Thursday, 11 June 2009

Coathanger Model


I created the coathanger entirely from extruded circular curves along paths. I made the large, triangular part first, then the hook and positioned it on top. I then made a mini spiral using the same method as earlier and scaled it down so it would fit around the base of the hook, to look like it was the end of the triangular part twisting round. Next I duplicated the triangle and rotated it 90 degrees so it would fit inside the original like the image above. Lastly I created two small torus', scaled them down and positioned them over the cross where the two triangles overlap at the bottom to make it look like they were tied together. I added a blinn material to everything to make it look metallic.

Reference Image:

Domino Test



A quick test to try out the domino effect before I start animating the final piece, since I wasn't sure how to animate the tiles falling into each other. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would, I just have to make sure I remember to key frame each tile for each movement, otherwise they'll fall through each other as though they're not solid. Overall I think this test turned out okay, so I'm not too worried about animating the tiles later on. I used the graph editor to make the tiles fall a little faster at the end since there's nothing left to hold them up.

Roof Tiles

Here are the roof tiles I've modelled for my domino effect. To make them I created a polygon pipe and scaled the bottom inwards a little, then created a large cuboid and used it with Booleans-difference to get the half pipe shape. I admit they're very simple, but from the reference images I've looked at, there's little else to add in way of detail other than a realistic texture, which I'm avoiding due to rendering times. I intend to duplicate the tiles as often as required for my domino effect.

Reference image:

Broom Model

The broom was simple to make since its basically just a couple of cuboids and a long cylinder. I extruded the top faces of the pole a few times and scaled them down to make it appear rounded. I used a small, blinn cone for the part where the pole meets the base of the broom. Unfortunately I have no idea how to make bristles for the brush part of the broom, and looking for tutorials on how to do so on the Internet didn't provide any simple solutions. So I decided to keep things as simple as possible by just having the brush as a solid object, that way it'll be easier to animate and quicker to render.

Reference image:

Spade Model

I found the flat spade itself very difficult to model since I wasn't sure how to get it both flat and curved at the same time. At first I tried lofting a series of curved but that didn't work out well because it was too thin and was difficult to edit into the correct shape. So in the end I created a polygon cuboid and used 'Subdiv Proxy' and the 'Insert Edge Loop' tool to get a decent shape, though even then I found it difficult to make it curved so its a little flatter than it should be... If I have time I might go back and try to edit it some more, but for now I'm reasonably happy with it so I'm going to make the other models first so I don't run out of time to animate. I added sub-divides to the handle to curve it.

Here's the reference I used:

Spring Bounce 2



I re-key framed some parts of the spring bounce to give the spring more weight. I also tried to make it look like it was resisting more to being squashed since its supposed to be made of metal. I think it looks a little better now, though still not perfect... but I won't be using this bounce in my final animation, so I'm going to concentrate more on the animation I do need.

Door Model 2

I added hinges and a keyhole to my door model to make it more detailed. The keyhole was made using Booleans difference. The hinges where made by creating a small cylinder and adding a bevel to get the indentations, then duplicating it four times so they sit on top of each other. I parented the five small cylinders together, then duplicated the set twice to make the other two hinges and places them accordingly on the edge of the door. A small polygon sphere scaled to appear flatter was used to the head of the long 'pin' that goes through the hinges. Lastly I added a blinn material to them all to make them appear metal.

I took a photo of the hinges on my bedroom door to use as a reference: