Collab 2020: Modeling Heavy Equipment (Backhoe)

[Kent Trammell]

I’d like to see the treads of the wheels be more accurate to the photos. Also there’s details that could be blocked out on the rim of the wheel. Look higher on this page for other work-in-progress wheels to see what I mean.

[Ingmar Franz]

@shanr You can either create tyre segments as spikeyxxx did (see his first picture on this page) and duplicate them with the help of an Array Modifier and a rotated empty as object offset or you can, as I did it, trace the  outline of one tread piece on the tyre surface by extruding an edge while in “Face Select” mode and snapping of “individual elements” turned on (your viewing direction determines the projection direction). Then add a solidify modifier for the tread thickness und a subsurf modifier for smoothing the tread outline (additional edge loops will reduced the “rubber look” of the treads in my pictures above). I duplicated the tread piece with an Array Modifier and a rotated empty. The tread pieces on the inner side of the tyre a just mirrored copies of the tread pieces on the outer side of the tyre. For further details take a look into the files under the links on Kent’s piece selection sheet.

[Ingmar Franz]

More important: What will you learn? Divide your project into manageable tasks that meet your current skills and try  to develop your skills a step forward. Otherwise, it can be quite intimidating. And above all: Don’t forget to have fun and stay curious 😎!

[Ingmar Franz]

Looks excellent 👌,  as if it were made for building the real backhoe 👌 !

[Greg McKim]

BTW sorry for the off topic comment, but I was having problems with 2.82 on my machine, my graphics card kept crashing. I may have solved the problem by shutting down my browser whenever I use Blender. I think there’s a conflict accessing a core or something and the browser wins and shuts down Blender. 

Just a random thought might help someone in the future.

[Jake Korosi]

Sorry – I know I’m very late!  But I did get the first blocking stage of the “hinge arm” done.

Firstly, I found out by looking at a maintenance manual I found for the 434E (no kidding, ha) that the proper name for this component is the “swing frame”, and so looking up those terms I was able to find several more nice and clear images of the parts, including a side plan view which was like finding gold!

I found out that the large pink component in the screenshots was a lot slimmer X-wise than the original photographs suggested.  That plus the bizarre shape meant that I had to give up Kent’s initial blocks for this part and start over from scratch (I hope that’s okay!).  I know the part looks quite rough with the harsh hexagonal boltholes; but even though I think I remember we were told no subsurf for this stage, I still anticipate it coming later – especially for that weirdly shaped part.  

But, here’s the finished blocks for all the major components.  There’s a whole mess of hydraulic lines and hoses that runs through these pieces but given their nature I decided to do them on later more-detailed passes.

[shan jay]

[shan jay]

What About This ?!

🤔

Here is a closer look

[shan jay]

How do I add the link to a blend file

[Adrian Bellworthy]

@shanr 

2. Submitting your piece for review. Exactly one week before the next stream is scheduled to be broadcast, your piece is due. In the “Attempt” cell of the spreadsheet, paste a download link to your .blend file via Dropbox, Google Drive, or equivalent hosting service.

 

[shan jay]

How to paste the file link

[Adrian Bellworthy]

@shanr as you did when adding your name,  in the next box ,[comment]  CTRL+ ALT + M ,  and paste your link there.

[Jake Korosi]

The longer I think about it, the more I think I’m going to redo that weirdly-shaped part (Part “B”, the pink one in the above post) yet another time.  I’m not quite happy with the topology and I think I can do better.  I’m going to wait until after the stream, though.

By the way – while I found out that piece is definitely less wide than the original block, I still did have to guesstimate the width in the end as I wasn’t able to find a front or top plan for it.   @theluthier I know you at least have a reference drawing for the digger arm that gives your piece a much more exact or correct size.  So next week after you’ve finished your stage-two work on the digger arm, if possible I’d like to get a copy of it so that I can adjust the width of the hinge knuckle to fit precisely.

[Omar Domenech]

Oh wow I hadn’t realize, we have a date with a hoe this Tuesday. Time flew by so fast.

[Jake Korosi]

Yes the last four weeks have really been “blink and you’ll miss it”.

[Author]

Posts