Hey Adam,
A few of us on the Luxology site are creating models of our favorite childhood toys, just for a bit of fun. I thought it would be fairly quick, so I did this one from memory:
There are still a couple of missing parts, but I’m having problems getting the graphics to render properly. The white stripes on the hood were done by offsetting the surface of the hood and then cutting out the shapes I needed and thickening them. Trouble is, the blue underneath keeps showing through in places. Thickening the stripes even further solves that problem, but at the cost of creating a very noticeable edge which looks unnatural. I suppose I could just cut out the material underneath the white areas, but I’d rather avoid that if there’s a better way. In case you’re wondering, I did set the resolution to its highest settings before I opened the model in Modo. Any ideas?
Great work, Andrew! Thanks for sharing the love :)
You’re almost certainly running into mesh tolerance issues, where the little triangles on one surface are interfering with the polys on the other. A few options:
(1) try using Split to cut the part into multiple bodies, rather than offsetting and trimming. That way your surfaces will be line-to-line, and much less likely to interfere with one another.
(2) Forget the SW geometry, and just project the graphics in modo! The graphics I see here could simply be projected from the top down, with no mapping whatsoever. The stripes would appear on the bottom of the car as well as the top, but who really cares? We can’t see the bottom anyway :)
(3) Intern-Simon reminded me that pinstripes are never perfectly flat anyway, so it’s actually quite alright if the stripes are raised slightly. Just increase the offset value a bit in SolidWorks and you’re golden :)
Good luck!
Adam
Split line! Of course. I’ve used that feature so often, but it never occurred to me to use it as a way to apply graphics. Oh well, I’ll remember next time. :)
I was determined to finish the model last night, so I fixed things by using the boolean subtract function to delete all the blue plastic underneath the white areas. Your suggestion of projecting the graphics onto the model in Modo is a good one, but I don’t have any software with which to draw the graphics. I’ll have to look into buying Adoby Illustrator, or whatever you guys are using.
Anyway, here’s what the model looks like now:
[img]http://aurelius.smugmug.com/Art/Renderings/i-wzSnb8s/0/L/1d-L.jpg[/img]
[img]http://aurelius.smugmug.com/Art/Renderings/i-T6sBSSd/0/L/1e-L.jpg[/img]
It’s supposed to be a depiction of a child’s toy, so there are certain elements that I deliberately made toy-like, such as the highly abbreviated driver shown as just a head and shoulders, and the cheesy fake spoke wheels. I might even add a horizontal seam for the upper and lower halves of the car body. :)
Beautiful work, as always! I love the hubs, they take me back to my matchbox car racing days :)
This car was part of a set that came with sections of track that you could put together in various configurations. The older brother of a schoolmate had the whole setup in his parent’s basement. I recall the three of us playing with these cars while we were waiting for the live televised Apollo 11 moon landing! :-)