Ahsoka - The Map - Wonderknight and eethan WIP thread

[eethan]

Hey there,

As I mentioned in the other thread, Wonderknight and I are trying to reproduce the ball/map from the Ahsoka series
This is not something we usually do, the prop race with other makers for the new series is not something we like to do and we usually prefer to concentrate on bringing very accurate replicas of much older props, taking the time to do it perfectly well, it seems that Julie kind of fell in love with that prop and wore me down to help her make it! so, let's do it

There is nothing sure, no promises, we are just trying our best to make a really accurate representation of the prop, and if we can manage to do it, we will try to bring 3D printed convertion kit to glue on actual Megaminx or simple static sphere. And I guess Wonderknight might also offer assembled replicas if that all works out!

So, this is a very difficult prop to really nail down of course! I first said it was impossible to completely "map the map" from the snapshots from the series and even harder to try to completely solve the puzzle, so, Wonderknight has been trying to prove me wrong and is not far from succeeding on this! I might add that her training is in architecture and she actually worked on several archeological project in Petra and Greece and when I look at her computer, it looks like she's back there again!
so, the first step for her was to try to make a first map of the ball and see if she could gather all the different tiles from all the snapshot, she almost got all of those!

she's still working on this and also now trying to see if she can solve the whole puzzle and possibly offer a "as seen in the show" version as well as a fully solved version with all the engravings matching from tile to tile

Today, we finaly received our Megaminx ball as well, so I started on the first step for me, modeling very precisely the toy as it is. Not really an easy task if you ask me, but after a bit of thoughts and tries, I have a perfect model tonight
This is based on measurements from the actual object, a bit of maths to figure out the placement of all the circles that make the final design, and finaly a 3D match on a ref to make sure the proportions are matching even though they are already all measured:

I am a pretty old school modeler, so I like to have a perfect wire frame, so yeah, i had some fun modeling this It will be a perfect base for the next step, extruding the actual added tiles that will be printed.

That's it for now, I hope we have more to show as soon as possible! Obviously we are busy as well, Wonderknight with her other balls, and me with my lightsabers and all, but we are trying to make the best of our evenings
cheers all!

 

[AnubisGuard]

I am a pretty old school modeler, so I like to have a perfect wire frame, so yeah, i had some fun modeling this

I've got years of modeling experience (and have worked professionally as a modeller), but I struggle with the type of über clean geometry you have here. How do you get such clean edge flow on each tile and ensure the entire model is perfectly spherical?

 

[eethan]

I've got years of modeling experience (and have worked professionally as a modeller), but I struggle with the type of über clean geometry you have here. How do you get such clean edge flow on each tile and ensure the entire model is perfectly spherical?

thank you yeah, I'm very crazy with my modeling and wireframe, always have been. I started in Cinema4D when I was a teenager, then learned maya and worked with it for 10 years. I was initially more of a modeler but worked as a facial artist/rigger/developer for 10 years, so I also picked up the more technical side of Maya.

In this case, I started by doing everything with nurbs curves circles until the maths and proportions were correct, when that was good, I cut the curves at the interceptions:

the thin tiles are easy because they have 4 sides, so I used a nurbs square function for this and it gave me my base wireframe.
The rest is more annoying, the top has 5 sides which never works in nurbs, and the the big tiles have 3 sides which works but creates a triangular wireframe that I didn't want.
So, I created a quick basic wireframe by hand that I snaped to the curves on each side, then I used the relax function in Maya to create tension between each face and have a nice wireframe. But this gave a flat model between each of the created curves, to get it spherical, I created a mesh sphere of the proper diameter that I subdivided a lot, and then, used a function that allowed me to project my correct wireframe onto the very subdivided sphere and get a perfect result:

cheers

 

[BonesAreDollars]

I’ve been super excited to see so many people jump on this prop so quickly. Really looking forward to see what you come up with

 

[eethan]

There is progress but it's actually a lot of back and forth... I'm starting my 4th model revision just for the base toy.
It is extremely difficult to measure such small and close together parts and I realized that my base circle curves were positioned wrongly by 0.35mm, resulting in the big triangles being slightly too big and the two small parts slightly too small.
Luckily I'm very used to modeling it now so it will be faster, but that means all the engravings still have to wait a bit.

Cheers all!

 

[eethan]

Hi there,
there has been quite a bit more back and forth on the 3D model, figuring out how they did the added plates, I'm not going to explain/reveal everything, but they didn't just take the base model and extrude/reduce each tile evenly, the different types of tiles don't have the same offset. I'm now completely happy with my model, it is matching the references very nicelly and am confident moving forward with this

ref -> 3D model:

3D model overlaid on top of the ref, appart from the fact that the tiles are glued by hand on top of toy, resulting in small inconcistances, i'm very happy with the overall match of the 3D model

next up, I have given Wonderknight flat views of the tiles to see if she can move forward on matching everything and trying to solve the puzzle more in depth.
we are going to have a test print of a few parts at this stage to see if they go nicelly on the toy.
and I'm also going to be moving forward starting to model the engravings now, at least the main ones while I wait and see if the mapping out work from Wonderknight can help modeling the rest more easily.

