Ahsoka - The Map - Wonderknight and eethan WIP thread

[eethan]

Hey eethan ! Are you thinking of lighting the map with fiber optics or a single, central, light source? I think the fiber optics would make a great 'in-hand' prop, but a single light source in the center of the sphere somehow, might actually cast little light dots through the holes in the surface of the sphere. Seeing the little dots on the walls and ceiling of a dark room would be speck-tacular! <--- See what I did there?

Hey,
We are going to test things but it will be LEDs inside a transparent resin ball. I don't know if the LEDs will be powerful enough and not too much diffused by the resin to actually cast light onto room surfaces though. We will see

 

[Ridire Firean]

I don't know if the LEDs will be powerful enough and not too much diffused by the resin to actually cast light onto room surfaces though. We will see

I was thinking the holes would go all the way through the model with a hollow core. I'm not certain how a planetarium projector works, but that's what I was invisioning.

 

[eethan]

hello there,
I thought I might update the WIP thread a bit

exciting update but a bit long and quite technical. But I know some people were asking technical stuff ;-)

after a long time (more than a month) placing each engraving line based on 30 references! several back and forth with Julie, validating everything. The engravings were finaly validated yesterday.

After this came a bit of cleaning of the 3D file. Then a little python script to mathematically put even divisions on each curve based on its length
before/after:

The way I modeled the curves was pretty ok. Each "straight line" was modeled with a portion of a circle of the actual sphere diameter, so they were following the curvature nicelly, I was just rotating them from the center of the sphere to place them around. However, each circle visible was an actual flat circle and the curved lines (like those on the right above) were also circle portions that I positioned as best as I could each time. Then there was a bit of moving around of everything during all the process and the result is that all curves were not always perfectly following the surface. I first scripted another python script to project each curve on a nurbs sphere and duplicate it into a new, clean and rebuilt mathematically curve. However, thank you Maya! the projecting function is slightly bugged and most of the curves came out deformed slightly, sometimes badly...
So, I finaly came up with the idea of using a deformer that will basically suck a curve or mesh that you give him onto the closest position on another mesh, in this case, a sphere of the proper diameter with a LOT of subdivisions. This worked perfectly and all curves are now perfectly circular, all of the same diameter

As I mentioned before, I used to work in animation movies and was a rigger/blendshape artist/developer for 10 years. I am going full rigger mode on this project. modeling everything with nurbs curves, scripting the cleanup... and the following step...

I mentioned before I was simply going to use booleans to do the actual engravings next. But this is dirty and is a crazy amount of work! After spending more than a month getting to this point, the idea of spending at least 3 days cleaning all the lines converted to polygons, merging them together cleanly and hoping the software didn't crash while calculating the boolean on so many polys didn't enchant me.

I finaly came up with the idea of using another deformer, the wire deformer. This is a deformer that uses a nurbs curve to deform a mesh object, something I used a lot before.
To do this, the mesh needs to be extremely subdivided. Maya is not intended for several millions polygons, so I have to be clever about my subdivising, in this case, i went one subdivision at a time, removed a few useless lines, divided again, removed as much as possible under the tile and so on. The triangle tile is already 400k polys, which is quite a bit for Maya already.
but then, it's just a matter of selected the tile, selecting all the curves on this tile and applying the deformer. Then I just scale all the tiles to 0.99 and it will pull the polygons around each curve slightly. This is all parametric, each line can be more or less thick. The final file/files will be heavy, but I get a great result and it saved me a few full days of work!

first test on 5 main tiles :

someone was asking for the wireframe. In this case, it will just be subdivided and deformed, so heavy, but clean I will probably do all the holes first with booleans though.

cheers!

 

[eethan]

Hello guys,

alright, lots of final tweaking, prep work and so on done today.

First, Julie tried to solve the whole puzzle, reorganize the tiles, and it looks like it's not doable. Some tiles are matching, she found at least one tile that was mirrored, and was matching perfectly in a patern when mirrored back. So, it would seem they made it impossible to solve with the tiles as they are in the final position seen in the series.

