The extrude tool in Blender is essential to modeling anything of quality. It allows you to extend and create a new section of your model. But how does it work exactly, and what are its uses?
In Blender, the extrude tool is used when modeling an object in edit mode — that is, when modeling or creating an object using its vertices, edges, and faces. Formally, the extrude tool can be defined as a tool that duplicates the selected vertices, edges, and faces, connecting them to the original model in series of the original vertices, edges, or faces.
That’s a mouthful. Here’s an easier way to look at: The extrude tool extends a certain part of a model in a certain direction.
Take the provided image, for example. The four selected vertices (and thus, the surface between them) are being extruded from the original object. They can be moved in any direction, and at any angle. However, the inside of the object remains hollow and unblocked, while the outside remains completely intact, with an entirely whole surface.
This tool is useful for creating more vertices for better and more specific modeling. It allows you to create objects in a bit-by-bit additive process, rather than attempting to create it all at once, only to go back and increase the quality later. While this second option is very popular, extrusion makes the process a whole lot easier.
Okay, so now we know what the extrude tool does, but how do we use it?
To demonstrate the usage of the extrude tool, we will create a simple object resembling an L-shaped block. Make sure you have Blender started and ready to use.
Click the image on the splash screen to make it disappear. Delete all objects currently in the scene, by hovering your cursor over the 3D view, pressing ‘A’ until everything is highlighted, and then pressing the Delete or X keys on your keyboard. You will have to either left-click on the confirmation button or press Enter to confirm the deletion.
You’re now ready to begin making a basic model with the extrusion tool!
Now that we’ve prepared the object, it’s time to start extruding!
Now we’re going to extrude one more time to finish the object; we’re almost done!
There you have it! This is a simple way to get to know how the extrude tool works, and with practice, you’ll be able to use the extrude tool for all sorts of models, both simple and detailed!
License: The text of "Blender: Extrude – Simply Explained" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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