There's a great series on YouTube called Learn Fusion 360 in 30 Days that covers everything in 10ish minute videos.
Still no updates from Shapeways but that's not really surprising - they're not exactly known for being fast. I've been researching painting techniques to try to up my game for when the Shapeways print gets here and I'm hopeful that I can do a much better paintjob. If I were smart, I would've taken pics of some of the DND minis I've painted to show why I'm so disappointed with how Charlene's face turned out. Anyway, here's a pic of my progress on Circuit Breaker. I didn't realize that displace doesn't create polygons so you end up with a really jaggy look. Upping the subdivision helps but it's still pretty jaggy.
Make sure to really clean your print. I use a degreasing dish soap. FUD prints will arrive with residue on them from printing.
Amazing how you managed to print such a small figure. Now I want to make some humans for my transformers too. (Will probably skip the articulation thou) This may be a bit too late but I would have used the knif tool (k) or join (j) to cut the faces into the right chape and then extrude them. I'm not sure how it would work for you as you seam to use very high face count and sculpting or is it just subdevided a lot? It might still work if you asign a different material to the faces that will be extruded so you only need to select them once. I use materials a lot for marking diferent things, especially things that are tedious to select as you can select all of the same material. I have used duplicate linked for a few years too without thinking about mentioning it so maybe I should write a tutorial or list various technics I use before you start another transformers project. I'll make a new tread next week when I get home. Final advise, you can link objects so the parts on the sprue updates as you build the figure. You can even change the mesh asosiated with an object so for exampel Charlen's head on the spru (asuming it's still a separet object) can be changed to Curcitbreakers head while keeping the old scale, location and orientation. (I can show pictures when I get to a computer tomorow) Good luck and hope the shapeways print comes out fine.
Yeah, I should knife the edges of her outfit. Even if I stuck with displacement, knifing them will give displacement better polys to work with. I actually work with a really low poly count and use the subdivide modifier. Makes it so much easier to edit and to select vertices. I don't normally subdivide so much but I needed to to give the displacement modifier smaller polygons to work with. I had no idea you could assign materials to parts of a mesh - thought it was one per mesh. That's pretty interesting. And I only recently learned that linking was a thing - it hadn't occurred to me to do that with the sprue tree. Wouldn't that slow things down though? It already chugs a bit, particularly when I edit her torso, due to the number of modifiers I use.
I have a powerful computer and use few modefyers so I wouldn't know but I assume that having the spru in a different layer (not visible) wouldn't effect performance. It's also posible to toggle off the visability of the modefyers while in edit mode which mean they wouldn't need to be calculated all the time. If that is posible that is. I don't really know what modefyers you use as we seam to have different workflows but booleans or the like shoulden't need to be active while modeling in edit mode.
You'd think but I've found that setting booleans to invisible doesn't speed things up. If I want to edit Charlene's eyelid for example, I either have to be very patient or I have to remove the boolean (I clear the eyelid from the head's boolean modifier) and then put it back. My PC is no slouch but I guess I'm just throwing a lot at it. It speeds things up quite a bit if I turn down subdivisions, though - I usually keep them at 3 or lower while working.
Yes subdevisions exponentially increase the vertex count. If I use it at all I use 1 level, sometimes 2 just to compare the result. For something this small I can't see how you would need 3 levels, does it even make a difference? I dont think my computer would work much better withe 3 levels AND booleans on top of it (I have to try it). I'm kind of alergic to boolians myself and use them very sparsely. When I use them I apply them imidiatly and clean up. Would it be possible to remove the boolean alltogether and work on individual objects and only add the boolian at the end when you want to merge objects? Again, I'm not familiar with your workflow so its hard to give advice (and I'm probably no better then you at this anyway) It would be interesting to see the figure without any subdevision just to see what you're acrually working with. It's just for my curiosity so if it's a hassle you dont need to bather. This is probably a bit of topic anyway and would better suit a Blender forum.
Well this is what she looks like without her subdivides so I imagine it probably makes a bit of a difference I actually work with them at a higher value and then turn them down when I go to finalize her. The higher value is so that she looks as perfect and ideal as possible so I can easily see that everthing is working as intended. Then I lower it since she's being printed at 34mm and, as you say, another level of subdivision wouldn't make much difference at that scale. Just got the notification that Charlene passed Shapeways inspection and they're going to print her! I was a little worried - they say you should use 2mm sprues and at least two attachment points per piece but my sprues are 1.5mm and they actually get a little narrower where they attach. I had to use small sprues because some of the parts aren't even 2mm thick
Thanks for showing. It really helps to understand your aproch to modeling. I tend to use more "base" geometry and less subdevisions. But I was making boxy robots while you where making G1 Arcee and humans. It's probably a good idea thou to apply 1 level subdevision on the arms before drawing/cuting the curcit "armor" so you have more geometry/faces to work with. I also realized the sholder and elbow joints are separet objects wich is smart (I wouldn't have thaught of that) but it creat problems for linking. You can't apply scale, rotation, location or (most?) modefyers to a mesh with multiple copies. Still, you only apply the modifyers in the very end without saving so it may not be a problem for you (you could just break the link or delete the other copies). I guess you just have to try and learn what works best for you. Hope they manage to print it for you. It will be interesting to see how it comes out.
