dbritton

I can't define any hard and fast rules there. Sometimes I draw the same model three times until I get a handle on how to make it happen. Based on measurements, yes, I often type in X, Y, and Z values. I also measure angles on actual parts, then rotate, or rotate/shear splines. To keep calculations easier, I sometimes shift or rotate the whole model around a particular point I'm working on so that part of the model is at the origin on one or more of the axes. I often draw parts of a single model as several separate models, then join them, adding detail or redrawing as I learn more about how their splines are meeting. Eyeballing for some parts of models is sometimes sufficient, with tweaking based on measurements. For bevels, I use the pythagorean theorem to calculate height and width (based on a measurement of the "hypotenuse"), and do a lot of scaling after calculating percentages. I also tweak a lot of bias handles. Thank goodness for Emilio Le Roux's SetBias plugin and for Yves Poissant's tutorial on beveling (although I find that the magnitude values in Yves' tutorial for beveling a cube don't work for me any more. The values were great in earlier versions of Animation:Master, but I think they stopped working around v9 or v10. For example, I use a magnitude of 355 for a 4 cp circle. I have a whole spreadsheet full of bias handle values for different numbers of lathe cross sections. No, I didn't calculate them--I don't know how. I experimented with tweaking bias handles on peaked cps using as patterns smooth cps. I didn't see a clear pattern emerge that would have allowed me to calculate these values. The wizards at Hash could probably say something about that however.)

No, I didn't use, or have access to any CAD drawings and I didn't convert any models from other formats. I built all of the models from scratch. I measure actual parts with dial calipers, rulers, and study small details with a magnifying glass. I also do a lot of web research for getting dimensions, such as thread info for nuts and bolts. Sometimes I draw a 2D orthogonal line drawing in Illustrator to help me figure out angles, shapes, and the way things fit together. I also take a lot of photographs for rotoscopes--I try to get them as orthogonal as possible. In the end I let the actual dimensions of the measured part have the final say, especially if things are not quite matching up to the rotoscopes. On the disc rotor, I used a boolean "bite mark" to make the cut out, and toon lines gave me the outline of the disc. I have been working on a tutorial for building nuts and bolts. I've got a pretty good method down for building threads with the duplicator wizard.

Thank you Martin. Yes, please show them.

Hi, I've added a few of my latest mechanical drawings at David R. Britton Jr.'s Stills Gallery. Dave

Yes, I used booleans to cut the smallest holes in the brake rotors, for the spoke holes, for the cutaway on the rotor in the dual disc picture, and for the screw driver slots on the springer rocker studs.

At the top of my "Stills" page are dual and single disc wide springer axle kits I drew. David R. Britton Jr.'s Stills Gallery I have included links to wireframes also. Dave Britton Jr.

Here are the direct links to wire frames. I used some booleans, but most detail is modeled. Wireframe 1 Wireframe 2 With regard to the poster for my short--the project is suspended indefinitely. Real life got a little too serious in the last year and I don't know if I'll be able to return to the short. Sincerely, Dave Britton Jr.

David R. Britton Jr.'s Stills Gallery At the top of my "Stills" page are dual and single disc wide springer axle kits I drew. I have included links to wireframes also. Dave Britton Jr.

As usual, great stuff John.

Re: my earlier post concerning Beta 3's inability to render my first two attempts to use hair with Marcel's tree plugin: I wanted let everyone know that v11 Beta 4 renders those projects just fine. Dave

Here's one more. No hair this time. After the branches were generated with Marcel's plugin, I deleted the original leaf geometry and added a bunch of deformed spheres, à la Rodger Reynolds. Then I applied a material to those spheres. The material has some fractal sum and cell turb nodes. A while back Reynolds made some really nice looking leaves with the Enhance:AM materials, if I remember correctly.

Here's my second attempt at a tree with Marcel's great new plugin. I had to use render lock mode to render though. v11 Beta 3 "goes away" when I try to do a final render. That also happened with my first tree attempt. There, however, I couldn't even get a render with render lock.