Cello

[iGeek]

I have taken it upon myself, after about a year of learning this program and seeing it through the OS X Beta program, to model a cello. After one unsuccessful try I modeled the body, and I'm almost done with the bridge. That's where the problem is. I'm having some issues with the bridge. There are four five point patches that refuse to be recognized. I select the five points, but the five-point-patch button is grayed out. Their equivalent regions on the flip side are behaving fine. I've gone over the entire model and flipped all the normals facing out. Is this the right thing to do? You can download the entire project from my iDisk and try it yourself: http://homepage.mac.com/igeek1/FileSharing11.html. It's cello.zip. Feel free to check out the other stuff there. Please advise. I'm still a relative newbie, I may have missed something obvious. Thanks in advance.

 

-Zev

[mootsger]

I sometimes have problems like that when two 5'ers share the same edges. Try ading one patch in between them and/or above them.

[mtpeak2]

Select the five points like you have been doing, then hide. Drag a box around the five points and see if the five point patch button highights. It usually works for me, but i'm on pc. It's worth a try.

[mtpeak2]

People say you need to do it in a specific order, clockwise or counter clockwise. Regrouping after hiding the rest of the model usually works.

[Nycer]

I downloaded your model and after several attempts, I did manage to have all four 5-pt patches work. I have found (and this is not very scientific) that if I have several 5-pt patches that need to be "patched," and one patch is not working, switch to a different patch. In other words, if you have 4 five-pt open patches, labeled A, B, C, D and you are unable to patch "A," then move on to "B", etc. until you have success. Then with the remaining ones, keep switching off until you get another one to patch correctly. It has worked for me. You still may have to try several times, but did get all the patches to work. If you want, I can send you the bridge2 model that eventually patched.

 

I was glad to be able to test my theory on someone else's model. As I said, it's not very scientific, but it seems to work for me. Good luck with your cello -- I used to play in a cello in high school, so I'm looking forward to seeing your completed work.

[iGeek]

Hiding didn't work, but thanks anyway. Could someone download it and give it a try? Otherwise i'll add another spline. I just like to have a clean mesh. I figured out a workaround for one side.

 

Edit- nycer, your post wasn't up when I wrote mine. Thanks, but I've already made some more changes, tapering the bridge, etc.

[Iham Wrong]

Where's the updates? How are you progressing or have you moved on to something else?

[iGeek]

I've had a lot going on. I'm still working on it. I'll post updates when I so some more. Don't bother to check here every day. Just subscribe to this topic. It'll email you when I update it. Sorry to keep you all waiting. Note to Randy: YOU GOTTA INCORPORATE COREIMAGE! It sounds like an amazing technology. It would be so amazing if it worked with 3D. does it? Core level access to image everything. MMMM......

[iGeek]

Finally, an update. I've made some more progress. I finished the bridge (darn 5-pointers!) and have begun work on the neck and scroll. The scroll is easily the hardest part. I also completed the tailpiece, the part to which the bottoms of the strings attach. Here's an image of what I've done so far. You can also go to http://homepage.mac.com/igeek1/FileSharing11.html and download cello.zip, which is the complete project, if you want to see it in more detail. My method for starting the scroll is pretty crude. I may start over. I leave for camp for a week on the 11th, and I may or may not be able to see the forum until I get back. 2 days later I'm going to music camp, where I'll get to spend more time with the real thing. Thank you all for your comments and quick responses. Boy, this is fun!

 

-Zev

[Iham Wrong]

I had trouble making the f-hole on my first violin a few years back. I might do the geometry differently now and use a boolean cutter instead. Using them may have made your bridge construction a bit less tedious.

 

Note: The thing to remember with booleans is that the cutter geometry's has to be capped off and assigned to a bone.

 

If you would like to take a look at it there is a QT movie (Sorenson3) of the thing. Sorry if the gamma seems a bit bright, but some folks have dim monitors.

 

http://home.comcast.net/~frank_h/old-violin.mov

[iGeek]

Wow, amazing violin! It really looks real. How'd you do the scroll and f-holes? If you download my project you'll see that it's slightly awkward, the way I'm going about it. Also you'll see that I have about 8 rotoscopes for various views, but I also have my own cello as a reference. that's what I'm kind of modeling after. That's why this one is slightly wider than some of the 'scopes- my real cello is.

 

-Zev

[Iham Wrong]

The pinbox and scroll were terribly difficult, the biggest problem was working the cavity in. Basically I started by laying out the scroll using a single spline. This forced me to place cp's in a rather tight configuration to get the curvature about right, then nudging the cp's until it represented the general shape. Then followed up by a series of Extruded - freeze - nudges - tweeks. Lot's of tweeks! Get half the shape and copy/flip/attach.

[iGeek]

Wow, that looks hard! I guess I didn't know what I was getting into. Oh well, it's a good exercise.

 

-Zev

[Iham Wrong]

Here's the F-hole.