Not really. It actually never crossed my mind until @betsuni mentioned it (I'd kinda forgotten the scooter was a thing). And she doesn't really scale with it. That scooter is tiny irl. To scale with Skids in alt mode and/or the scooter, she'd need to be at least twice as tall as she is.
Just arrived from Shapeways. 13 days from when I ordered her - not bad. Right off the bat, the elbows are a no go. I snapped two of them before I could get them even close to all the way in the socket. I figured that was pretty likely - we're talking a 1.5mm peg but only half of it actually connects to the rest of the elbow part - a connection that's 0.75mm thick. So I'll be reengineering her with straight elbows - no bicep swivel I'm afraid. I could put a cut in the middle of her bicep and put the swivel there, I suppose, but just wouldn't look good and it wouldn't be much stronger than the swivel in the elbow. Oh well. Everything else seems to work fine. I was able to assemble and install her torso, head, legs, and shoulders and they all move freely but just tight enough that she isn't going to be flopping around. Elbows aside, this is a successful experiment. I'll get some pics once I've got her primed (clear resin doesn't look like much of anything when you photograph it, at least it doesn't with my phone camera). And I'll print her some elbows from my printer - PLA is sturdier than resin. I won't be able to give anybody else a Charlene with bicep swivel but mine is going to have it, dammit. [Edit] Cleaned and primed with elbows from my printer installed. It's probably better to prime and paint with the arms and legs fully disassembled but it didn't seem to make much difference with the prototype and it's just easier this way.
That sucks to read that the elbows didn't work out for you. Especially since you were hopeful that it would work. Makes sense given the size and what you said, just sucks it didn't work out. Glad to hear that the rest worked out and love the photo of the rest of the pieces. I never thought that you had to put covers where the joints are. But it makes sense after I realized it. Can't wait to see your second prototype after you assemble what you have there. I now understand why the 3P company made a statue figure of Astoria after your adventures with making Charlene. So much easier. Hahahahaha. Edit: Forgot to add that she looks awesome!!!
Aaaaaaaaaand done! Old one on the right, new on the left. The most immediately visible differences I think are her hands - the fingers actually formed! Legs are cleaner and fit better - her knees are actually straight. There's some sprue marks I could've done a better job on and I was too scared to try to give her pupils. The reason I molded her eyes with pupils in 3d was I wanted a natural spot for the brush to catch and the paint to sink in but they were just too small - they didn't form even in Shapeways fud. They might work in fed but I'm not gonna pay for that nor redesign her to be compatible (probably need multiple smaller sprue trees). Check out those nostrils though. And you can see her earlobes now. Skin is a little darker - I'd never actually intended for the prototype's skin to be so pale but I didn't realize just how potent the lighter color I was using over her darker skin tones would be and I didn't want to add too many layers of paint trying to correct it. As for differences not apparent in the photos, her hip joints actually fit now and the ball joints are spheres so her legs don't just fall off if I put them at the wrong angle. All the joints have just about the perfect stiffness - they hold poses but aren't so hard to move that I worry about them breaking. Well, except the elbows but that's due to having to print them in my printer (stronger, less brittle material) and having to shave down the supports by hand, making it them not exact. There is unfortunately paint rubbing issues and it's worse than it was on the prototype. Fud doesn't seem to grip the paint as well, even with primer, and the smoother surface means it's easier to rub off. The main problem areas are the insides of her knees (the part exposed when she bends her knees), her elbows, and her shoulders. Rubbed off paint showing on the underside of her shoulder there. I should probably give her another day to cure before I mess with her any more but I doubt it'll help.
Aw, that's unfortunate about the paint rubbing leading it to come off. Is there any other type of paint that can be used? Otherwise she looks really good! Love the hat head as well. The posing is way too cool and love that she can stand on her own. Great job!
I don't think there's really anything you could do about your paint-rubbing issues other than maybe trying that shock oil stuff people reported using in the Iron Factory Tarn thread. That figure has an extremely tight ball joint on it and people posted about using this shock oil stuff to lube it up. If you used that, overtop of a strong clear coat, you might not suffer paint rubbing as immediately. Unfortunately paint and friction just don't get on well, so I think you're going to run into that no matter what. This figure is a huge success, though. The amount if detail you worked into it is awesome. For the eyes you could try doing what I do for small details or paint in tight spaces. I use an x-acto knife to shave down the end of a toothpick until I have about a half inch long tip that is around the width of a straight pin that you'd use for sewing. Then slice a slit or two into the end of the tip to allow paint to collect in, dip in paint, and then use the toothpick to apply the paint. This works especially well for painting things like eyes, mouths and panel lines.
