Modeling

The number of vertices determines how much resolution your part will have. The lower the number the more blocky your object will look, higher then the harder it is to work with and the larger the file which may affect the performance in Tabletop Simulator. I made this Cylinder 64.



The Cap Fill Type determines how the face on the top and bottom of the cylinder will be created. The default is ngon (n sided polygon) but this does not work with Tabletop Simulator. I am not sure what the limit to n is for Tabletop Simulator but I know it can do 3 sided and 4 sided polygons. So let's make it a triangle fan.

Step 1 Open Blender! it will open up to this default scene with a cube, a camera, and a light. We don't need to care about the camera and the light, only the object that we create. So let's start by deleting this Cube. Right Click on the cube and press the delete key on your keyboard.So no more cube. If you left click somewhere the cursor will move around in the 3D space. For our next step we want the cursor to be at the origin point. On your keyboardwill open a menu that has some cursor options. Click Cursor to Center to recenter the CursorWith the cursor in the center go toto put a cylinder where the cursor is. This is our starting point. After the Cylinder appears pressto open more options for the primative (in this cast our Cylinder). Here two things matter, Number of Vertices and Cap Fill Type.Now let's go into Edit Mode and set our view mode to Wire frame. This makes seeing our model easier. These options are boxed in red bellow:Blender uses the number pad to adjust the camera angles. If you're on a laptop and don't have a number pad the view menu has the same options. I pressedon theto align to Front View andon theto switch from Perspective to Orthogonal mode. This gives a nice grid behind the model to work with.Now we are going to delete everything except the base of our model. Pressingon the keyboard starts box selection.to draw a box around the top points. The selected points will turn yellow.Pressingon the keyboard and then click vertices. This will leave just the base.You can adjust your view using the number pad or by. Theserve as arrow keys to rotate the view. Using theyou can zoom in and out,will pan up and down, andwill pan left and right.is select one by one. We want to select the entire outer circle. The easiest way to do that is to switch to edge selection andone edge on the circle. Themodifier is used to select all edges in a continuous path, in our case the outside of the circle.We are now going to start making the shape. With this circle selected pressto extrude the circle. Pressto constrain the extrusion to the Z axis. This will make sure the circles are of the same size and concentric on that axis. Move the mouse up and click to finish the extrusion.We can now move the selected circle with the triad in the middle of it if we want it to be taller or shorter. However moving it in X and Y will make our circles out of line.When making a part that is symmetrical like this there are essentially two things you mess with, height of circle and radius of circle. Move the height by using the proper arrow on the triad (in this case Z which is blue (Also Z is up in tabletop too)). If your specific you can type in stuff in the box on the left but I usually eyeball it.I find the best way to change the radius is to use the scale tool. If all the selected vertices/edges are in the same plane then it will keep them in that plane and only adjust the radius. Do this by pressingon the keyboard and then either typing in a ratio (like .9) and pressingor by using the mouse (depends on how precise you are trying to be).See how this is angled in now?Say you want to make a step that doesn’t go up at all, only in or out. First extrude ()the circle again (pressingso it is in the Z axis only and is lined up) and go up a bit just so it is easy to see what we are doing. Again if you want more space you can move the circle up and down with the triad (blue arrow, Z axis)Pressto scale it in as much as you want your step to be. Now you can eyeball it with the triad to make it level if you want but I am particular about it so I like to get them into the exact same XY Plane.to select one circle thenthe other one (Still in edge mode!) so the two circles are highlighted.Pressto scale,to constrict the scaling to the Z Axis (Up and down so they get closer and further vertically as you move the mouse) and then type 0 and hit. This scales their distance in Z to zero -> puts them on the same XY Plane. You can now move the Step as a whole with the Triad, or scale the inner and outer circle independently like before, justthe circle you want and then pressfor scale and move the mouse (or type a decimal depending on your preference).I am going to continue modeling over the next few pictures. I am only using extrude in Z, translate in Z (with the triad) and scale one circle at a time. More instructions on finishing the model below.I first extruded in Z a few times so I can see the whole curve as I make it. More extrudes -> more resolution of the curve and less blocky in Tabletop Simulator.Also Box select () works as well asif that’s easier for you in a particular view. This is Front View ().So how do we finish? So far everything we have made (after deleting the top and sides of the cylinder) has been a cup, a bottom and sides but no top, how do we close it off?Here is the top opening of the model. We could just make the hole smaller by scaling it to 0 and moving on having all the vertices be coincident. But that’s sloppy and because this is gaming sloppiness turns into ram consumption. Not a big deal on one little token but it can add up. There two ways that I use to close off models, one for flat top parts and one for pointy parts.