Hi! I just started a small project, and well, im stuck on step 1. :p I need to model a cage (spherical) just like this: http://yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au/~newu/rtr/images/cage-newest.png I'm currently learning to use Blender, and i cannot figure out how to make this. Ive tried making a torus and rotating it, but that makes the polygon count soar (since there is a huge amount of overlap) and it also doesn't look the same. I would greatly appreciate any tips from anyone. Thanks.

I got half way by creating a UV sphere, selecting all faces, extruding the individual faces inward and then deleting them, it leaves holes on the inside but you could manually fix them with some patience

Method 1: Make each rib out of a low poly, few segmented cylinder, then weld them together and apply a smoothing group to the whole thing.

Method 2: Create a sphere, give it very few overall segments, copy sphere, shrink slightly, bevel each face out individually (notice i said bevel, not extrude), perform a boolean subtraction between the two.

Method 3: Create a sphere, give it very few overall segments, copy sphere, shrink it, place in center of first sphere, perform a boolean subtraction. Create boxes that surround the sphere that is now hollow but closed, combine boxes together, perform a second boolean operation. Similar to method 2, just a different way to arrive to the same outcome.

Method 4: Kaze's method, though it may take you longer to close the mesh.

[Edited by - Jarrod1937 on April 6, 2008 10:00:34 PM]

No idea if you can do this in Blender, since I use Max, but it uses pretty simple tools...

Create a sphere, then copy it. Covert one to Editable Poly, or whatever allows you to edit the vertices, faces, edges, and so on. Go to the edges sub-object mode, scroll-select every edge, then extrude them. Give them some amount of width, rather than just flat. Then use the Boolean object and subtract the copied sphere from your extruded one. This will give you the cage effect.

Hope it helps!