Jacquelin Vanderwood
April 2005
Using Revolve for 3D in Illustrator CS is much like using it in other 3D programs. If you understand lathing, then you should have no problem understanding the concept of Revolve. Below I've used the Pen tool to draw a design.
With the item selected, I then want to open Effect and choose 3D. Now select Revolve.
Before we do anything else, check Preview to see the action live.
In this screenshot we can see the immediate result of applying Revolve in the default state.
If you adjust Angle,
Instead of seeing a full revolution of the object, we in fact have reduced it's size to 73%.
Let's draw a semi half circle. Open Revolve.
Change Surface to No Shading which will speed up the process.
Now set the Angle to 270 degrees. We now have an open piece.
Using the same method, I drew a funny looking watermelon.
And then applied the same Revolve settings to achieve the piece below. The actual rendering time can take a little bit of time so take a break while it works. Have some fun with Revolve.
Copyright (c) 2005, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved