project 2 - part 3

February 26, 2024

project 2 - part 3

Planning ---

I decided to go with a hand pie sealer as my model, due to it being the only mechanical item in my house that was able to be entirely taken apart and then put back together again. I thought that the item would be simple enough to finish within the time frame, but complex enough in its many curves to be a challenge.

After taking my measurements I found that the funky-shmusher was flat for a section on each of its fingers with a slight bend where they met in the middle. I also found that the bell, though it looked entirely cylindrical also had a flat spot in its center and was mostly just comprised of rounded corners. I should also note that the bell pillar was not able to be removed and is a fused part of its body

Making of ---

I started out by placing cylinders that would be used as boundary boxes for the bell and shmusher, at least until I could lay out their key shapes. After that, it was mostly following my measurements.

The Bell -

I had started out on the bell using the cylinder function to build the lip and rounded top. I knew that in the bell all of its corners were very fluid so I started with the big one to make sure that its curb started where it met the lip.

After filleting, I found that for the shell to generate the divot in the bell, as well as start to halo in the right place I would need to have another small intrusion to make. Using cylinder and Boolean difference functions, I generated the divot that provided the appropriate face to shell to my liking.

then it applied more cylinders to generate the pillar leaving enough space for the spiral section. For the screw, I first used the spiral function to generate the screw's 5 spins and followed it up with the pipe function using a ruff estimate of a 1mm diameter. However, after subtracting the pipe out of the pillar I found that the screw I made ended abruptly instead of weaning in and off like the items screw. I thought that in taking the pipe that we have, replicating it on the ends of the following pipe to elongate it, and cutting a section separate to the smooth part of the pillar, would create the weaning it was missing.

After fixing the screw and smooth pillars into one happy pillar marriage, with a Boolean union. I then finished the bell off with its nub, using the ellipsoid tool.

Barrel -

The making of the barrel was relatively easy and uneventful, aside from two surprises. My initial plan was to once placing the ellipsoid to the base cylinder I would need to fillet the edge, but that wasn't the case. The ellipsoid managed to create its own lip because of its lack of height.

The other surprise was more unfortunate in being unable to apply the text. I was able to generate the text, round it, and project it onto the barrel, but when it came to extruding the text it would never come out as a solid. I was informed though today that you could project a surface, so in my future tweaking I'll try and give that a shot, and see if it yields different results.

the circles were just the array along the curve and Boolean difference functions.

Shmusher -

I had to completely remake this part two times. My process with this one was a lot of trial and error. I started out by making the lip, then the nubs. the nubs are just rectangles, filleted to be round, and then scaled up words to their right height afterward, and arrayed 35 times. I then started making the fingers. I made a rectangle with a curved end to fit with the curve of the lip, arrayed it 3 times, trimmed the rectangles together, and then extruded it to the appropriate height.

I found out after making my first addition that the top of the smusher, was relatively flush with the inside of the bell, aside from the flatter sections of the shmushers three fingers. So I had to start over on making the flat sections first by placing the bell on top of the three legs and then making a square that would span the point where the fillet ends with the point where the bell would intersect with the end of the fingers, and then removing that space.

After that, it was just filleting and haloing the thing out. I had holoed it out by making a shape of the parts I wanted gone. With the help of guidelines to keep measurements intact, and then taking that shape and then using the revolve function to give the Boolean difference something to cut from.

To finish it off I needed to add the small fillet found on the end of the legs. my process for it was first making a skeleton, and then using the patch tool to create the surfaces that would make up the shape, of the said skeleton.

after that, it was as easy as mirroring and arraying to apply it to each finger. I did run into an issue though in trying to combine each custom fillet to the whole of the shmusher. while some of them would successfully combine, others wouldn't. the issue could be due to it possibly being off slightly in its application or an issue in successfully joining the surfaces of the custom fillet. whatever it is I don't know. I worked around it though by grouping the pieces into the whole, as this is strictly a digital build.

Rendering ---

I think with rending I still have a ways to go, as my attempts yielded next to no new results. I tried to make a dark room with a spotlight inside it, by inclosing the items in a haloed-out box. Just placing a box over the items for it to sit in would only lead to the removal of the box-applied material. even then, my renders created next to no shadow and with the dark background came out really boring and lacked the drama of shading.