Week 10-Working on the Sphere

I hope to finish the modelling this week so this last file can be combined with the others and the project can hopefully be completed next week.

This week I began by creating the cylinder to represent the pin which went through the central post under the sphere. I set the radius to 0.442cm as I felt this was a realistic width and the height to 10.49cm so that a little of the cylinder was visible either side of the lever.

Next I went on to create the part which attaches to the side of the lever, once again starting with a cylinder. I used the move and rotate tools to position this at the correct angle before creating a third cylinder, but this time smaller in height and with a larger radius of 1.197cm.

I then made the most recent cylinder into an editable poly, went into polygon mode and highlighted several of the segments along the bottom edge. I then opened the extrude window and repeatedly extruded these polygons to an amount of 1.396cm until it reached the height I required. I then transferred to vertex mode and with the use of the move and rotate tools created the bend in this shape.

Afterwards I drew out a new cylinder where I increased the height segment value to 3. I then made it into an editable poly and deleted the unnecessary polygons at the back of the shape. This left me with space to create the shape I required which I did with the create tool. Whilst still in polygon mode I drew around the open edged vertexes to recreate the shape as I required it to be. Firstly I created the segments at the back and then the ones on the inside of the shape.

Once this shape was complete I came out of editable poly mode and used the rotate tool to position it at the correct angle.

I then returned to editable poly mode and in edge mode used the cut tool to segment the cap. I sliced the polygon in many segments by dragging the dividing line between two points which were opposite one another.

Following this I selected the edges I had just created and opened the connect edges window. Here I added one extra segment so the cap was divided into two rings of polygons.

At this point I realised errors had been made when cutting the polygons and so used the weld tool to join two vertexes which should be one.

I then highlighted the polygons which made up the smaller ring before opening the extrude window. I applied an extrude value many times, each time changing the height of extrusion so it represented the height of the area I was trying to create.

Whilst doing this I realised that one half of this rod was a mirror image of the other, and so worked to the half way point where I applied the symmetry modifier. Once the symmetry modifier was applied I used the mirror property in its rollout to position the symmetrical part correctly in relation to the first. This took some time to perfect, but eventually I was happy with this.

Next I went on to create the bolts along the joining rod, and as before I did this in editable polys vertex mode. I then used the scale tool to make the bolt area larger than the rest of the cylinder. However, when I was doing this I found it would not scale properly due to the angle the rod was positioned at and so I removed the rotation I had previously applied before completing this task. When I then tried to create the bolts the outcome was that the sections were much more even.

Finally I reapplied the rotation.

After this I went on to create the part which joins onto the box part of the steam engine. For this I started by creating a box and segmenting it 5 times along the length and 3 along the width. I then made it into an editable poly and scaled the vertexes which made up the segments apart before scaling the vertexes which made up the top and bottom row to create a curved outer edge.

Next I created a cylinder with a radius of 0.722cm as this fitted nicely into the box shape just created. I then created an array of these at 1.7cm apart.

Next I selected the edited box and from the compound objects section of the create menu selected Boolean. Here I selected subtraction (A-B) from the list to create a hole were the cylinders was. I then repeated this for the other cylinders.

I then created the part which joins the rod to the box of the machine. For this I started with a cylinder which had a radius equal to the width of the top of the Boolean box and positioned it here. I set the cap segment value to 2 to make it easier to work with.

Next I made it into an editable poly, went to polygon mode and highlighted the segments in the middle of each cap. I then extruded both sides at the same time to a rough amount before perfecting the height of each extruded section with the move tool in vertex mode.

I added the finishing touches by adding the pins to either end of the rod to give the illusion they were joined. I positioned the cylinder which made the pins carefully so they were in the middle of the end segment of the rod.

The modelling was now complete and so I applied a mesh smooth; however this did not smooth the shapes as I required it to. To correct this I made alterations to smoothing group setting on necessary objects in polygon mode and set the mesh smooth to pay attention to the smoothing group settings. As before when I wanted a surface to be smooth I applied one smoothing group value to the whole area but when I wanted there to be an obvious join I used two different smoothing group values. Below is the model with the mesh smooth modifier and smoothing groups applied. Some areas were difficult to do, such as the top of the area extruded out of the top of the sphere, as it took a while to work out which parts should belong to which smoothing group.

The modelling of the engine is now complete. Next week I hope to complete my part of the animation.

Week 9 – Glass Creation Trial

I have been researching into how to create a glass-like material in smax and came across a tutorial in Introducing 3ds Max 9: 3D for Beginners (Derakhshani, Munn, McFarland, 2007, pages 473-4) which seems to be really clear. I am going to test this to make sure I can get it to work, and if it does it will be easy to apply it to the necessary surfaces on the machine when I get the change.

