3D Rendering

[Mabel Figworthy]

[Serinde]

People connecting with familiar situations?

[richardandtracy]

I thought I would play with a bit of modelling & see what came of it.

Tracy & I went on holiday to Norway, starting in Stavanger, looping out to Bergen over a period of 3 weeks, in 1993 or 1994 in our little 2CV. It was horrifically expensive and we were so pleased we brought most of our food with us, but we did splash out on a single souvenir (other than photographs), and it was a piece of 'Art Glass' we bought in Bergen. In fact it was a beautiful glass reminiscent of an 18thC English wine goblet, but showing off the unbelievable skill of the glass worker. The clear stem had a spiral of red and yellow glass winding up through it, and then a flared blue flute on top with a blue glass foot.

A few weeks ago I thought it would be both an interesting exercise to see if I could model the spiral, the flared flute and see how the rendering software coped with index of refraction etc. I use engineering software, good for straight lines and circular arcs, less good for fancy spirals and and free-form curves, so it was not easy. So, not wanting to make each model impossibly difficult, I did a flared flute in one model, and a constant diameter coloured spiral in another model. I think they came out fairly well:



I was amazed to see that the stem spiral seemed to increase in diameter at the bulges in the stem, just like in the real thing, despite the fact the spiral is actually on a constant diameter helix.

Regards,

Richard

[wendywombat]

They have indeed come out well!

Reminds me of Bristol Blue Glasswear.

[Mabel Figworthy]

That spiral looks really convincing, and how inetersting that it does things that are lifelike but you didn't expect!

[karen4bells]

Richard, all I can say is Wow!!!!! Truly beautiful!! I am amazed!! Both are extremely realistic!

[rcperryls]

They look very real and are very lovely.

Carole

[fccs]

Wow! Those are incredible. Your talent and creativity never cease to amaze me.

[richardandtracy]

Wendy, I am amazed. I had no idea there was a tradition of blue glass in Bristol. Definitely reminiscent of the glass we have. I always wondered why Bristol Cream Sherry went to blue glass bottles, explains it now.

Have to confess I am pleased at the realism of the glasses. As for talent. Pfft. I really don't think so. Brute ignorance & force is what I use, and it occasionally works.

Regards,

Richard

[wendywombat]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_blue_glass

Here's a link, Richard, about Bristol blue glass.

The first time I saw it was at Clevedon Court. It's been revived and being made again in Bristol, but looking at the colour I don't think it has the richness of the old.

[richardandtracy]

Given the warm weather at the end of June, I modelled up a paddling pool & offered it as a freebie. It had some simulated rippled water in it just to be nice & refreshing. To show the pool to best advantage, obviously need someone in it, and who can resist playing with a toy boat & rubber duck in the pool? All has to be overseen by a cat, obviously. Our cat Rooster used to sit on the paddling pool rings (never punctured the rings with his claws, either), so I thought I'd put a cat overseeing the exercise in the way he did on our pool:

573 people have felt it's hot enough to download this freebie since 28 June 2022. I remain constantly baffled how such little, everyday things seem so popular. I got one comment that made me all warm & fuzzy inside, I must admit:

"This is fantastic! We actually had one exactly like this for our grandchildren when they were small. Thank you so much for the prop and the memories."

I also had an idea for a more useful model after something someone said on another forum. My uncle by marriage invented and patented the telescopic aluminium tube walking stick in the late 1960's/early 1970's, selling it & telescopic crutches to the NHS through the company he part-owned at the time ('Coopers'). My aunt was a Physiotherapist and designed the shape, and my young cousins were the first to try the prototypes out. So in homage to my Aunt & Uncle, I made a model of a telescopic walking stick (and have a crutch in the works at the moment), as below:



Regards,

Richard.

[Roland]

Amazing. Your love of cats is obvious…it’s so realistic.

[rcperryls]

Very clever and useful walking stick and two great 3D photos. They are soooo real!

Carole

[richardandtracy]

Thank you both for your kind words.

I feel I may, finally, have got the hang of modelling rigid things. Clothing - well, that's another matter entirely.

Regards,

Richard

[fccs]

Your talent is always amazing!

[Serinde]

Cloth is hard for all artists. You have a good feel for the leather -- but perhaps that's quite rigid, too? The leggings don't count! Although the slight wrinkle around the knee is well observed.

[richardandtracy]

The only thing I can claim credit for in the walking stick image is the walking stick. Much as I'd love to claim any credit for the clothing, I can't. There are other modellers who created those items. I just posed the 'little dolly' figure & made the model of the walking stick (seems I never grew out of my 'action men' doll figures..). However, as I said earlier, clothing is beyond me at the moment and probably the foreseeable future too.

I did complete the crutch model I mentioned earlier, and in order to give a reason for needing the crutch, the obvious thing was to amputate the model's foot. That sounds much more drastic than it was - I simply hid the foot and ankle from view, no need to take out the chainsaw and create a horror movie scene. Anyway being footless gives a reason for needing crutches:

The crutch is rigged so the arm support pivots like it does on the real thing, and I hope at some point to do a number of realistic poses showing people using the crutches and resting in them with elbows in the arm supports, that sort of thing.

Gives me something to do while it's too hot to go out and it's too dark inside the house to stitch because we've got the curtains drawn to keep the sun & heat out.

Regards,

Richard

[Mabel Figworthy]

Her posture is really realistic! And I'm glad you didn't have to turn into a mad axe murderer to create it

[richardandtracy]

Thank you Mabel.
With regard to the posture, I always try out the poses myself to find if a) they're possible and b) they're comfortable. If the answer to either is no, I try again.
BUT.. there is a downside.. I did look pretty stupid balancing on one foot and two imaginary crutches.

Regards,

Richard

[richardandtracy]

One or two people may be aware that I am quite fond of fountain pens.

The epitome of fountain pen design to many users is the Parker 51, a pen that just worked, first time and every time. Parker ended up producing over 26 million between 1941 and 1973. There were three versions of the pen but lots of cosmetic variations.
Parker hit such a winner with the novel shape of the pen that they and every other pen manufacturer had to come up with cheaper clones of it. Parker produced their own clones, the Parker 21 and 41, then later came up with the Parker 17, 61 and 'Slimfold'. Onoto produced the 'K' series, Montblanc and Pelikan produced their own variants. Italy was a source of millions of fakes and many more clones. Even China produced similar pens. So, the Parker 51 set the trend, and everyone followed.

After Parker stopped production, the Chinese continued to produce their own copies by the millions, with the 'Hero 616' being churned out for ten-fifteen of cents each.

In more recent years collectors have tried to get Parker to produce more Parker 51's, which they have done. But unfortunately the pens are not very good because Parker seem to have lost the ability to design a good hooded nib pen. There have been some very good hooded nib pens produced in the last 10 years, the Hero 100 luxury pen and Wing Sung 601 Utility pen.

So.. I did approach modelling one of these with a fair bit of trepidation. It's not often that you approach an icon.


Think it came out fairly well.

Regards,

Richard