itsjustme

Porcelain is helpful in mechanical modeling for smoothing three and five point patches (it also does a great job on cleaning up corners). It's no substitute for a good spline layout, but it will help get rid of some concave areas created from non four-pointers and some overall smoothing...it's slight, but noticeable. When I apply Porcelain, I don't adjust the "Normal weight"...I haven't come across splineage that would require anything more than a slight tweak from the material. Yessir, Porcelain works in v15. I don't use Porcelain on organic models, although I know some people do. It would be an extremely rare case for me to use it on anything organic...maybe on a set of horns or teeth, but not on any fleshy parts. The biggest difference in the way I model mechanical objects as opposed to organic objects is that I peak almost everything when mechanical modeling (tweaking the bias' like crazy) and I don't touch the bias' except in very rare cases on organic objects. I also bevel everything I can think of on mechanical objects...it makes a big difference. Here's a quick model with two rectangular objects, one is beveled and one is not. Even in a quick render, the difference is very noticeable. If you apply Porcelain to the beveled object, you'll see a very slight improvement on some of the edges. I actually used a resized version of this beveled example for the doors and lids on the dumpster. Hope that helps, Matt. beveling_example.zip

Looks great so far, Steve!

Looks great, Mark! One helluva street too!

For a lathing tutorial, the tutorial for making an eye in my signature will show you how to do that and a few other things. Hope that helps.

For what I think you're trying to get, I think you should lathe the bud. Have you gone through the tutorials I suggested? They would probably help you.

For displaying the X and Y axis lines...you may have your color scheme hiding them. To change that, open "Tools/Customize/Appearance". Or, are you talking about the rulers? For the rulers, you can go to "Tools/Options/Modeling" and check the "Display rulers" box. As for the doughnut shape you're getting...an image might help explain. --------------------- EDIT --------------------- I forgot to mention, in "Tools/Options/Modeling" also check the "Display grid" box.

I'm not sure what you're asking...could you describe an example? Also, have you gone through those tutorials yet? Your question might be answered in one of them.

Sorry about that, I thought I had put it into the folder that I zipped up...should be there now. Thanks for the heads-up, Mark!

Here is a garbage dumpster. No textures are applied, the lids and doors are rigged. This model uses the Porcelain material. If you don't have it, there is a ZIP of it in the first post of this thread. dumpster_08_03_2010.zip

The base of the petals is going to have to be done differently since they are the ends of splines. You have to make a spline with five control points then connect the middle three to the base of the petal and delete the two extra control points. I didn't, but you can. Go through the tutorials that I suggested, they should answer a lot of questions.

Great start, Matt!

I connected the splines...which makes patches. You'll probably want to go through the tutorials here, here, here, here, here and here. Hope that helps.

The flower petals were only splines instead of valid patches...here's an updated Project. Hope that helps. Project2_revised.prj

Great work, as usual, Mark! Very impressive stuff.

Looks great, Stian!

Coming back with the smurf... Can you indicate me a nice tutorial explaining "fan" bones, "cogs" and so on? thank you Remy The COGS tutorial should be here...I can't get the page to load at the moment. I'm not sure if that tutorial is still available for sale or not though. Barry Zundel has some tutorials that you might find helpful...here. Matthew Krick has some tutorials here. Here is a quick explanation of fan bones. Holmes made two rigging tutorials recently...they are here and here. Hope that helps, Remy.

Great job, Josh!

I agree, great set, Mark!

Doing a little thinking, I might move the generator further from the main building and put the dumpster between them. It would open it up a little. I'll do some messing with it.

Here are a couple of updated renders. The additions are the electrical conduits, boxes and such on the generator building. In the closer image, you can see several of the padlocks that I posted in the Free Models thread (I'll add more models to that thread as I go along). The door may move a little more to the right when I put the chain-link fence in, it will be easier to tell when I get to that point. If you're keeping score, I'm at 60,046 patches. Still quite a bit to add.

Here is a rigged padlock. Again, you will have to texture this other than a few bump and diffuse maps that are already applied. This model uses the Porcelain material. If you don't have it, there is a ZIP of it in the first post of this thread. padlock_07_23_2010.zip

I think you're making things too complicated for this exercise, Gene. Follow Robert's advice: Start simple, then work your way up to the complex stuff.

Looks great so far, Mark!

Looks like it took a lot of work, Stian! Great job.

Great job, Holmes! I'm not sure if you mentioned to rig the left arm, but that is pretty obvious. Nice starter rig!