Keiths Polybook

[Shawn Blanch]

That is awesome @beefkeef

If you plan on sticking with a similar background I would suggest something not so close to your grey color. Perhaps a color that makes the bike ‘pop’

Would really make it stand out. Otherwise I think this is super cool.

[Keith]

Thanks for the tip @blanchsb – I’m definitely going to play around with the background colour a bit. Maybe whiter will be a nice contrast. 

[Jonathan Lampel]

That bike turned out great! Nice work @beefkeef !

[Keith]

Thanks @jlampel ! I’m quite pleased with how it’s looking, even though it’s taken quite a while overall!!! 

[Keith]

I should really post a bit more of what I’m practicing in here – but I keep forgetting!! 

Here’s a sculpt I’ve been working on over the weekend as I’m trying to get familiar with some of the new sculpting tools.

I might play around with the materials and try and get it a bit more translucent when I have some more time.

[Keith]

I’ve been getting the itch to model another one of those little steam engines, so this time I’m trying to make Benson’s vertical engine. I’ll try my best to keep track of my progress in here.

Here’s the first block out, just a few simple shapes here and there trying to get the proportions close to start with.

It looks pretty rough but you’ve gotta start somewhere right??  

And hopefully, it will end up looking something closer to this : 

[Matthew Fricker]

Great work! Very realistic and detailed. What did you use for texturing? 

[Keith]

Thanks @frikkr but the second picture is my reference! 😁

I’m just starting the block out today! 

[Matthew Fricker]

Haha , its been a long day….. That explains the realism , I totally missed what you had typed above it. CG has come on so well in recent years that it can fool you easily…. I think its because it has no background or shadow that it looks like it’s been rendered with a transparent background and had a plain white backdrop composited in. Whoops!

[Keith]

A little progress, I spent a fair bit of time making a flywheel – it took me a while to remember how to use an array modifier without things getting funky!

Also added a little bit of detail to the cylinder and the bits that join to it. 

[Keith]

Just a little bit more progress on this, I’ve refined a few bits here and there – it still doesn’t look like much just yet!!!  

[Keith]

Just a couple more progress shots, I added the eccentric rods and also added that ‘fork’ above the piston and a few pipes at the back. 

[Keith]

A few more details added, I think it’s starting to come together now.  

The little handle was quite interesting to model. I treated it almost like a wheel using the bridge faces tool, and the array modifier.

[Keith]

So, I think I’m just about done with the modelling of this engine, and I’ve spent some time today figuring out the animation. In my previous animations I’ve just used key frames and various empties to achieve what I needed, but this time I’ve used an armature system. It was quite fun learning how to use the bones to get a nice animation, and honestly – a lot easier doing it this way. 

I’ve used EEVEE to give me a test animation, it’s really crazy how fast it can render. Each frame was only 1 second or so! I couldn’t get the motion blur to work though, that’s something i’d like in the final animation.

Next I will move onto the texturing and I’m thinking this could be a good time to try out UDIMs as I’ve never used them before.

[Michael Mirn]

That valve is amazing. I want to touch it!

[Author]

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