Week 6-Starting the Group Project

My first job for this week was to blog the group minutes for week 6. My second was to create the storyboard of our group idea. During this weeks group discussion ideas were input by all members and from this notes were made on what exactly we wanted to do. From these notes I drew out a storyboard and made comments to describe what will happen at each point. (For the storyboard see the group blog.)

After this I went on to create my parts of the steam engine. I had been assigned the large box, the sphere and the dial with its piping. I decided to start with the box section. To begin I went into smax and set the unit measurement to centimetres as this was what the group decided to work in. I then created a box in the viewport. Once I had the basic shape drawn I changed the dimensions to what I felt was right with reference to the photos I took, these being 210.371cm long, 77.932cm wide and 101.135 high. Then I increased the number of segments in all directions as this would allow me to edit the shape easier, resulting in 24 segments in length, 10 in width and 12 in height.

Next I converted the shape into an editable poly before going to vertex mode. Here I repositioned the vertexes using the move tool to create the curved outline on the top left. When doing this I was careful to move the whole line of vertexes across the width of the box so these vertexes remained aligned. I did find myself having to go back and keep making alterations to the position of the vertexes to get the shape the same as in the picture. Also, I moved other vertexes near to the vertexes which I needed to reposition to get the correct shape as I felt overlapping them could cause a problem when adding materials at a later date.

I was quite happy with this side and so decided to go on to work on the remainder of the top area. I used the same technique for this area as above, rearranging the vertexes as I felt necessary.

Finally I moved the vertexes at the bottom of the box to create the necessary shape in this area.

At this point I felt quite happy with the basic shape of this part of the engine and so decided to go on to create the protruding areas. For this I clicked on the polygon icon in editable poly mode and selected areas of the shape which needed to be raised slightly, starting with the area on top. Then I opened the extrude window and adjusted the figure to a point where I felt the selected polygons were raised to a level alike to the photograph, this being 3.301cm.

This alteration had created a projection similar to what I was looking for, but it did not quite match the photo as it was too narrow. Therefore I swapped to vertex mode before selecting the two rows separately and with the move tool placed them further apart.

Next I went on to work on the projection on the front of the shape between the two circles. I studied this area on the photograph and from this tried to work out which segments to extrude so that it was in the correct position. Once decided I selected these segments in polygon mode and reopened the extrude window. Again I set the extrude value to 3.301cm.

Afterwards I edited the position of the vertexes in the middle of the area I had just raised by selecting these vertexes and moving them apart using the scale tool. Then I selected the polygons in the middle of the raised area before opening the bevel window. In this window I set the bevel height to 2.703cm and the outline amount to -2.464 as I felt these values gave me a realistic shape very similar to that of the image I was working from.

I felt this would be a good time to create the circular protrusions. I thought about what would be the best way to do this and although I did try to think of a way to do this by making alterations to the box I had been working with so far I could not think of a way of getting the circular shape I wanted. Instead I decided to create a new shape as I thought this would get me the best outcome.

The first thing I did was to go to the create menu and drew out a cylinder. I then made alteration to the shape properties in the modify panel, firstly I changed the radius to 43.963cm as this fitted in the area between the edge and bevelled area well and the height to 5.321cm as this created a similar depth to the area I had already extruded on this side, but slightly larger so I could assure there was no gap between the new and original shape. Also, I reduced the height segments to 1 as more would be unnecessary and set the cap segments to 3 so I could create the curved central area more easily.

Then I created another cylinder and applied the same height and segment values, but this time made the radius 31.734cm so it was smaller than the first as in the photograph.

Next I selected the first cylinder I had created and chose to hide the remainder of the items in the viewport. Then I converted the shape into an editable poly and went into vertex mode. With the paint selection marquee I selected the middle and smallest ring of vertexes on the cylinder before using the move tool to create the domed shape in the central area. I then selected the central vertex on its own and moved this further forward so it was no longer level with the vertexes in the first ring.

