DarthTofu Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 ...so I finally have something to contribute to this thread. Well, sort of. I'm working on something to contribute to this thread. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a169/DarthTofu/Vader.jpg This is my project for Graphical Communications so far. The project is, literally, "Make something cool in Solid Edge." I don't know if anyone else uses the program, but it's a pretty awesometastic alternative to AutoCAD Inventor which, while good, is left in the dust by the newest version of Solid Edge. Anyway, that's what I have so far, but I'm encountering some difficulties. Namely, I don't like the, for lack of a better way of putting it, "Cheekbones" of Vader. Right now, they aren't high enough. They look alright without the eyes in place (This model looks particularly amusing with eyeballs, since I revolved a whole sphere, which I then intended to extrude around), but when the eyes show up, it's obvious that I extruded incorrectly. Any ideas on how I could make these work better? Here are my strategies thus far. Strategy 1: Draw the front profile of the cheekbones on one plane and then, on a parallel plane farther back, draw the back edge of the cheekbones, and do a taper.The issue with this: Solid Edge freaked out and decided that it wanted to be a jerk and stick some random curves in on just one side of the taper (the sketches were made using a mirror command; IE one side ought to be, quite literally, identical to the other). Strategy 2 (the one that worked for this): Draw a large, solid block behind the "mouth" grill piece, then make a plane by three points and shave off excess material until I have the cheekbones.The issue with this: While it works, it's tedious as hell, and though you can't see it in the picture that I posted, the mask looks odd as hell behind the "point" of the mouth grill. It should just come to a pyramidal point, but it doesn't; rather, there are about three little troughs where the point ought to be, the result of having to be careful when protruding and extruding, and doing this partially freehand, because I can't always snap to features when my plane is angled. I can use strategy 2 to make new cheekbones that work, but I wanted to see if anyone else had some expertise to offer before I did anything. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 I personally would do by polygon modeling, starting from a small plane at the cheekbone and extruding its sides to in the end cover a whole side of the face. But I'm not a connaisseur of SolidEdge so I can't really tell how intuitive that technique would be. In any case that is a very good start. Have you got good reference pictures? http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Not pictures, per se. I have a small Vader head out of a Happy Meal from back when Revenge of the Sith came out, and I've been going off of that; I don't have any dimensions, so I'm winging everything. I fixed up my cheekbones to where I like them, and now I'm wrestling with the eyes. Those little bits that go over the eyes are curved six ways to Sunday, and I can't get that curve to work. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Try just making the ouline and leaving an empty hole for the moment. You can add the eye covers later by using an edited mesh or plane. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I think my program is a bit too different from yours for me to do that. We never went over anything involving an edited mesh, though we do have planes that you can place wherever, though I'm not sure how that would help you so much. I need to do some revolutions for the eyes, and I finally got them working alright. I've got the nose bridged, and now I just need to get a bit more curvature to those eyeballs and I'm golden. Pretty sure I can manage the curvature part; then my mask portion should be almost home free. The helmet will be my next big task to tackle. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I don't think the helmet sould be that hard. Just think of it as a cone with a half-sphere on top. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I tried that and... well, the "half-sphere" bit just doesn't look right to me. I'm thinking it's actually a small segment of a larger circle revolved. IE, rather than a half sphere, it's something like 45% of a circle revolved around a point in the center of the head. I've tried a fair number of revolutions, and I'm okay with the one that I've got now, though I'm not thrilled with it. Hopefully the "back" portion of the helmet will be easier, though. I'll get to that once I finish this ****ing DE/read my Physics III textbook until I understand what the hell my prof was talking about regarding optics today. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 20, 2009 Share Posted October 20, 2009 D-d-d-double post! Anyway, I have another update (yeah, I know, I'm going back to my old spamming ways) and now my Vader head is actually looking decent, so I figured I'd do a brag post. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a169/DarthTofu/VaderMK3.jpg Things left to do:1) must give Vader something to fill that space between mask and helmet. That may or may not be a pain.2) Work a bit more on the eyes. Right now the "lids" are too straight; they need some curvature. I think I know how to do that, but we'll see if Solid Edge wants to cooperate.3) Put "eyelids" on the helmet. Going to be a pain.4) Work on the bottom, so that everything tapers down to a neck. I need to get a common ground down there, then just do a tapered protrusion. Shouldn't be too hard.5) Little detail; I have to make those little swept cylinder deals on the sides of Vader's mouth. That ought to be a five minute deal. