Modifiers

Three buttons for display on a given Modifier are: Render / Realtime (Object?) / Edit. Toggle those to "see" the modifier or not in those modes.

Object mode, right-click the mesh, Shade Smooth

• Which is cosmetic, but doesn't affect the mesh itself.
• For THAT, go to the properties section, the wrench (modifier)
  • Add Modifier, Subdivision Surface.
  • Until you click Apply, the modifier doesn't actually change the mesh.
  • It's a soft-change, as it were.
  • Viewport value seems to affect smoothness, in Subdiv. Surface modifer.
  • AHA. Viewport value is "what you see in Blender", Render is "what you get when rendering". Duh.

The Solidify modifier adds thickness, such as to an icing layer on a virtual donut.

• Change Offset so it thicknesses outward, not inward. 1.0 instead of -1.0, I guess.
• Change thickness to .0025 or so to make the thickness something icing-sane.
• Fixing the hard edge on the icing? Move the solidify ABOVE the other modifier.
• Inner Crease value will make it "hug" the underlying donut mesh a bit better. Value of 1, probably?

The Bevel modifier takes those hard edges/corners on things and makes them less so, which is quite pleasing of a look.

• Could have saved me doing a lot of that by hand with the visualizer test render, yeah? Yeah.
• When using Bevel, make sure to Apply -> Scale to the object so the beveling gets scaled appropriately.
• Limit Method: Angle

The Boolean modifier lets us cut things out of other things. To wit:

• The Snowflake Project
  1. Make a circle
  2. Make a circular empty on which to parent the cutting surfaces
  3. Make a cube, stretch two sets of opposing vertices to make a diamond-ish shape
  4. Copy and scale a number of these diamonds
  5. Arrange them within a 60-degree wedge of the circle
  6. Parent them to the circular empty
  7. Select the circle and add Boolean modifiers, Difference mode, selecting each of the cutting surfaces
  8. Apply modifiers
  9. Rotate the empty 60 degrees
  10. Lather, rinse, repeat until we complete the trip around the circle