Still no promises but still moving forward with as much accuracy as possible
cheers

 

[thawn_es]

Love it!

 

[woodywaverider]

Great work both you and wonder knight.

The map appeared again in today’s episode, there were a few close up shots, hopefully these will fill in some of missing sections.
Hopefully screen shots will be up on cap that tomorrow or Friday.

 

[eethan]

thank you
yes, we are waiting for the screen shots but I don't think there was much to see today, it's mostly always the main front faces showing it seems.

alright, let's do a first test printing of a few partially engraved parts and see how they fit on the real part and they look printed

 

[eethan]

Launching print test now, fingers crossed, I was lucky with printing for my run yesterday, i hope it works out today as well, it's not my favourite thing in the world!

 

[eethan]

Alright, the prints worked
I wasn't sure about the thickness and depth of the engravings and I will probably make them a bit more visible, but they actually came out pretty good in the end.

Alright, so, Julie (Wonder Knight ) tried some gold paint on those and some texturing effect that I personally think came out great. You can see some grain/texturing in the specular of the real ball, so I think this is better than just flat paint.
It's all just testing for now of course and we will have to adjust with weathering and all, but to me, this is all promising

the paint is drying for now so we will come back with more photos attached on the actual megaminx when it's dry and we removed the supports. Since the parts are really small, we found out keeping the support was better for sanding and painting

 

[the.rebel.agent]

Instead of gold, I would try a brass tone. My two cents. Love this project BTW.

 

[eethan]

Instead of gold, I would try a brass tone. My two cents. Love this project BTW.

Yes those are really tests, nothing definitive yet! Cheers

 

[Wonder Knight]

 

[drunkwoodworker]

View attachment 1737108View attachment 1737109

That is sharp! Good work!

 

[eethan]

hello there,
small update on our evenings project

I am chipping away at all the engravings, matching photos one by one to be as accurate as possible, and trust me, when this is done, it will be very accurate slow progress but good and reassuring at the same time as we see this is moving forward nicelly

here are a few WIP pictures of the few photos matched for now, we have around 40% of the details drawn for now:
(this is the same 3D model matched with a different camera on different reference photos, the fact that each details is correct on several references assures final accuracy)
(the white dots are also matched)

and I just matched this new ref that will allow me to move forward nicelly on a mostly new area of the ball, yay!:

I hope to have more progress to show soon!
hope you like it
cheers

 

[itsme]

hello there,
small update on our evenings project

I am chipping away at all the engravings, matching photos one by one to be as accurate as possible, and trust me, when this is done, it will be very accurate slow progress but good and reassuring at the same time as we see this is moving forward nicelly

here are a few WIP pictures of the few photos matched for now, we have around 40% of the details drawn for now:
(this is the same 3D model matched with a different camera on different reference photos, the fact that each details is correct on several references assures final accuracy)
(the white dots are also matched)
View attachment 1738071
View attachment 1738072
View attachment 1738073
and I just matched this new ref that will allow me to move forward nicelly on a mostly new area of the ball, yay!:
View attachment 1738074

I hope to have more progress to show soon!
hope you like it
cheers

Wow! That's really impressive!

For the "white dots", will you make it holo? I have the clear Megaminx. I was thinking of adding LEDs in it and lighted through the holes.

 

[eethan]

Wow! That's really impressive!

For the "white dots", will you make it holo? I have the clear Megaminx. I was thinking of adding LEDs in it and lighted through the holes.

Yes, we will definitely make a version to light up, probably in clear resin to try and get all the engravings to light up.
They will always be hollow by the way, the main idea being to produce printed plates to put on the megaminx or on simple transparent spheres
Cheers

 

[drunkwoodworker]

hello there,
small update on our evenings project

I am chipping away at all the engravings, matching photos one by one to be as accurate as possible, and trust me, when this is done, it will be very accurate slow progress but good and reassuring at the same time as we see this is moving forward nicelly

here are a few WIP pictures of the few photos matched for now, we have around 40% of the details drawn for now:
(this is the same 3D model matched with a different camera on different reference photos, the fact that each details is correct on several references assures final accuracy)
(the white dots are also matched)
View attachment 1738071
View attachment 1738072
View attachment 1738073
and I just matched this new ref that will allow me to move forward nicelly on a mostly new area of the ball, yay!:
View attachment 1738074

I hope to have more progress to show soon!
hope you like it
cheers

Beautiful!

 

[eethan]

Hello there,
I have done much more progress on the 3D model (74% details done) but will probably only post photos when the project is ready
We have opened an interest thread with all options detailed, feel free to join up

Interest - Ahsoka - The Map ball - several options (grouped project Wonderknight & eethan)

Hello there, Wonderknight and I have been working on bringing a very accurate replica of the Map shown in the Ahsoka series, and we would like to offer several options for the builders and for the collectors :) a WIP thread can be found here...

www.therpf.com

thank you