In this unit, our class is practicing to produce 3D models and our model is to make a windup key.
For the software I used to create the Windup Key were: - Photoshop
- Autodesk Maya
Windup Key Part 1 - The Reference
I grabbed an image from the internet of a Windup Key and then implemented the image into Photoshop. From there I cropped the image to an appropriate size where the image is entirely visible, in my case the dimensions were too small therefore, I had to scale the windup key image to where the entire key has been exposed.
I added the rules to measure and maintain the accuracy of the key. If the measures weren't correct or reasonably accurate I had to rotate and/or move the image.
Afterward, I used the magic wand tool to select and deselect certain pixels.
I did play around with this key.
Having dealt with the PSD file on photoshop I saved it twice although I saved it as two different file types.
- psd.
- TIFF
After the file saves were done I went into Maya and from there I did "Project Window" in order to set up the file directory. I saved my file as "Wind Up Key."
Then I implemented the TIFF version for the Wind Up Key into Maya. I had to drag it into my 'sourceimage' folder and opened the image plane from 'view > image plane > import image' Then selected the TIFF file and it was implemented. Keep in mind that was a reference and it was to organize the structure and accuracy for the wind-up key. I also toggled the wind-up key into "top -y" aka the top-down view as most individuals like to call it.
Now to prevent the reference from being accidentally moved about, scaled, or rotated around. On the bottom right of the Maya UI, there are 4 blue icon tools, on the furthest right I used that tool to create a new layer, gave it a name, changed the 'display type' to 'reference', and also the reference would go untouched. Meaning you can't do any actions to the layers that have the 'reference' display type.
To maintain accuracy and get a rough idea on how big or small the sizes of the circle should be, I went back into 'top -y' view and used a camera tool known as the 'pencil grease tool'. The pencil grease tool gives you a rough idea to measure the shapes you create around the reference to the image plane.
Windup Key Part 2 - Modelling the bow.
Afterward, I got the pipe shapes for each ring although I used only one pipe for one end, and later on, I would plan on duplicating that pipe to the other hole for the wind-up key.
Having created the pipe, I made multiple transformations of the pipe to meet its appropriate size. The thickness, radius, and height were changed to the size for one side of the wind-up keyhole.
Now, this is where things got messy for me then this became a challenge (which I personally gave up on) and would take a few steps back for this wind-up key.
Having added a sphere, I placed the sphere, then rotated the shape and tried experimenting in the subdivision axis (which unfortunately do not have the screenshots to evidence this). What I had tried to do was I wanted to meet the same subdivisions for the sphere and pipe and try to either bridge both of the two shapes together (either edges or faces).
That being said, I had tried to do it with this key however had a failure in doing so, that means I decided to go back to the square and use the same image of reference of the windup key from what I watched from the tutorial videos and repeated the process all the way through up until now.
Having got up to the bridge part of the wind-up key, I deleted all the surfaces for each side and hole of the wind-up key apart from one side. I expanded the radius and thickness to the ideal size for each hole and circle around the area for the key itself. With the edges exposing each other for the pipes, I bridge about 3 edge pieces of the pipes to bridge one another. Then I would delete the one side of the middle hole and then extrude the edges from there I dragged the edges and vertices all the way down to the bow part where it meets the 'stem' area of the windup key.
Afterward, I was supposed to mirror one side of the bow key. Though in my case, I was having trouble so I was finding an alternative way to mirror the one side of the bow itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mizf13m-4b0&t=222s This video I watched to help me sort out my issue. I was attempting at doing a duplicate special and followed through the video all the way to 3:42. Having said this I will explain how I went about it. I scaled the vertices in a straight line. I wasn't able to snap the vertex to the line as the grid surface was out of line but that wasn't really an issue for me. Right after I did 'edit > duplicate special'. Once I did that I merged the vertices together right into the center where it needed to be.
Once the 'mirroring' was done I did extrude by increasing the height of for the bow. In the 'front -z' view - the bow wasn't touching the surface of the grid so I had to snap it down. There were times where I changed the view from 'smooth' to 'rough'.
Pressing the '3' key gives you a smooth model.
Pressing the '1' key goes back to giving you a rough model.