So, with the tew tiles Julie managed to match, I made sure in my model that the lines were going nicely from one to the other. And all the lines are now final, not touching those anymore!

alright, after this, I modified and did a finalk model for the actual megaminx itself, the one that will be printed with the tiles for our light up option. I'm super happy with the final version of this, it matches very nicelly the ridges seen on the references. here are a couple comparisons:

in transparency:

Now that this model is final and in one merged piece, I started thinking about how we would cut this in two to print, put the lights inside and close back.
We are normally going to use a round lighted ball that is very convenient for us and our customers, so we need to fit this inside and be able to open the back to put the batteries in.
I modeled the light itself in white below, and started seeing how to cut the model. I took the small pentagone tiles in that iteration and they will be in the way, so I'll have to cut before those. It's all a bit tight but hopefully it will work nicelly!

finally, I have done some more engraving tests and tried some surface details as I can see some on the reference ball. Nothing is final, I don't know if I'll keep this in the model or not. We will probably print with and without to see if it helps or not and if we should keep it.

This is a final push for me and the 3D model and I'm hoping to be able to give all of this to Julie soon and move on with production!
cheers

 

[eethan]

Hey guys,

I just posted this in the project run thread but I thought I would show it here as well

So here we go! here are a few of the perspective matches I did on the 3D model to ensure every-single-possible-detail was reproduced as best as humaly possible (2 months of work! argh! this was crazy, but I'm so happy with the result!)

disclaimer, I did this on 32 photos in total. Some of the details are not visible on those photos below and everything was pinpointed on several photos. Things that are not necessarily visible on those refs can be clearer on other refs.

 

[AnubisGuard]

hello there,
I thought I might update the WIP thread a bit

exciting update but a bit long and quite technical. But I know some people were asking technical stuff ;-)

after a long time (more than a month) placing each engraving line based on 30 references! several back and forth with Julie, validating everything. The engravings were finaly validated yesterday.

After this came a bit of cleaning of the 3D file. Then a little python script to mathematically put even divisions on each curve based on its length
before/after:
View attachment 1749115 View attachment 1749116
The way I modeled the curves was pretty ok. Each "straight line" was modeled with a portion of a circle of the actual sphere diameter, so they were following the curvature nicelly, I was just rotating them from the center of the sphere to place them around. However, each circle visible was an actual flat circle and the curved lines (like those on the right above) were also circle portions that I positioned as best as I could each time. Then there was a bit of moving around of everything during all the process and the result is that all curves were not always perfectly following the surface. I first scripted another python script to project each curve on a nurbs sphere and duplicate it into a new, clean and rebuilt mathematically curve. However, thank you Maya! the projecting function is slightly bugged and most of the curves came out deformed slightly, sometimes badly...
So, I finaly came up with the idea of using a deformer that will basically suck a curve or mesh that you give him onto the closest position on another mesh, in this case, a sphere of the proper diameter with a LOT of subdivisions. This worked perfectly and all curves are now perfectly circular, all of the same diameter

As I mentioned before, I used to work in animation movies and was a rigger/blendshape artist/developer for 10 years. I am going full rigger mode on this project. modeling everything with nurbs curves, scripting the cleanup... and the following step...

I mentioned before I was simply going to use booleans to do the actual engravings next. But this is dirty and is a crazy amount of work! After spending more than a month getting to this point, the idea of spending at least 3 days cleaning all the lines converted to polygons, merging them together cleanly and hoping the software didn't crash while calculating the boolean on so many polys didn't enchant me.

I finaly came up with the idea of using another deformer, the wire deformer. This is a deformer that uses a nurbs curve to deform a mesh object, something I used a lot before.
To do this, the mesh needs to be extremely subdivided. Maya is not intended for several millions polygons, so I have to be clever about my subdivising, in this case, i went one subdivision at a time, removed a few useless lines, divided again, removed as much as possible under the tile and so on. The triangle tile is already 400k polys, which is quite a bit for Maya already.
but then, it's just a matter of selected the tile, selecting all the curves on this tile and applying the deformer. Then I just scale all the tiles to 0.99 and it will pull the polygons around each curve slightly. This is all parametric, each line can be more or less thick. The final file/files will be heavy, but I get a great result and it saved me a few full days of work!

first test on 5 main tiles :
View attachment 1749119
View attachment 1749120
someone was asking for the wireframe. In this case, it will just be subdivided and deformed, so heavy, but clean I will probably do all the holes first with booleans though.
View attachment 1749121

cheers!

Interesting – so, this is basically the equivalent of using a displacement map, but with curves driving the displacement instead?

 

[eethan]

Interesting – so, this is basically the equivalent of using a displacement map, but with curves driving the displacement instead?

