Week 8 Part 2-Continuing to Model the Engine

I am pleased with how the modelling has gone so far this week, but I do still have some more work to do to my part of the machine. I felt that the best place to start would be to create the pipe on the back of the box. To begin I created a cylinder with a radius of 3.566cm and a height of 3.71cm. For the segment values I applied 1 to both the height and cap.

Afterwards I turned it into an editable poly, entered polygon mode and selected the end polygon before deleting it. I then clicked on the edge icon and selected the edges which originally joined the cap which I just deleted. With these selected I dragged out new polygons by incorporating the use of the scale tool and shift key. I selected the scale tool over the move tool which I had used for this area previously as it removed an unnecessary step in producing this part.

I continued to create new segments by dragging out new ones whilst in edge mode. When doing this, I did find it necessary to swap between the move and scale tools as in some places extra polygons which were an equal radius were needed while in others the radius of the next ring of polygons needed to be a different size.

When it came to the bend in the pipe I felt I had the choice of two processes to create this. One was to drag out new polygons and use the rotate tool to position them in the curved shape or to use the bend modifier which I used for some of my work last year. I felt working in editable poly mode to create new polygons before positioning them would be my best option for several reasons; firstly, I would need to drag out new polygons for either method and so there would be no benefit of time and also when I thought about using the bend modifier I did find that I had less control over the shape I achieved. Due to this decision I continued to drag out new polygons in edge mode, but as each was created I used the rotate tool whilst still in edge mode to produce the curvature in this part. I had to be careful how far I rotated each ring of edges as I did not want to stretch the edges around the bottom too far as this would create an unrealistic shape.

Eventually I started to get the correct shape of the pipe.

I continued using the technique of dragging out new segments before rotating them to get the shape of curve in the pipe. Once I had produced a 90 degree bend in the pipe I continued to drag out more segments while in edge mode, but this time without rotating the ring of edges which had just been produced. Repeating this process led to a long pipe being created.

Next I continued to create more polygons using the method above. After a little while I came to a bolt towards the top of the pipe. For this I dragged out polygons to what I felt was a realistic height for this part and used the scale tool to give this area a larger radius. I made the size of this larger than in the photo I was working from as this would make it easier to work with. Then I entered vertex mode and selected every third vertex and scaled these outwards to create a six sided shape. When scaling these vertexes I used the others which were not highlighted as a guide as to how far to widen them as I was conscious to create a straight edge on all six sides.

The final step for the bolt was to reduce its size so it was proportional to the rest of the engine.

I had now reached the tap on the pipe. To create this I felt it would be best to draw out a new shape, this being a cylinder, and set the height to 13.432cm and radius to 4.42cm as I felt this was a relative size to the rest of the pipe. I also set the height and cap segment values to 1. Then I made the shape into as editable poly and deleted the cap segment on one end.

Afterwards I entered edge mode and highlighted the edges which used to be attached to the cap I just deleted. Then, whilst holding the shift key, I dragged out new polygons with the move tool. When necessary I then used the scale tool to reduce the diameter of that section of edges. I repeated this process several times to build up the shape, all the time referring to my photograph for accuracy in form and scale. Gradually I produced the shape which was required.

I then dragged out one other section of new polygons. I was pleased with the length of the section at this point, however in the photograph the shape of this section was rectangular rather than cylindrical. So, then I transferred to vertex mode and selected all the vertexes which made up the polygons I had just created apart from the two at the very top, the very bottom and ones furthest to both sides. With the scale tool I brought these vertexes inwards, creating a squarer shape.

This was an improvement, but there was still some curvature to the shape which needed to be removed. To do this I swapped to the move tool and repositioned each pair of vertexes on their own to align in a square. I worked in pairs so that I could assure the vertexes which were joined by an edge remained level. By working around the shape and making the alterations in this way I eventually created the shape I wanted.

I now felt this part was correct and so returned to edge mode to drag out more new segments using the same technique as I have previously. When I had enough I entered vertex mode, selected the final two rings of vertexes which I had just created and with the scale tool made them slightly smaller than the ones behind them.