Windup Key Part 3 - Modelling the stem
Once I finished up upon modeling the bow the next step is to model the stem. For this, I had to create another pipe for the wind-up key. I increased the radius, thickness, and height for the stem in order to meet the size for the reference. I had done this by paying attention to detail for the reference though it doesn't need to be exactly the same but having a reference helps whenever you model an object and to strengthen the object itself.
Once that was done I needed to sort out the middle of the stem where it has a slope (don't know the exact name of it) Where the metal bit is up and down for both ends. In 'top -Y' view, I created two edge loops and then placed one more edge loop in the middle. In my case, I added the two edge loops on both ends but for the middle edge loop, I had to manually place in between and get it exactly in the middle. Now the reason I had to do it manually was that every time I exited out of 'edge loop' mode, the two ends would disappear and the middle remained visible. Though when I was in 'edge loop' mode it the 2 edges were still there. My alternative way of dealing with this was I did the 'trial and error' method where I observed to see exactly where the middle edge loop sat and then manually creating an edge loop I placed it exactly in the right spot. That was until I managed to get it right.
Having placed the edge loops I would head back into 'perspective' camera mode and clear out the blackface to get it into grey I scaled the edges together and merged them. The reason I did this is that if your faces are in grey, you can texture the, add materials whereas the 'black' face you can't really do any of that. Afterward, I beveled the two ends of the edge loops where they sat on top of the slope thingy. I changed the segment and fraction values to smooth out the edges for the slope.
After smoothing the edges of the slope, the next thing to do was to model the interior (aka the insides) of the stem. From the back of the stem, I deleted the faces from the outside area where it connected the edges from the interior and exterior. I couldn't comprehend what was going as to why I couldn't use the 'fill hole' command at first due to the fact that I saw the edges from the exterior of the back stem weren't filling the hole, therefore, I deleted the faces. Got the interior of the edges and did 'mesh > fill hole'. Afterward, I beveled the edges inside
These images show progress on how I was trying to solve the problem and what alternative methods I had tried to finish.
After filling the hole in the interior part of the stem, I created a sphere shape and matched the size of the stem itself. I needed a sphere because on the reference it showed that there is a semi-circle shape attached to the stem and bow. Where it connects both ends. I turned on the x-ray view to see exactly where both the stem and sphere edges would meet and I scaled the sphere itself. I needed one half of the sphere's edge to replicate the reference. I isolated my sphere so I could delete one half of the sphere so I wouldn't confuse myself with any of the edges and vertices interrupting one another when I'm on wireframe mode. I merged both the stem and sphere vertices together to combine into one.
The next part of the stem I needed to do was to add more detail to the stem's interior. For this, I added a pipe and a cube. Starting off with the pipe, I scaled the pipe then pressed 't', decreased the radius, and expanded the height all the way up until it met the sloping end. Though I had to decrease the heigh down a bit as well.
Once the pipes height size was appropriate, the next and last thing that needed to be done was to add a cube. The cube needed to be inside the stem itself.
Where I placed the cube was on the front interior of the stem then the next thing I had to do was extrude and scale the pipes faces on all 4 sides to meet the cube. I had an issue with the top faces for the edges as the edges themselves were interrupted though I managed to fix by doing 'target weld' to connect the outside with the inside edges. The inside edge was facing outwards and from what I saw, the face was black and I needed the face to be gray. I turned on 'wireframe'/'x-ray' mode
After extruding and scaling all sides of the faces to shape like a cube. I deleted the cube then went into a 'smooth' view to see what the stem part of the wind-up key looked like. Because the smoothed version of the stem looked weird I needed to bevel the edges of the interior stem.
Once the stem part was done, I made the bow layer visible again to see what the wind up key model in its complete form it looks perfect and the only thing I had to next was to combine all the pieces and it was all done.
Overall thoughts:
Coming back from 6 months of no college (with the exception of working on the rest of the last academic year of college work at home), it was very refreshing and fun to work on a 3D model asset. Having said this it was really just an exercise to get us going. On one of the other units for HND, we still have yet to create a few more 3D assets for the project: "The Tower That Never Was." work. I feel that coming back from Nescot and working on Maya. I still have my skills but have learned: - New techniques on modeling - Problem solving and using 'trial and error' methods to find alternative ways of creating a model start to finish.
And that concludes for this blog!