After moving the vertexes I felt the dome was too smooth and level at the top. So, I selected the inner ring of vertexes with the paint selection marquee and with the scale tool made the ring smaller creating more of a point in the centre.

I felt the dome I had created was quite similar to the photograph; however the outer rim was not. I noticed that in the image there was an area of shadow between the outer rim and inner section. I then went on to create this by going into polygon mode, selecting the outer ring of segments and extruding them. In the extrude window I set the amount to 1.527cm as I felt this produced a clear definition between the two sections of the cylinder, but without it being too obvious.

I then repeated the above process on the second cylinder; all the time being careful to make the projecting areas level with one another so the shapes looked identical and therefore realistic.

The final step for these two parts was to re-align them with the rectangular protrusion on the side as since the alterations had been made the­ cylinders stuck out further.

I thought that now would be a good time to look at the model as a whole. I felt quite pleased with what I had done, but realised that the top was not quite complete. Whilst checking the model for accuracy against the photographs I noticed that I had missed the triangular shape on top. The reason for this was that this part was blocked from view in the image I was initially working from as there was a piece of paper in front of it. To resolve this error I chose the polygon icon in editable poly mode and highlighted the line of segments in the middle of the section I had previously extruded. Then, I opened the extrude window and set the amount to 7.317cm. I felt it was necessary to extrude this section further than any I had extruded previously as in the photo this was more projected than other parts. When I was satisfied with the level of extrusion I selected the rotate tool and with the same set of polygons selected I rotated the segments along the Z axis to create slope of the triangular shape.

I then looked at the model overall again and referred to the picture to see how realistic I had managed to get it. I felt that currently it was too tall so went into vertex mode and raised the bottom row of vertexes to decrease the height.

Next I went on to create the plaque at the side of the machine. To start I went to the create menu and drew out a box which was 59.626cm long, 47.118cm high and 7.914cm wide. Also, I changed the segments for the length and height to 3 and width to 1.

I then made the box into an editable poly and chose the vertex icon. With the paint selection tool I selected all the vertexes apart from the ones in the corners and used the scale tool to move them further apart, resulting in the central segment being the largest.

After this I tried to create the indent in the central area. For this I firstly used the inset tool, but realised that this was not what I wanted as it just created a segment which was slightly smaller than the original in the middle. Instead I applied a negative extrude value of -0.864cm which created a slightly sunken area.

I was happy with this section so far and so decided to go on to create the letters. To begin I selected the text spline from the create menu and placed it in front of the part I had just created. Then I typed in the text which was on the side of the engine in the photo. This currently was not quite right for several reasons; firstly it was too large, the font was not right and it was not formatted correctly. To resolve these issues I changed the font type to Arial as I felt this was very similar in appearance to the letters in the image, lowered the font size to 4.547cm so that all the lines fitted into the indented area and aligned the text to the centre. When I was pleased with the format of the letters I converted the text into an editable poly, selected all the polygons using the paint selection tool and extruded it by 1.06cm.

I then went to cap the edge of the area I had just extruded. For this I went into border mode, selected the open border, right clicked and selected cap from the list. However, when I looked behind the object I found that the majority of the edges were still open. I then undid the capping process, returned to border mode where I used the paint selection tool to highlight all the edges which needed capping. This action led to all the back of the letters being capped.

The last thing I did to this section was to select the text and box behind it and with the move tool placed them slightly higher with reference to the image I was working from.

At this point I noticed I had not modelled the bottom section of the original box correctly. I had originally made the bottom right curve round, but in a different photograph I had noticed this part actually curved in before going straight down. To resolve this I went back into vertex mode and repositioned them to get the right shape.

Afterwards I looked back at the front area and realised that the extruded box was too short. To solve this I first tried to extrude the polygons above them so the protrusion was the correct height and then snapped the vertexes together where I had created the split between the two extruded areas, but I could not get these vertexes to snap and then weld. Instead I removed the extruded area, leaving a hole in their place. Then I went into edge mode and selected the edges at the top of the hole, chose the move tool and dragged the edges down whilst holding the shift key to create new polygons. I repeated this process several times until the number of new polygons equalled the number of unattached edges. Then I used the snap tool set to ‘snap to vertex’ to attach the vertexes to one another before welding them.