This end was now complete and so I selected the border icon, selected the square border and capped the end.

Following this I felt it would be best to edit the other side of this cylinder and started by going into polygon mode and selecting the cap segment before deleting it. I then went into edge mode, selected all the edges on the outer rim and dragged out new segments by incorporating the move tool and holding of the shift key. After creating two new segments in this way I moved to vertex mode, highlighted the two outer rings of vertexes and with the scale tool scaled this down in diameter. For this I made the alterations in the left viewport so that the size of the rings were only reduced along two of the axes so I could assure they remained circular.

I was happy with the shape of this section so far and so decided to go on. I thought now would be a good time to create the pipe to the side of this section as I thought it would then be easier to create the part which joins the two. To begin I went to the create menu and selected the line spline and working from the photo I drew out the spline to represent the shape of smaller pipe.

I then created another spline, this time a sphere. I placed it in the area which the pipe would start and then scaled this shape, using the areas around this as a guide.

Next I went into editable poly mode, selected the polygon icon and clicked in the centre of the circle to highlight the polygon. Then, I selected the ‘extrude along a spline’ button from the editable poly rollout to open the window. From here I selected the line I had just drawn as the line to extrude the circle along and increased the segment value to 15 to make the line as smooth as possible.

At this point I realised the pipe I had created was too tall and so I used the scale tool to make this area proportional to the rest of the steam engine. Also I realised the thinner pipe intersected the edited cylinder which is attached to the back of the machine. To resolve this I entered vertex mode and by working with the move and rotate tool I stopped the pipe from doing this.

I was now pleased with the pipe and so I will now create the part which joins this part of the pipe to the metal part of the pipe. For this I created a cylinder with the radius of 2.949cm and height of 6.061cm. I then set the height segment value to 5 and the cap segment value to 1. Next I made the shape into an editable poly and entered vertex mode. I then selected the end ring of vertexes and turned on soft selection. By using the rotate tool to create a curve in the shape and the move tool to make the shape as smooth as possible I started to get the shape I was looking for.

This worked to the point where I ran out of vertexes to work with. Due to this I then created new vertexes, firstly by entering polygon mode and deleting the cap segment which was at the end of the cylinder which I was trying to curve and then going into edge mode so I could drag out new rings of segments. Once new segments had been created I entered vertex mode and with the move and rotate tools I positioned them correctly.

I continued to create new polygons and use the rotate and move tools to edit their position until I felt I had created an accurate curved shape in relation to the picture I was referring to.

Next I dragged out a few more new polygons in a downwards direction to the bottom of this part, but this time did not use the rotate tool to make the shape curve as I had already achieved a 90 degree bend. I added rows of segments until the base of this object was equal with the object beneath it.

After this I dragged a couple of extra rings of polygons out from the top end of this shape and using the scale tool made the new area larger in radius than the rest. Then I went into vertex mode and selected every third vertex, meaning there would be 6 vertexes highlighted in each ring in total, and I scaled these parts further outwards. This resulted in a bolt-like section being created.

I continued to create new polygons and transform areas into hexagonal shapes to represent bolts using the methods detailed above. When doing this I looked at my photographs regularly as I wanted to make sure I had the correct proportions for each section. Below are screenshots of the process for creating the remainder of this area.

Finally I went into border mode, selected each open edge at either end in turn and from the right click menu applied a cap. On the bottom of the pipe I also used the move tool to make the bottom rim lower as currently it was obvious to the eye that this was two parts which had been joined together, rather than one as the connecting area had not been aligned properly.

At this point I looked at the steam engine as a whole and realised that I had not given one of the protrusions beneath the pressure gauge the correct shape. To correct this I entered vertex mode and once I had highlighted the necessary vertexes I scaled them along the Y axis to move them further apart. When I had repositioned the vertexes as necessary I deselected the ones to the left and right of the selection and scaled the rest away from each other again. I repeated this process until I had transformed the rectangle into a more curved shape. I was careful when doing this to select both the vertexes on the extruded edge and the ones attached to the edited cylinder behind so the corresponding vertexes remained level and therefore neither a bulged or shrunken edge was produced.