To begin I created a sphere in the viewport before opening the material editor. Here I opened up the ‘ get material’ window and selected the Raytrace material from the list. I then altered the settings as detailed below.

Basic Parameters:

Set transparency colour to white so object is fully transparent.
I removed the tick from the box next to reflect and set the reflect value to 20 to apply slight reflection.
Set index of refraction (called index of refr in rollout) to 1.55 to control how the background is refracted in this material.

Extended Parameters:

Choose the reflections type as additive to make reflection brighter and glass clearer.
Set the gain value to 0.7.

SuperSampling Parameters:

Remove tick from ‘use global settings.’
Tick ‘enable local supersampler’ and select ‘max 2.5 star’ from dropdown list.

Specular Highlight Settings:

Set the specular lever to 98.
Set the glossiness value to 90.

With the settings applied I dragged this material to the sphere before I looked at the outcome in the render window, but unfortunately it was not easily visible against the background. I then added a few other shapes into the viewport behind the glass object. I was very happy with the result as the sphere due to its transparent quality and the way it refracted light to make the surrounding objects change shape. I feel this looks realistic and so will apply this to the glass on the steam engine at the next available point.

Week 9 Part 4-Starting to Model the Sphere

I have to leave this piece as the final part to model as it is a minor part of the machine and can easily be slotted in even after the animation has been completed as long as it is proportional.

To begin I started with a sphere. I set the radius to 13.748cm and then made the shape into an editable poly. Within this menu I selected the edge icon and highlighted a vertical edge either side central horizontal edge. I then clicked on the ring button so all the parallel edges were also selected before opening the connect edges window. In this window I set the segments value to 2 and the pinch value to 12 so the new rings of edges were spaced apart.

Next I went into vertex mode and highlighted the middle three rows of vertexes of the sphere. Then, with the scale tool, I scaled the central section out to create the ridged area as in the photo. I did this in the top viewport so I only scaled the vertexes along the X and Y axis as this will keep the shape of this area circular.

I was quite pleased with this in general, however in the image the extruding part was thinner and protruded more quickly than it currently does. To correct this I selected the vertexes either side of the area I scaled out and then with the scale tool moved these rings of vertexes closer towards the extruding part. This resulted in the protrusion of the area being less spread and so I was much happier with this.

After this I went on to create the extruded area on the top of the sphere. To do this I entered polygon mode and highlighted the segments at the top. Once I had highlighted the number of segments which I felt would create a realistic width of the protruding part I opened the extrude window. Here I set the extrude amount of 11.475cm as I felt this created a realistic height for the first section. I then applied a second extrusion, this time to the lesser value of 3.786cm.

Next I selected the ring of vertexes at the top of the extruded area and used the scale tool to reduce the radius of this area.

I then deleted the polygon at the top of the extruded area before entering edge mode and selected the open ring of edges at the top. I then combined the use of the scale tool and holding of the shift key to scale out new segments. This lead to a larger ring of edges being created, but this new ring is not in quite the right place. So, with the ring of edges still selected I used the move tool to lower the position of these edges so they were slightly lower than the ones which these edges were dragged out from.

Afterwards I continued to drag out new polygons and used the scale tool when in vertex mode to try to get the correct shape. Whilst doing this I regularly referred back to the photograph of this section so I could get this part as accurate and proportional as possible. Gradually I built a shape which I was happy with using the above methods.

At this point I spotted a bolt which needed to be created. I found this task was not as simple as before as previously I only created bolts on sections of cylinders where the number of segments was divisible by 6 (the number of sides on a bolt.) to start I counted the number of vertexes in a ring and divided the vertex amount by 6. The outcome of this calculation was 5 with a remainder of 2 and so I decided the best option was to choose every fifth vertex for four of the sides and then every sixth vertex for the other two. When these were selected I then used the scale tool to move these points outwards to create a bolt-like shape.

This did not work as well as when I did this on the cylinder as the vertexes in between were not repositioned to create a bolt shape. I did try to do this whilst in soft selection mode with the same vertexes selected when scaling the selection out, but this did not help. In the end I had to reposition the vertex points in between the corners of the bolt to get the side straight.

Next I continued to drag out new polygons, once again by selecting the top ring of edges and while pressing the shift key using the move tool to produce new ones. Then I used the scale and move tools when in vertex mode to get the radius and height of each section to the same proportions in the relation to the rest of the object with reference to the image I was working from. When I had the created the whole of this part of the object I entered border mode, selected the top border and from the right clock menu selected cap.

I then considered the sphere as a whole and realised I had not shaped some parts correctly. To resolve this error I went back to vertex mode and used either the scale or move tool to prefect the shape in each place I identified a problem. Eventually I ended up with a shape which I was pleased with.