Once I had mended this area I went into polygon mode and selected the segments where the raised area needed to be. I then reopened the extrude window and set the extrude amount to 3.301cm as this is what I applied to this area first time around.

Next, whilst still in polygon mode, I selected all the segments in the middle of the area I had just raised and opened the bevel window. I then applied the settings as I did previously, these being a height of 2.703 and outline amount of -0.461.

I then compared this area to the photo and spotted that the rectangular section should extrude further than the circular ones. So, I clicked on the vertex icon and selected all the vertexes which I had just extruded and bevelled and using the move tool repositioned the vertexes slightly further forward than the cylinders. This resulted in this section looking more realistic.

Following this I moved the vertexes of the bevelled area apart, once again with the move tool, as this part was currently too narrow in comparison to the picture I was working from.

I looked at the model so far and in comparison to the photo I felt the triangular section on top was not steep enough. To correct this I selected the polygons along the top and with the move tool raised them. Then, using the rotate tool I made the slope height increase at a greater angle. This did take several attempts but eventually I achieved an angle which I felt was realistic.

Also, I noticed that the hole through the centre of this section had also been missed. The current structure meant that a hole could not be created as the polygons stretched up the full height of the side. I decided the best option would be to divide this area into smaller segments, so in edge mode I selected the vertical edges and used the connect tool to add five extra rings of edges in between.

Next I swapped to vertex mode and used the move tools to reposition the vertexes so a circular shape at the top of the triangular area was produced. Before any vertexes were repositioned I made sure that the vertexes on either side were selected to assure they would remain level and therefore the circular hole would be equal in size and position on either side.

Once happy with the circular section I removed the polygons which are located where the hole needed to be.

I was pleased with the progress of this area so far, but felt that some more work was necessary. The holes showed the inside of the machine, which we did not want. To resolve this I went into edge mode and selected all of edges on the inside of one of the circles. Then, whilst holding down the shift key I dragged out new polygons towards the hole on the opposite side.

I then joined the vertexes to the original ring by turning on the snap tool with it set to 'snap to vertex.' Lastly I selected the vertexes which I had just snapped together using the paint selection tool and applied a weld.

I then repeated this process for the remainder of the circle.

Afterwards I turned on NURMS sub-division to see how this part of the model would look when smoothed. I was quite disappointed as it did not result in the appearance I was looking for.

I felt it was necessary to improve this. I was not sure exactly how I could improve this as I do not remember having this problem before, however I thought that it may be due to there not being enough vertexes around this area. So, in edge mode I selected one of the horizontal edges and then clicked the ring button in the rollout menu so that all the parallel ones in that row were selected as well. I then opened the connect window and added as many additional rows of edges as I felt was necessary, in this case 2.

I repeated this process several more times along the length of the triangular section, each time adding as many new vertexes as needed.

At this point I looked at this part with NURMS turned on again and was slightly happier with the result.

There were still a few areas which I felt were not quite right, so I tried applying extra vertexes in between the horizontal rows, once again using the connect edges tool. However, this did not make any improvement to the outcome when smoothed. I could not think of any way of improving this further and so will leave it for now and go away and try to find a way of solving the problem.

Instead I decided to apply some finishing touches to the areas I had already worked on this week. Comparing my model to the image I was working from I still was not completely happy with the shape. To begin I repositioned the cylindrical shapes slightly with the move tool so that the correct amount of these shapes were beneath the extruded rectangle in the centre. Finally I returned to vertex mode and again with the move tool repositioned the vertexes around the edge of the larger cylinder and all of them at the bottom so they followed the outline of the cylinders and an equal amount was visible on the outside.

This is all the work I have done this week. Next week I will continue with the modelling stage and hopefully find a solution to the problem with the triangular area at the top.