rotate it until it's orientation is exactly -90,0,0

• Double click the cylinder and set

  • Location to 0,0,0

  • Orientation to 90,0,0

  • START diameter to 5

  • END diameter to 18

  • Reduce the number of Latitudinal Divisions to 1

  • length to 60 units

• Click OKAY

• Remember to hit the F key to reposition your view

2. Create rounded ends

• Change the view to FLAT SHADED (ctrl-F)

• Create a sphere

  • Locate it to 0,0,0

  • Orient it to 90,0,0

  • Set it's diameter to 5 units

• Click OK and it should it to the small end of your Cone

• Do the same for the LARGE end with a sphere 18 units in diameter

• (Can you place it precisely by double clicking it and setting it's Z coordinate?)

3. Create "Barrel Rings"

• Create a Cylinder with the following properties

  • Location 0 0 0

  • Orientation 90 0 0

  • Start and End diameter of 20

  • Lon divisions of 12, but Lat to 1

  • Length to 1

• Move the ring into place at the front of the barrel (be sure that grid snap is on so it will "snap" into place)

• Copy and Paste another ring, and MOVE it a few units down the barrel

• (Use CTRL-V to paste easily, and leave Anim8or in MOVE mode)

• Repeat a few times until you get 6 or so rings

4. Customize, GROUP, Copy and Paste it

• Extrude a "gun mount"

• Add appropriate material colours - be sure to name them appropriately

• Select ALL the objects and GROUP them together [Build - Group]

• COPY the laser from it's object window, and PASTE it to the Saucer window

• Try SCALING the raygun to size - notice any problems?

  • Primitives do NOT scale well - you may have to CONVERT TO MESH the components of the raygun beforebeing able to scale it

• Position the laser, and use COPY and PASTE to duplicate it if needed

  • Note - Mirroring won't work on the Ray Gun because it is not a SINGLE mesh. If you were to UNGROUP it, Convert it to Mesh, and then use the [Build - Join Solids] command, the object would become mirror"able"