Modelling a specific wheel in swift?

[wolfestone]

Hi all, I need to create a rotating 3d wheel flash movie.

The wheel I need to model is this one:



and it's a much more complex design than others I've done before, specifically it's got curves rather than straight square spokes, and the center of the wheel is sunk inwards.

Am I looking in the right place trying to do this in swift, or would it need a better modelling tool to make a mesh & import?

If it is possible in swift, what kind of method should I be looking at?

Previously, I've been drawing a front image of the wheel in flash, saving as an illustrator .ai file, then importing it to swift3d and extruding/bevelling to get the desired effect. This doesn't seem like it'll work on this one though, unfortunately.

Thanks for any help, it'd be much appreciated.

[RUSHVision]

It's doable, but there's no way you'll get there by using just an extrusion. Do you have any experience working in the Advanced Modeler?

[wolfestone]

Only limited experience. I've used it to move parts of an extrusion around before in the same kind of model, and I've had limited luck using it to edit meshes.

The main thing which seems to give me a problem in swift3d is that I can't find any way to accurately line things up, for instance if I create the horseshoe shaped spokes of this wheel, I don't see how you can line up the outer rim perfectly?

Thanks for the reply

[RUSHVision]

I was afraid of that.

Ok, I don't have time to personally tutor you on how to use the Advanced Modeler and then on every step required to make this particular rim so I'm going to throw some things at you and you can decide what you want to do with them.

Any way you look at it I would recommend starting out in Flash. The outer part of the rim I would make as a lathe object, but the spokes will require a custom shape. You want to begin by breaking down the shape into simpler forms. In this design you have two sets of 5 ovals, with one set being smaller and shaped slightly differently than the other...as far as I can tell from that reference image, anyway. You will also want to cut out those holes in the center and it will be much easier if you account for it now. The image below shows the beginning shapes.



To create the shapes for the cutouts I started with an oval then used the Perspective Tool on it to make it more pointy on the center side and wider towards the outside of the rim. Once you have the shape right, align it to the center of the document and move it vertically into position. Now here's the important part...create just an outline of a perfect circle that completely encompasses the cutout shape and align this to the center of the document as well. Now select both the cutout shape and the outer circle and hit F8 to create a new graphic symbol, making sure the alignment point is in the center. What that circle does is put the center point of your symbol at the center of the document so you can easily and accurately rotate it later. You can now double-click the shape to edit the symbol in place and delete the outer circle.

Return to the main stage then copy and paste four more copies, rotating each by 72 degrees. (360 divided by 5) The beauty of using symbols is that at this point if things don't look right you can double-click the top one, modify it, and the changes will be reflected in all of them. Once you are happy with them these can now be broken apart and pasted into the main rim circle. The same thing would be done for the smaller oval, this time starting with it flipped vertically at the bottom instead of at the top.

As you know, the shapes you draw in Flash and then import into Swift3D turn into 3-dimensional extrusions. The outer shape of these objects will match what you draw in Flash or the Extrusion Editor, but the interior structure of the mesh is put together by Swift3D...or a drunken monkey, it's hard to tell sometimes. You can adjust the density in a crude fashion by moving the Mesh Quality slider, but the results can't be predicted and usually leaves much to be desired.

There are a couple of ways to get around this...and as far as I know, there are only a couple. The first is to spend a lot of time dividing edges and moving vertices around so you'll be able to push the mesh into the required shape with an adequate amount of smoothness. This will take a fair amount of time and patience. It's not that hard, but you will be required to learn something about how the tools work that will allow you do this. To give you an idea of where you will need to go, take a look at the image below. Your mesh lines will want to flow out in a radius from each hole. You will probably need them even more dense than what I have pictured in order to get them really smooth and detailed. Once you got the mesh squared away you could then start pulling the vertices down/away/whatever to start defining the recessed form.



The second way is to do more prep work and use more shapes in Flash. Basically, do you see that area inside those concentric lines that are around the holes? You would want to fill those with a different color so when you import into Swift3D they would come in as separate objects. You would then take the whole group of objects into the Advanced Modeler then edit each one to remove all but the front faces. Then you would combine them all together into a single mesh object and weld up all the connecting vertices. This is usually quite a lot of vertices. Sometimes you can get away with Smart Welding them, sometimes you'll have to weld them up individually. So that's the trade off...spend time dividing and nudging the mesh on a single object or spend time deleting faces and welding points on many objects. Any way you slice it though, I think it's going to be kind of tough for a 3D newbie to model that rim quickly or easily.

Here's a bit of good news. You could get away with only modeling one fifth of the rim then you could duplicate and rotate it to create the rest. The yellow lines in the image below show the part that you would have to model and the orange lines show where the other wedges would fit into place. Frankly I would cheat on where the spokes meet the rims and just have them extend into the lathed rim instead of trying to make it one mesh.



Ok, so that a super quick primer on how to get started in 3D. Another option however, would be to simply continue on in Flash and upgrade the shapes that you just made. This will only work if all you need is an orthographic view of the side of the wheel as it rotates, but it would probably end up being less work than learning how to use the Advanced Modeler. It gets even easier when I say I'm going to attach the .fla that I made these samples with. Either way, you'll have something to start with.

If you wanted to go this route you would just start adding additional gradients that represent the light and shade of the 3D form. I've shaded the spokes below in a manner that would allow for rotation and kept separate other parts that would look strange if they were to rotate such as the 'hump' in the center. If this were to rotate the highlight would rotate as well, which wouldn't look right. The spokes are shaded uniformly though, so that problem won't occur. It won't be quite as realistic as a true 3D rotating object, however. The biggest factor will probably be time and your desire to learn how to model something in 3D. Having a real 3D object would allow you to change lighting, camera angles and do lots of other things, but I thought I would throw it out as an option. It would need a little more work such as the air stem for one thing, but here is the rim purely illustrated in Flash.

[wolfestone]

Wow, Thank you so much!

Despite my lack of knowledge with swift's advanced modeler, I think I understood all of what you said there. I'm blown away that you took the time to help me out with some images too.

Thanks again, I really really appreciate the help.

[RUSHVision]

Cool. Glad I was able to help.