Shapeways Modeling Thread

[Wu Long Ti]

After looking this morning at the different material specs and bounding box sizes I may go with Fine Detail Plastic on the Gun turret and Frosted Ultra Detail on the rest of the head. And looking at the G1 figure I may move to a different way to connect the turret to the head. Either way I'm trying to have it uploaded to Shapeways.

 

Thought about doing Alumide for my DOTM Optimus Power Armor Exoskeleton. That would definetly give it a nice ancient or industrial look.

 

WuLongToys page liked. Great concept on the Action Formers. Oh man, polished Alumide would be a sweet look on the endoskeletons.

 

I'm really curious about the detail plastic materials.. I heard that they don't work well at all for things like joints or anything that would be handled "too roughly" so I'm really curious to know how that turns out. What size class are you going for with your DOTM OP armor? Even at cyberverse scale that sounds like it would be a hella expensive kit... but yeah, alumide would look pretty cool on it.

 

Thanks mate, I have some tweaks that I think I need to make to the protoform action former design but all in all I'm pretty hopeful. ^__^

[Markusius]

Leader sized DOTM Optimus Armor. Yeah, I have no idea how much it will cost. I'm trying to talk the wife into a 3D printer by the end of the year. Lol, like that's going to happen. Maybe.

 

This is the almost final Omega head:

[Wu Long Ti]

Leader sized DOTM Optimus Armor. Yeah, I have no idea how much it will cost. I'm trying to talk the wife into a 3D printer by the end of the year. Lol, like that's going to happen. Maybe.

 

This is the almost final Omega head:

 

from what I can see, the facial detail looks awesome mate! great job!

 

the image attachments on this board leave a lot to be desired though... :/

[Markusius]

I'll start a WIP thread for the custom this is for and add a nicer render of the head that will be printed.

 

Didn't get it uploaded yet though, but when I can get the turret connector finished I'll upload the no-face version.

 

Last night I was working on a more G1 accurate face but the way Omega's face has curves was giving me some issues. Tried using the follow path extruder accross the top of the forhead and it wasn't working the way I needed it too. Instead making a sphere and useing it to create the different curves should work better.

 

What kind of clearance do you use between joints? Like between ball and socket joints? Do you build it exact? For example build a 5mm socket with 5mm ball for print or do you create a 5mm ball socket with a 4.8mm ball?

[Wu Long Ti]

I'll start a WIP thread for the custom this is for and add a nicer render of the head that will be printed.

 

Didn't get it uploaded yet though, but when I can get the turret connector finished I'll upload the no-face version.

 

Last night I was working on a more G1 accurate face but the way Omega's face has curves was giving me some issues. Tried using the follow path extruder accross the top of the forhead and it wasn't working the way I needed it too. Instead making a sphere and useing it to create the different curves should work better.

 

What kind of clearance do you use between joints? Like between ball and socket joints? Do you build it exact? For example build a 5mm socket with 5mm ball for print or do you create a 5mm ball socket with a 4.8mm ball?

 

yeah, using the follow tool gets a bit frustrating at times....

 

For clearances, it varies. For ball joints I build them exact so that the socket can flex and grip the ball tight. anything where you want to have a friction joint basically and not have it loose. In the case of wanting things to be able to move across each other like panels or fingers or what-have-you then I go with a 0.2mm gap between the parts. My current project the Action Formers will be my biggest test when it comes to doing joints and moving parts.. fingers crossed and all that lol

[Markusius]

Uploaded the turret and helmet/head portion to Shapeways last night and it appeared vertical in the preview. So I reoriented the pieces and the files failed the internal tests. Tonight I'll upload it again and order it in white flexible for some test shots.

 

OMG FUD is expensive. $40 for the helmet in FUD and it's only 60 mm (2.3 inches) from front to back when the turret is unattached. I see what you meant about the OP armor being an expensive set. Yeah, not happening at that price.

 

Going to start a game accurate FOC Grimlock sword in multiple sizes next. The one that comes in the voyager package is off a bit and I wanted to tackle a weapon before diving back into the Movie Leader Prime Power Armor.

[Wu Long Ti]

Uploaded the turret and helmet/head portion to Shapeways last night and it appeared vertical in the preview. So I reoriented the pieces and the files failed the internal tests. Tonight I'll upload it again and order it in white flexible for some test shots.

 

OMG FUD is expensive. $40 for the helmet in FUD and it's only 60 mm (2.3 inches) from front to back when the turret is unattached. I see what you meant about the OP armor being an expensive set. Yeah, not happening at that price.

 

Going to start a game accurate FOC Grimlock sword in multiple sizes next. The one that comes in the voyager package is off a bit and I wanted to tackle a weapon before diving back into the Movie Leader Prime Power Armor.

 

yeah it's not cheap by any means :(

 

though the few pieces I've gotten in WSFPolished have been pretty nice. Nice enough that I'm going to start making that the default material. I wouldn't worry about how shapeways angles your parts. Just export a nice 2D image from sketchup with shadows and colors or whatever and use that as your product image.

 

regarding the Grimlock sword, I know that Ariel Lemon WAS working on it but then he stopped stating that someone else was working on it. Not sure who though. He was also going to do the shield and that got put on ice too :/

 

I don't know much more regarding that though.

[Markusius]

That's my thoughts right now. I may switch up and make some guns or crank out some of those heads Hellscream85 is looking for.

 

Slicing the bottom out of a sphere was giving me issues last night. Intersecting faces was removing part of the sphere above the intersecting plane and below. Follow path didn't help much either. Any tips on making a ball joint or a good free plugin?

 

As soon as I get a good ball joint then I'll just save it and resize it each time its needed.

[Wu Long Ti]

That's my thoughts right now. I may switch up and make some guns or crank out some of those heads Hellscream85 is looking for.

 

Slicing the bottom out of a sphere was giving me issues last night. Intersecting faces was removing part of the sphere above the intersecting plane and below. Follow path didn't help much either. Any tips on making a ball joint or a good free plugin?

 

As soon as I get a good ball joint then I'll just save it and resize it each time its needed.

 

one of the most important pieces of advice I can give for using sketchup is 2 fold. Go to Window >> Preferences >> Shortcuts and add a shortcut for toggling "View/Hidden Geometry" and one for "View/Face Style/X-ray". I have mine mapped to shift + H and shift + X respectively.

These shortcuts will become super useful to you.

 

When ever I have to intersect something with a rounded face, sketchup has a bad habit of killing off parts of the face. If you view hidden you can see the lines are still there though. redrawing the edge will bring them back. If you have to redraw a softened line then use your eraser and hold Ctrl while clicking the line to soften it instead of erasing it.

 

HOWEVER! what I always do before I intersect anything with a rounded part is I will group what it is I'm working on, enter the group, select all (ctrl A), then scale (s). I always pick the top right corner facing me and drag it upwards. I then type 100 and hit enter. Shift Z will zoom you out to see the whole thing. Now when you intersect stuff sketchup will behave a little better. Once you've finished, then select all and scale. make sure you use the EXACT SAME corner handle and drag it downwards. type in .01 and hit enter. now you can exit the group and explode it if you wish.

 

Hope this helps :)

[Markusius]

I will try that this weekend on my next model. Finally deleted all of the hidden geometry on the helmet and turret so they render correctly and placed an order for the set. Can't wait to get it.

 

Used the name Markusius (game handle) with my storefront name Soulkatana since I still own a web domain and twitter by the same name.