- The array tool, lets us make duplicates of objects
and position them at regular intervals in the scene,
that comes in really handy in a case such as this.
I want to build a pergola
or a shade structure for vines to grow on.
And I've got three modular pieces of my pergola.
I just want to make duplicates of those
and position them in regular intervals.
And that's what the array tool is for.
Let's start with the pergola column,
select that object pergola column 01
and activate the array tool
go to the tools menu and choose array.
And by default, we're going to get 10 objects.
We can see here under array dimensions.
We see there's a one dimensional count of 10.
We won't see anything actually unless we enable preview here
(mouse clicking)
and that'll give us a live update on any changes we make.
But even with preview on,
we still don't see anything other than just the one column.
And that's because even though we actually have 10 columns
they're all super imposed over one another.
They're all at exactly the same position.
In order to see them separately
we need to offset their position.
And that's what these values over here are for.
So I've got the X position
and I can increase that (mouse clicking) incremental value.
And now we can see we've got 10 columns.
We don't actually need 10 columns,
we only need three up here.
So let's set the count to three and press tab.
And we can increase this X incremental offset value.
Let's set that to a value of 300 centimeters
(keyboard typing)
and press tab.
Okay, so I've got one row of objects here
but I actually want a grid.
I want a whole bunch of other rows.
And to do that, I want to be in two dimensional array setup.
So I click on 2D and we've still only got one here.
So in order to see more,
we'll need to increase the count in two dimensions.
Let's set that to a value of seven and press tab
but we still don't see those seven rows.
And that's because once again
they're all on top of one other.
We need to introduce some offset and some dimension
in this case, it's going to be the Y dimension.
If we reduce that Y dimension,
bring that into a negative value,
we can start to see, all right.
We've got three columns going this way
and seven rows of those objects.
Okay, let's set this Y offset to negative 300 centimeters
and press tap.
All right, so we got what we want.
One last point, over here under type of object
we have copy instance and reference.
We'll talk more about this later
but the difference between a copy and an instance
is copies have no relationship to one another.
An instance is actually the same object
in multiple places at a time.
And what we want here actually is the default
which is instance,
each one of these columns is going to be identical.
If we make any change to any one of them
it'll affect all of them.
So that's what we want.
We'll leave that at instance.
And by the way, a reference is an instance
in which you can create variations.
But again, we'll look at that again later.
So instance is what we want.
Go ahead and click okay. (mouse clicking)
And we've got all those columns.
Now we also need some beams.
So I'll select the beam object.
Here it is, pergola beam 01
and go back into the array, tools, array
and we'll need to re-enable preview.
And we see some stuff here.
All the other parameters, aside from the preview button
are all preserved.
They're stored in memory.
We see the same values that we had
the last time we were in this dialogue.
Okay, we do want a 2D array
but we don't need as many objects in this case.
We have a 1D count of three
and that's what we want.
The 2D count, we don't need as many,
we're going to set the 2D count to only two and press tab.
And we also need to increase the Y offset.
So that's going to be negative 900.
So set the incremental row offset Y
to negative 900 and press tab.
And now we've got all the beams.
And again, they're instances,
go ahead and click okay.
And finally, I want more cross beams.
So I'll select that pergola cross beam 01 object.
Once again, go into tools.
Array, this time I want to wipe out any of the parameters
that are currently in this dialogue.
I'll click reset all parameters
that takes everything back to default values.
We just want a one dimensional array here
but let's set the count to 13 instead of 10 and press tab.
And then we need some offset
and that's going to be in the Y dimension.
So if we bring the Y value down
we'll see we're able to offset those cross beams.
Let's give it an incremental Y value
of negative 25 centimeters and press tab.
And now I've got all the cross beams I want there.
That's sort of one modular section of cross beams.
I'll later duplicate that and create some more sections
but that's what we want.
Those are instances and click okay.
It's how to use the array tool to make duplicates
of objects in a spatial pattern.