Now I was happy with the top protruding area I felt it was a good time to go on and produce the protruding area from the base of the sphere. To start this I went in vertex mode and selected the central and first ring of vertexes at the bottom of the shape before turning on soft selection. I chose these vertexes as I felt this area was equal to the radius of the post underneath. I set the soft selection falloff of 3.58cm and then using the move tool created the neck section. I dragged the highlighted vertexes down to a point which I felt was created a realistic curve of the neck to the post below.

When I felt this looked realistic in relation to the image of this part I decided to create the area underneath. For this I entered polygon mode and selected all of the segments on the base of this object. I then opened the extrude window and chose an extrude value of 4.224cm so it was proportional to the rest of the sphere.

I then deleted the base segments.

Following this I transferred to edge mode and selected all of the edges on the open rim at the bottom of the shape. I then used the move tool in conjunction with the shift key to create new polygons beneath the original. I repeatedly dragged out new segments in this way, each time using my photo as a guide to the height of each segment ring. When I reached a section which I needed changes to its width I changed to vertex mode, highlighted the vertexes which needed to be wider and used the scale tool in the top viewport to increase the radius of this area to a level which I felt was proportional to the photo.

I continued to make new polygons by dragging out new ones whilst in edge mode and giving the object an accurate shape by using the scale tool to define the width of each section.

Next I went on to create the lever which joined onto this post. For this I began by drawing out a cylinder and roughly positioning it at what I believed to be the correct height and position compared to the rest of the scene with the move tool. I gave the cylinder a radius of 1.007cm and a height of 8.028cm as this equalled the diameter of the post at the bottom of the cylinder. Also I made sure both the cap and height segment values were 1. I then made the shape into an editable poly and selected the cap segment at either end of the cylinder before opening the extrude window. I set the extrusion height to 0.851cm as this seemed to be to a relative scale in comparison to the width of the arms and spheres post which joined this cylinder to the post in the photo.

Afterwards I remained in polygon mode and highlighted several of the polygons on the side of these extruded areas. When making the selection I referred back to the form of this object in the photograph and noticed the arm was the full height of the cylinder, therefore I selected all of the segments on one side of the cylinders extruded areas. I set the height of the extrusion to 8.327cm as this took the arms to just over half way across the width of the post and in the image the two parts were joined together with a pin through the centre of the post.

I was happy with the appearance of this shape but felt there needed to be some minor alterations made to the positioning of the lever. Firstly the move tool was used so the arms joined the post at exactly the correct point. I then went onto the hierarchy menu and chose the “affect pivot only” button. I then changed the position of the pivot point so it was in between the two arms where they meet the middle of the post.

After this I perfected the angle which this object sat at by deselecting “affect pivot only” and using the rotate tool to angle the level slightly upwards. I used the photographs I took whilst at the museum to try to get the position exactly right. After altering its angle a couple of times I was happy with what I had achieved.

Next I went on to create the T shaped indented areas on the sphere where the smaller silver spheres are attached. To create this indenting area I felt it would be best to use the extrude tool, but when I went to highlight the polygons to be extruded I found they were too large for what I wanted. To resolve this I divided the polygons into smaller segments by going into edge mode, selecting one of the vertical edges just beneath the bulging area around the centre and then clicking the ring button to highlight all the parallel edges also. I then opened the connect edges window where I set the segment value to 1.

This made the top of the shape to be extruded the correct height, but the width of the vertical part was still too wide. To correct this I selected two of the horizontal edges whilst in edge mode which were either side of where the T shape extruded area needed to be before making sure all the parallel edges on this side of the sphere were also selected.

After this I again opened connect edges window so these parts could be split into smaller polygons, adding one extra row of segments to both of these columns of polygons by setting the segment value in the window to 1.

I had now made all the necessary alterations to the size of the polygons for the indented area and so entered polygon mode and highlighted the T shape where I felt it needed to be in relation to the photo I was working from. I then opened the extrude window and set the extrusion height to the negative value to -3.118cm.

This went reasonably well, however the extrusion was at the wrong angle, it went backwards into the shape and upwards at an angle but I wanted it to just go backwards. To resolve this I chose the move tool and with the polygons I extruded still highlighted I lowered their position so the indentation was solely in a backwards direction.

With this minor alteration I was now satisfied with the outcome of this part and so went on to apply the T shaped indentation to the opposite side of the sphere. I expected this to be very simple to do as I had already segmented the area on the first side, however when segmenting the vertical columns of polygons it stopped at the top and bottom. Therefore I started at this point by selecting the edge icon to enter edge mode and once again selected an edge either side of the area I wanted to extrude. I then selected the ring button to select the parallel edges also before opening the connect edges window again and adding an extra segment to this area.