Yes, basically, but it's a deformer, so everything is parametric. You can change the falloff, shape, scale, rotation of the deformation.
I used it a lot when I was rigging for animation movies, you can animate ropes and things like this with this as well.
Cheers

 

[drunkwoodworker]

My kit showed up today! Can’t wait to put I it together!

 

[itsme]

Here's my version from this kit using the clear version and transparent Megaminx ball plus lots of micro LEDs

Thanks again for making this happen.
Amazing kit!!! No regrets!

 

[eethan]

Here's my version from this kit using the clear version and transparent Megaminx ball plus lots of micro LEDs

Thanks again for making this happen.
Amazing kit!!! No regrets!

Very cool that you managed to use our kit and do a light up Megaminx! thank you for sharing the result and glad you are happy with the kit

 

[Wonder Knight]

Here's my version from this kit using the clear version and transparent Megaminx ball plus lots of micro LEDs

Thanks again for making this happen.
Amazing kit!!! No regrets!

Well done, and thank you for your trust. The light seem really cool

 

[drunkwoodworker]

Here's my version from this kit using the clear version and transparent Megaminx ball plus lots of micro LEDs

Thanks again for making this happen.
Amazing kit!!! No regrets!

Did you just put them in the pentagon/screw caps or in all of the megaminx tiles?

 

[zjunlimited]

Here's my version from this kit using the clear version and transparent Megaminx ball plus lots of micro LEDs

Thanks again for making this happen.
Amazing kit!!! No regrets!

Very nice work! Do you have a build log on how you achieved this? What was your painting process?

 

[itsme]

Did you just put them in the pentagon/screw caps or in all of the megaminx tiles?

They are in all tiles. I used the wireless inductive LEDs so that I can still play the puzzle.

 

[itsme]

Very nice work! Do you have a build log on how you achieved this? What was your painting process?

Thanks mate!

Here are the steps:

Lighted Ahsoka Map Step-by Step DIY
1. Dismantle Megaminx Ball.
2. Glue 3mm wireless inductive LEDs in all Megaminx tiles.
3. Remove Wonderknight kits from their sprues and smoothen them using 500 grit sandpaper. Glue the kits on the Megaminx tiles.
4. Cover all the map markings (dots and lines) using Liquid Latex.
5. Mask the bottom half and Spray black the top half of the tiles. I used Mr Hobby Finishing Surfacer Black 1500.
6. Add the gold layer using Rub n Buff Metallic Wax.
7. Remove all the latex masks.
8. Weathered as desired and seal the kit using Clear spray.
9. Assemble the map.

 

[zjunlimited]

Thanks mate!

Here are the steps:

Lighted Ahsoka Map Step-by Step DIY
1. Dismantle Megaminx Ball.
2. Glue 3mm wireless inductive LEDs in all Megaminx tiles.
3. Remove Wonderknight kits from their sprues and smoothen them using 500 grit sandpaper. Glue the kits on the Megaminx tiles.
4. Cover all the map markings (dots and lines) using Liquid Latex.
5. Mask the bottom half and Spray black the top half of the tiles. I used Mr Hobby Finishing Surfacer Black 1500.
6. Add the gold layer using Rub n Buff Metallic Wax.
7. Remove all the latex masks.
8. Weathered as desired and seal the kit using Clear spray.
9. Assemble the map.

Thanks! Very helpful and amazing what you can achieve with Rub n Buff.

 

[itsme]

Thanks! Very helpful and amazing what you can achieve with Rub n Buff.

My pleasure. You'll have fun with the Rub n Buff wax. Excellent stuff and it'll give a natural weathering too.

The most tedious part was masking and removing the liquid latex. For me, that's the toughest part.... not to miss out any 'stars', especially on clear resins.

Here's the result in total darkness.

 

[woodywaverider]

Your brown weathering layer looks excellent, mind sharing how you achieved the effect over the gold?

 

[itsme]

Your brown weathering layer looks excellent, mind sharing how you achieved the effect over the gold?

It's just an amateur work. Using Rub n Buff Wax, the gold paste was added unevenly. When I removed the latex mask, some gold came off when I wipe/clean up the tiles. It gave a natural weathering look against the black finishing coat/base.

You should check out Julie's masterpiece (aka wonderknight). She did an amazing work on the weathering. Simply perfect!!!