3D - My Way

I've been making 3D models for a while now; I started by making user content packs for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 (helped with coding too), then to Technical 3D models for Product design, then I started trying to make pretty things and trying to combine animations with it. I haven't done much 3D work recently, partly because of workload and lack of imagination, but mainly because my computer really can't handle the workload of spending hours on a heavy program, then rendering for god knows how long, and saving. Y'see - I didn't use to have this problem, but it seems my ambitions and progression have very quickly bypassed my current computer specs.

However,my computer CAN run Google Sketchup.

Yes - Google Sketchup. Despite progressing in every way, I still stick to Google Sketchup for creating my models - Even if I end up importing it into other programs to finish the job. I have an uhh... 'unique' method of creating 3D models, and Sketchup seems to cater for them perfectly.

So, what is 'Unique'?
I honestly don't know - I regularly get asked 'how do you do that', and I just end up saying ' I dunno...' it's possibly the one of the hardest things to explain... but, it obviously works - but probably just for me.
all I know is that it includes;

• Splitting up everything I see, or want to model the world into thousands of simple shapes.
• Finding patterns in these shapes, even if there are none apparent.
• Modularising everything.
• Creating everything to exact decimal accuracy: 1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.125 all the way down to.. about 0.001 (or any multiples which don't include huge strings of random numbers like "73.57924..."... *shivers*)

"I'm sorry, did you just say you want to rotate that component on an unknown axis in an unknown point in space to 'about there' and then move that vertex 'a little to the right'? Step away from the computer. Now."


Anyway! I thought I'd make a little something, take pictures along the way so you can try and understand my strange ways and fail, and then guess what the hell it is. Fun? Yes!

Here I am simply segmenting the half-sphere into appropriate bits to fit the shapes in my reference pictures, simple right? No. I calculated exactly how many segments I would need (32) so I didn't have to unevenly split segments later.

adding small shapes to what I have. Technically it was two lines to make the points, then copying them around every 45 degrees. Notice how they fir exactly to the segments and have the height of exactly three-quarters of a segment.

There was quite a big step missing from above - It basically involved copying what I already had and expanding it by exactly 0.05, then I joined the outer and inner bits to amke it sticky- outy

Another View

The above might look like the same thing, but I actually expanded the sphere again and made the middle dome so it stuck out a little bit extra. what you also might not have noticed is that the edges of the spike ring are all now curved, as are the middle dome edges.

I copied all of what I made and rotated it 180 degrees to create the other end of the model (which is very similar), the above three photos show me creating a slice, intersecting it with the dome and then removing it to create a screw-head type-thing.

Whole back end with some block colour added

It's hard to explain what went on above - I basically made a small and basic LED-shaped component, precisely positioned and angled it flush with the sphere and then cut a hole in the sphere. I then rounded the edge of the hole and copied it around several times.

Front end with block colour - If you look closely you can probably see the rounded edges of the LED-holes.

Side view of both ends

I then started making the middle segments; This is where the whole 32-segment sphere came in - if the object has 8 sticky-out segments and 8 - inner segments... that makes 16 slices, that means 2 segments per slice which will make the segments slightly rounded rather than flat. Got it? Good.

This is the pattern for each segment. the problem I found was that the pattern isn't flat, it's embedded into the sphere at different depths - This creates slight problems,especially when the item is a sphere - you can't just embed everything on one axis like you would with a box because the angles of the sides are all different and.. well... Lots of other stuff. The point is that my 'unique' methods do not cater for this so I devised a new way of doing it which conformed. - I drew it once on a face of a sphere (so it was curved) and then drew lines down to the centre of the sphere from all parts of the pattern - it means if you lower the pattern equally on these lines, it's the equivalent of scaling down, only you can do it for specific aspects of the pattern

it's hard to explain, but you can see - the pattern is at different heights in different places because I varied how far down into the sphere I drew the pattern lines... Anyway - I give up on explaining that.
 

I made a screw/bolt and did it the same as I did for the LED's

I copied and rotated the pattern around 22.5 degrees, then flipped and rotated it.

then i copied and rotated both 8 times

 

And then I added some block colours.

The model isn't actually finished yet - it's basically the main shapes - It's missing detail and textures and loads of other stuff, but I don't think my computer can handle such things a the moment.

Have fun guessing what it is!