Roman Hunt and Ayaz Ismail: Pepakura Bishop

For the final project, Ayaz and I opted to construct a Bishop chess piece, given that chess was the original theme of the project and it therefore seemed like a reasonable goal. I began by creating a highly detailed model in Rhino, following the contours of a reference image almost exactly. For this process, I used the CurveBoolean and Fillet commands to create a curve that matched the piece's silhouette, then rotated said curve 360 degrees before using the BooleanDifference command to carve out the notch near the top.

Given that this detailed model vastly exceeded the 300 polygon limit, I imported it into Maya and used it as a reference, building a simplified model around it that captured as much detail as possible while staying within the limit.

Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with using Pepakura to construct physical objects, my thought process at the time was centered around accuracy and detail rather than plausibility of construction. As such, the sheet layout that was submitted for laser cutting was poorly optimized, with many small pieces that made the construction process long and difficult. To make matters worse, I eventually reached a point where two sections would simply not line up. Thankfully, I was able to improvise, taping the "head" of the bishop to the base and leaving out two sections that added only minor detail. The final result is worn and battered, but is still instantly recognizable as a bishop. 

Original (Left) and Simplified (Right) Models

Laser Cutting Layout

 Keyshot Render A

Keyshot Render B

Assembled Model View A

Assembled Model View B

Chloe Ferris & Nathan Bower: Final Project Chess Piece

When we grouped up together, we started looking at different inspirations for our chess piece. When searching we found a very interesting, modern set that we wanted to recreate. We chose the bishop from this set, as we both felt it was the most interesting and aesthetically pleasing, as well as being achievable within the scope of this project.

Chess Piece Inspiration

Nathan created the model for the bishop in Maya, since it was going to have to be a polygonal model in the end anyways. He made sure to try to keep the polygon count very low, so the piece would be easy to assemble. I took this exported OBJ and loaded up into the Pepakura Designer to create the flat sheet that we would need to recreate the piece in 3D. I tried to make the cuts on the model in places that would allow easy access to the entire piece during assembly to the best of my ability, so it would not turn into a huge hassle later. Then, I took these cut pieces and arranged them as close as possible on the sheets, and exported the sheets out to be sent to Rhino. Once there, I used the Grasshopper script to create dash and dot-dash lines for the valley and mountain folds on each piece.

Cut Sheets From Pepakura

Cut Sheet From Rhino

After printing, we constructed the chess piece using Loctite to hold it together. The piece was pretty easy to assemble. We started by making the square base first, then adding each side for the middle part. We then assembled the head separately and attached it to the main body, then added the top piece.

Final Assembled Piece

Sowmya Rajendran & Maryam Khoddami: Project 8: Pepkura Chess Piece

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Week 15:

For the Pepkura chess piece project, Maryam and I decided to work on a design for the queen. We did  a little brainstorming and decided we would build either a dragon or phoenix. We finally went with a phoenix, since it's mythological origins and symbolic significance, especially in East Asian culture, are closely related to that of the queen piece. In Chinese mythology, the phoenix is commonly referred to as "Fenghuang". The Empress could only adorn the symbol as it symbolized grace, high virtue and most importantly power, which the Chinese believed was sent from the heavens to the great Empress.  These three characteristics are commonly associated with the regal queen.

he phoenix represented power sent from the heavens to the Empress. - See more at: http://www.mythicalrealm.com/creatures/phoenix.html#sthash.I1qlQfiA.dpuf

Our final model designed in Maya

 

 

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Week 16:

We got our pieces cut and began assembling this week. It was a bit tedious at first, especially the areas around the wings; the enormity of the top half of the structure made it difficult to assemble since it constantly kept falling apart even after copious amounts of glue. We finally managed to put it together and it came out great! This was a fun project!

David Norkiewicz: Project 8: Pepakura Chess Piece w/ Philip Barker

Statement of Purpose: For this assignment,we to expound upon the last object we created from cardboard. This time were told to model and create a chess piece. The piece that Philip and I chosose to do was a king piece. We took the idea from the the Lord of the Ring. We used Barad-dûr, aka The tower of sauron.

The piece was originally going to be a castle piece, but the idea of using this specific tower did not feel right to use it as a lesser piece on the board. Instead, this iconic tower would be used as our kingly piece to the set.

Modeling techniques: This model, while simplistic, was difficult to make while staying within the 200 polygon limit we were told to use.

As can be seen, the tower looks remarkably like the picture above. Orgionally the model looked much more exact, but the spires on the sides  had to be cut.

The final image above is our finished king piece. Putting together the tower took around 1.5 hours, but then again it stands about 4ft tall. I have to say that I really like this piece and will be looking into doing something like it in the future!

David Billings week 15 : Chess Piece

My design intent for this piece was to create something both elegant and harsh in nature, I believe I accomplished this with the subtle curve given to its form while being composed only of sharp angles and edges. Inspirations and influences for this design includes combining the form of a orchid flower with that of a crystal while retaining a shape and proportion recognizable as a chess piece.

I created this model in Maya and did so by first creating the base and extruding upwards, adding variations and extrusions as I saw fit to better express my design.

The material I chose to render in keyshot was a high polished black metal. I chose this because I felt it added to the refined nature and elegant styling I was hoping to achieve.