Following this I went into polygon mode, selected the polygons which made up the T shape and opened the extrude window. I then extruded the shape to the value of -3.118cm again so that both sides were even. The final step was to lower the position of the polygons which had just been extruded with the move tool so the extrusion went backwards only instead of backwards and upwards.

Now the indentations had been created on both sides I decided it would be a good time to produce the silver spheres which were attached here. To begin I drew out a new sphere in one of the viewports with a radius of 3.437cm. I then made the shape into an editable poly, went into vertex mode and selected the vertex at the very top of the shape. Then I turned on the soft selection tool and set the falloff value to 1.753cm so any alterations I made to the top vertex would have some effect on the surrounding area. With this area highlighted I used the move tool to raise this area slightly to create the part which joined to the larger sphere.

I felt this was a good start to this area and so went into polygon mode and selected the top circle of segments and opened the extrude window. Here I set the extrusion height to 0.612cm and applied this several times to give me vertexes to work with.

This gave me some of the height I needed, but the shape I was aiming for was not quite right. To resolve this I went into vertex mode and highlighted all the vertexes I had just created. I then used the scale tool to reduce the radius of rings of vertexes. I made this alteration in the top viewport so I could assure the rings remained circular. To achieve the gradual transition from the sphere to the connecting arm above I deselected the bottom ring of vertexes and scaled the ring still highlighted further. I continued to deselect the bottom vertexes and scale the remainder highlighted until I had achieved the shape I wanted.

This had gone well, however the height of the connecting arm was still too short. To improve this I selected the top couple of rings of vertexes and with the move tool repositioned them higher, resulting in a longer length connecting arm. As with the method I used when scaling the vertexes I move the highlighted vertexes upwards, remove the highlight from the bottom row and moved the ones still selected up further. This resulted in the arm becoming the correct length.

Next I placed the smaller sphere next to the large sphere and realised that the connecting arm was still not right. To correct this I used the move and scale tool to get the same shape as in the image I was working from. When I was satisfied with the form of the smaller sphere I made some final alterations to the position of this shape with the move and rotate tools so the connecting arm was positioned inside the top of the indented area.

When I was happy with the positioning of this small sphere I cloned an instance and aligned the new shape within the indentation on the opposite side.

I am happy with the way the sphere has gone this week. I will continue to create this model next week when I hope to finish it.

Week 9 Part 3-Animating the Pressure Gauge

The modelling of this part of the machine is now complete and so I decided to go on and add animation to the necessary areas before the file is merged with the 3Ds max files other group members have been working on.

Animating the needle on the gauge involved making it flicker slightly throughout the timeline. The movement involved was rotation, with all the movement coming from the spindle where the needle joined the face of the dial. To begin I selected the pivot button in the hierarchy rollout so I could assure the point of rotation was in the correct place. This was already positioned in the centre of the circular area where the needle was joined to the spindle and therefore was correctly positioned for animation to begin.

Following this I checked that the timeline was set correctly. During this weeks group meeting the frame rate was discussed and it was decided to work in PAL which would run at 25 frames per second. Also, I extended the length of the timeline from 60 to 100 frames as I felt this would give me a reasonable amount of time to work with and allow enough variation to the needles movement. I felt this was important as I did not want the needle only moving through a couple of keyframes before repeating itself as obvious repetition would not add realism to the scene.

Next I created the animation along the timeline. For this I turned on auto key and made alterations to the needle at different points along the timeline. At uneven intervals I used the rotate tool to change the direction in which it pointed. I added key frames at uneven intervals as the move of the needle was not regular and therefore would make this part of the animation more realistic. Also, I rotated the needle to different angles when adding key frames to add realism further.

When I felt I had set enough key frames along the timeline I watched the animation. I was slightly disappointed with this as I felt the swing I had applied to the needle was too large. To resolve this I turned on auto key again and made changes to the position of the needle where I felt it was necessary with the rotate tool. This took quite some time as I ended up making changes several times to some key frames, but eventually I perfected the animation.

Now that I was happy with the basic animation I went to the curve editor and from this opened the “parameter curve out of range type” window. Here I changed the curve type from constant to loop so that what I had animated so far would be repeated throughout when merged with other group member’s animation in other files. I selected loop over other curve types as I felt this would work best for several reasons; firstly the needle would remain in the same area throughout the animation unlike what I expected linear or relative repeat to do, secondly so that there would be a smooth transition from the last key frame to the first when it repeats unlike the cycle type and finally as I thought the viewer could realise if the animation played forwards and then backwards.

I am pleased with how the animation has gone. This file is now ready to be merged with the other 3Ds max files which contain machine components.