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 20, 2009 Share Posted October 20, 2009 Looking pretty good for the moment. I would recommend you try and reduce the amount of different pieces. Though I must say I don't fully understand the modelling method of your program. Could you enlighten me? http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 20, 2009 Share Posted October 20, 2009 Solid Edge is based primarily around straight lines. In the "sketch" feature, you can draw out whatever you'd like to extrude, and then you can jump out of that, and turn your 2D sketch into a 3D feature, with twoof the faces of that extrusion being the original sketch. For example, to make a 4x4x4 block, you would first sketch a 4x4 square in the sketch feature using straight lines, then extrude it to an extent of 4 units. Say you wanted to cut a circle out of that. Using the "cutout" tool, you can sketch a circle on one of the faces of the new solid, then carve out to whatever extent you want. Making something that tapers or curves is a bit more difficult. There are tools for these sorts of things, but they get touchy when you work on something as complex as the mask, and sporadically claim that the face has zero thickness, or something like that. For what it's worth, the whole thing isn't just in a bunch of pieces; it's actually (going to be) one piece when I'm done. Like I already said, I still need to do some extruding to make the complete face. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 20, 2009 Share Posted October 20, 2009 I see. Its basically like Google SketchUp. I could understand that it would be very good for plans and technical drawings but much less adapted for the more "freestyle" creations. Good luck man! You need to give 3ds max a try one of these days. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 Update time- http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a169/DarthTofu/VaderIV.jpg Eh? Eh? It's coming together. All that I have left are the "eyebrow" features. That doesn't seem like it'll be fun, because I have no clue how I'm going to do them, beyond revolutions. They're freaking curved in every direction... that's going to suck, and then the worst part is that I have to do it twice! Also- apparently someone else has undertaken the same project as me. Unbeknown to me, the kid sitting next to me on one side in class is constructing the Millennium Falcon, while the kid on my other side is making a large winged skull. I'm amused that both are vaguely related to mine, unintentionally. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitth_raw_nuruodo Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 Not bad, Tofu. As much as this continues to kill me to say so, not bad. Chaos, Panic, Disorder, Destruction.....My work here is done. Grand AKmiralCommander-in-Chief of BEAK Forces(CINCBEAK) BEAK Imperium"To BEAK is Divine!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 Ditto.Very good gob Tofu. I'm impatient to see the final version. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 24, 2009 Share Posted October 24, 2009 As an I. Unfortunately artistic brain-block, an innability to figure out how the hell to get this thing into the "rendering" area of Solid Edge, and some differential equations/introduction to east asian history/physics III homework assignments/tests/concepts are all collaborating to keep me from working on it. 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 25, 2009 Share Posted October 25, 2009 Don't worry Tofu. Frustration is the normal partner of the 3d artist. Just keep on trying and you'll figure it all out http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTofu Posted October 28, 2009 Share Posted October 28, 2009 Sadly, my dark lord of the Sith just wasn't going to take well to his "eyebrows." Try though I might, they never looked right, and I abandoned the idea. I tried to render the helmet shiny-like, and that didn't work either. The project is due today (Wednesday), so I'm just going with what I have as of 2 AM (thank God I don't have to wake up early tomorrow). Anyway, here's the final image that I'm submitting: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a169/DarthTofu/VaderMkV.jpg Should this one be selected, it will be rapid-prototyped, which is a fancy way of saying that it will be made into a small, plastic model in real life based on my data from my construction. Wish me luck. Also- what ever happened with Krytos's Lurt? 12/14/07Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la Not gone, merely marching far away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad78 Posted October 28, 2009 Share Posted October 28, 2009 Still a very nice try T. Good job. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Palpycard.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/Mad78/Spamkinguserbarcopy.jpgCLICK HERE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!Click here is you like Trance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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