I now felt the majority of this section of the model had been produced and so I decided to go on and add the areas of detail. The first thing I did towards this was to produce a bolt. For this I found a shape called a gengon in the create panel which I thought might be useful for creating this part. I drew this out within one of the viewports before setting the radius to 3.206cm, height to 1.951cm and number of sides to 6.

Next I created another shape, this time called an oil tank. I positioned this in the middle of the hexagonal gengon I had just created before I set this shapes dimensions to a radius of 1.731cm, height of 3.896cm and the cap height to 0.939cm as in relation to the photographs I felt the inner part was proportional to the outer shape.

I felt this had gone quite well, however I did feel the dome of the oil tank object was too much and not realistic in comparison to the picture. So, I selected the scale tool to scale the shape down along the X axis as this flatted the curved surface. I then made the oil tank into an editable poly, entered vertex mode and deleted all the vertexes at the back of the shape which were not needed as they would be hidden between the gengon and other surfaces.

I was now happy with the shape and so selected the two objects which made up the bolt and grouped them together.

Afterwards I cloned several instances of the bolt and using the move tool positioned then on the main object, starting with one of the cylindrical discs. I took a lot of care when positioning these by paying close attention to the images so the outcome was as accurate as possible.

Once I had aligned the bolts correctly on one half of the disc I selected them all and grouped them together. I then cloned an instance of these and using the mirror window flipped them along one axis, this being the X axis.

The last step for this part was to align the cloned group on the opposite side of the cylinder.

I then repeated this alignment process using the clone and mirror tools for the other cylinder and box area on the front of the large box. It took some time to get all the bolts positioned correctly, but eventually I achieved something which had quite a similar resemblance to the photograph.

This went reasonably well, however the process of mirroring groups of bolts did result in the odd bolt overlapping one of the cylinders and the box in the middle. This was quite simple to resolve as all I needed to do was to enter the group and make alterations to the bolts positions with the move tool.

Next I positioned the bolts on the name plaque. Once again, I combined the use of the clone and move tools to place them around the edge of the plaque before grouping them and using the mirror tool to make the bolts for the opposite side more easily. This task took slightly longer than expected as I had to go back and reposition some of the bolts as they were not evenly spaced at the top and bottom.

Following this I created the bolts for the top raised area around the triangular part. As I had so much trouble spacing the bolts out evenly on the section before I decided to try doing this with the array window. I did use this window for one part of my work last year, but did find it quite difficult to get it to do what I wanted and also was not sure if I could remember what each part did. Despite this I decided to have a go. To begin I placed one bolt in one of the corners and with this selected opened the array window. After some time I worked out that I needed to work with a 2D array dimension. I set the array number to 4 and spaced them by 18.1cm along the x axis. I also selected that the arrayed shapes all be instances.

I then placed one bolt at the tip of the triangular slope before grouping the bolts, cloning an instance of the group and using the rotate tool to position them on the opposite side of this raised area.

Afterwards I went on to place the bolts on the box attached to the pipe. I repeated the processes I used above to create the bolts and position them around the box; however I could not get them to fit without overlapping. I compared this area of the image to the photographs I took during the visit and noticed that the bolts on this area were smaller than the ones in other areas. To correct this error I selected them all and cloned copies instead of instances so I could edit the bolts size. I then used the scale tool to reduce the bolts size before making slight alterations to their positions as to refine their alignment and make it more accurate. Eventually I got both their size and positions realistic.

I continued to create the bolts for the remaining areas, these being small circular areas which joined to the main box. I did this once again by cloning either a copy or instance depending if alterations were needed to its size before positioning each one, grouping small areas bolts and using the rotate tool to position them at different angles. Below are the final areas where bolts were added.

I have now added all of the bolts to the machine. For the remainder of this week I will continue to add the little details which will act as the finishing touches and hopefully add a little bit more to the model.