It's spring time and I was wondering what I should do for a new tutorial. My wife suggested flowers because of the spring season and she has some wonderful orchids blooming right now. So I thought that's a great idea. So here you go a tutorial using Strata CX new SDS modeling tools to make a single cage orchid. I don't stop there, I also show you how to texture and render it. It's a long one so it will take up a couple of pages and it will take you some patience to get this down if you haven't explored the new SDS tools. I hope you enjoy it.

Okay first off lets start with a 6 sided filled poly. Double click on the filled polygon tool and you can set the number to 6.

Next, convert it to a polygon mesh.

After you have converted it you will need to extrude it. Enter the reshape mode by selecting the geometry and clicking on the button with the hammer at the top. Now, in face mode, hold down the "control" key (windows) or the "Command" key (MAC) and pull the face out a little. Face mode is activated by pressing on the filled box icon circled below.

Once you extrude it once then you will need to extrude it again two more times. You should have something that looks like the screen shot below.

Now, select and extrude, holding down Control or Command, the top back face of this shape like the screen shot below.

We need to close up the width of this extruded polygon. Switch to edge mode by clicking on the outlined box icon (circled below) and select on edge and move it in, then the next edge. Make sure you have the proper grid active for this. In this case it was the Y grid. If the Y grid was not selected the edge would move on the wrong plane and not move where you want. To activate the grids use your X,Y, and Z keys.

Now extrude the top face up like the screen shot below. Hold down Control (WIN) Command (MAC) to constrain it to a straight extrusion.

Extrude it again so it has a total of 4 sections.

Okay, now in edge mode select one of the edges and then Right-click or Control-Click on the edge again. This brings up a contextual menu. Select "Loop Select". This will select the rest of the edges around the extrusion.

Now with all of the edges selected move the edges to the back a little. In this case the Y grid needed to be active for the edges to move to the back.

I have moved the other edges back like the example above so that the extrusion has a bend to it. Now Shift select the faces on the side of the extrusion and pull them out like below.

Do the same on the other side.

Now you should have something that looks like this from the front view.

Next you will need to start making this flower pedal look more like a flower pedal and less like a solar panel. In edge mode select the edges and push them in towards the center of the pedal. In this case the Z grid needs to be active to push the edges back.

After pushing the edges in a bit it should look something like this (see below).

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