Work Center

[Sacman]

Haven't posted a new project in a long time. This is what I am currently working on. It is a scale layout of one of the workcenters where I work. I made some significant layout changes in this area about 4 months ago and I wanted to be able to demonstrate the differences. Taking pictures was not doing the trick. This is the new layout. All of the components are the same for the old layout it was just different.

 

A couple of notes:

 

Nothing is bevelled. I do not intend to get much closer than what is shown in this shot so I didn't want to waste the time modelling and subsequently rendering bevelled parts. As a result, all of the various components are extremely primitive. Some of the edges are lost due to the lack of bevels but there is so much going on in the frame that the eye is constantly drawn to other things and this loss of edges will go unnoticed by the majority of peeps that may see it.

 

My lighting sucks. I have not put in a skylight because I want relatively quick renders for testing. This results in some crazy shadows all over the place. I am going to rely heavily on Will to get me through the lighting. He just doesn't know it yet.

 

This is incomplete. There are quite a few more details to add but I wanted to put this up at least. It is about a weeks worth of work at several hours a day. Keepeing everything to scale has been the challenge cause I find myself having to make sketches and measuring everything 2 or 3 times before it all comes together.

 

When I am done with all of the components, I am going to render them all out in ISO and drop them in Multimedia Fusion to see if I can come up with an interactive program. This is going to require people which I have never attempted to model before. Man am I lucky I live so close to Will Sutton. You should all be super jealous.

 

Comments?

 

Wade

[pdaley]

If this project is meant just to be like a 3D Visio kind of thing, I wouldn't worry too much about the detail (beveling). If you are trying for full-on architectural visualization, then the detail would be required at least for the pieces that will end up closest to the camera.

 

Don't worry about the lighting yet. It will bog you down as you try to finish the modeling and texturing. Once you're down with that, mimic the positions of the real lights in the room, then add bounce lights and light lists to light up the undersides and nooks and crannies of your objects. Turn up the rays cast on the key lights on the final render to at least 16 and you'll be happy (not with the render time, but with how it looks)

 

For the people, explore the models on the CD. They are there for you to use. It would be a lot easier for you to stitch up a dress and put it on Lambrina than it will be for you to model a woman and her clothes from scratch. You can credit Den Beauvis for the origination of the model if you want to, but it's ok for you to change her to suit your needs. Just save a separate copy of her, give her a dress and then assign cps to it. Easier said than done, BUT still faster than going by scratch.

 

Good work so far. Building up a library of models is part of working faster as you gain experience. I would also drag these things into the library pallete for easy access in the future.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

I would agree with Paul on this. Keep your lighting super simple and concentrate on getting the details first and work on the lighting last.

 

Also, touching up (pardon the pun) Lambina and changing her clothing is WAY easier than trying to model a female from scratch. You could even use some of the other more simple female models if you are just wanting representation of a person.

 

Last questions, just curious, what kind of work is done in this area? (If you can tell us.) It looks like some kind of assemly/packaging line or shipping staging area and is your goal to demonstrate the differences for work efficiency?

 

Keep us posted.

[Sacman]

It is a packaging area. The Brown tables in the foreground hold sheets of foam which have been slit from a block of foam. The slitting process currently is not shown. I will be modelling that area as well. The sheets are then pressed individually on the die press (the machine with the yellow guards).

 

The gray stacks on the ball transfer tables and the first table represent pressed material. Packers at each of the six packing stations remove the foam from the sheets for inspection and subsequent packing. It is an extremely labor intensive operation.

 

The 'before' operation was layed out in a pattern that made this labor intensive job even more complicated. This layout has improved the process flow considerably and allowed me to increase the throughput from approx. 850 parts per man-hour to over 1000 PPMH and allowed me to reduce my workforce by 4 operators.

 

There is another change that I have been pushing for the last several years which involves the purchase of another type of press that will allow me to reduce my workforce from 17 employees to 4 employees. I hope to be able to use this as a way to demonstrate both the increase in process flow from then to now as well as show the possibilities in the future.

 

 

I have also attached a new render with more equipment added as well as some corrected spacing along the right wall.

 

 

 

Wade