Brandon Wehenkel: Independent Study (Update 2)

Comparison

Since I already established the purpose of this study here, I won't need to reiterate the exact same thing again for this and the next two posts.  Unfortunately, by the time I created my first blog post I was already 3 weeks behind.  The scanning process was an utter nightmare for me, and I've understood that I may have made my sculpture a bit too detailed (I still wanted more detail too) and too large for the scope of the NextEngine 3D scanning device.  This time around I spent many hours after normal business hours in the lab working in the RapidWorks application.  The first week of February was nothing but hole filling and retopologization for the standing figure only.

For a turntable go here.

Modeling Techniques:

RapidWorks, Body

A great tool I used a lot was sew boundary, it fixed a lot of the Zfighting.  Healing Wizard also helped me identify which parts of my model had issues, not everything was fixed by the wizard, most of the time it was an assistance tool.  Isolating the problems that were identified with the healing tool made it easier to clean the mesh.

Standing Figure 

Before Alignment, 16M polys

Here you can see the color variation for each layer that became a clutter of massive problems.  A whole lot of messed up geometry and misalignment issues.  I also had an issue with the texture not following through to RapidWorks as well, but that was the least of my issues.

After Alignment, 26.85M polys

By the way, aligning took 6 hours with Rewrap.  The solution to reducing time, smooth = fewer polys.  I used three different methods:  Mesh Buildup Wizard, Rewrap, Optimize Mesh.  Optimize mesh never worked, it was an absolute 100% waste of my time.  From 1pm to 10pm the computer did nothing but "load," at one point the computer was running at 92% memory capacity due to this tool.  In my case, the wizard helped tremendously while the rewrap helped fix some of the overlapping geometry.  However, I still had to go in and delete a lot of the manifold edges and overlapping geometry because they made the model mucky like chunky peanut butter.  Some areas such as the buttocks and the legs were so destroyed by the manifold faces that I needed to rebuild a lot of the modeling with the sandpaper tool by hand.

One of many massive issues that came with Rewrap (after Global Remesh retopologizing) and decimate is that a large chunk of the normals flipped.  I am using the bridge tool here.  Take note of the massively broken boundary (aka squiggly yellow line on the back of the head).  Most of the model looked like this.  The horns were destroyed entirely from underneath.  The face lost a lot of the modeling from the nostrils to the neckline under the chin.  The gap underneath the udder to the pelvis was nonexistent and contained a boundary that went from the hand all the way down to the knee.  All the effort I put into making a unique stand also went to waste, now it's mostly flat.  A large chunk of that boundary was created from one of my partial scans from ScanStuido. (Later, I had to rebuild the stand in Mudbox just because RapidWorks didn't create a nice smooth mesh).

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: If you're trying to fill holes in ScanStudio and have an issue with the model being too large for the view window and think that you'll just fill the gaps with partial scan data, don't do it. It's best to not do close up scans of the object that are only partially aligned.  Make the decision to fit the entire object within the window or pick another scanning software.  If you can't make a fully attached scan discard it, otherwise you'll end up with a lot of massive broken boundaries in Rapidworks when trying to fill holes. Or unattached scan data.  The reason I chose to make only partial scans is that I couldn't get the torso to fit in the view window, so I let the scanner do what it needed to do and moved on with the data that I had.  Because I had about 1/3 of the torso scanned, the other 2/3rds were broken.  The location where the extra scan data overlapped with the original mesh caused a lot of flipped normals and massive gaps in geometry.  The tools in Rapidworks that try to remap or retopologize the sliced date sew pieces that you might not want to be sewn together creating a lot of problems later.

PARTIALLY ATTACHED SCAN DATA IS BAD!!
Scans B, C, and D were only sections of data, which basically corrupted my geometry.

 

This is the best example of what I'm talking about. (Ignore the massive wall on the backside of the figure, that was something that came about from using the wrong setting in a tool.)  The left thigh has a massive flipped normal, that is not a hole.  There are two layers of data on this model.  The legs had a more clean set of geometry, and the geometry underneath caused a lot of that messy, jagged noise.  This was a nightmare to repair.  Also if you go back to the image that I posted above with 26M polys, you can see the floating geometry that caused a seam from from the pelvic region all the way to the tip of the ear.  Most of it was deleted.  The hands were never fixed entirely in Rapidworks.

Mudbox, Body
I imported the body .obj file into Mudbox. Before you go any futher make sure you hold "spacebar" and select the arrows to change the position and scale of the object.  The importing process into Mudbox is dumb and the models are always scaled wrong.  When I imported the models, there were a few errors such as High-valence vertex, Two-sided faces, Zero-length edges, Degenerated Face. The best thing to do to correct these:

1. Make sure you're in triangular topology (quads don't work, *go here for more info)
2. Press "V" (goes into selection mode.)
3. Select all of the faces surrounding the error.  
4. Delete. 
5. Then use Mesh --> Patch.
6. Undo and redo the process until this works.

 Holes

I had run into a stopping point for the week of February 19-25th because of a significant error that has prevented me from continuing.  Sometimes on 22nd, I noticed I had a hole in my mesh post-quad topology.  Some reason Mudbox doesn't like editing errors in this topology type, so I imported the file into Rhino to clean the holes and discovered there's a vertex alteration in the .obj conversion.  The data becomes 4x larger when importing from Rhino to Mudbox.  The file never loads in Mudbox, unfortunately.  Professor Scott said to ignore the holes till I need to work in Rhino officially.   The Feb 23- Mar 3rd I was busy cleaning up the butter mesh on the body.

* March 5th, I discovered the solution to this hole problem and it was much easier to fix than I had thought previously. Use the Freeze tool to mask the holes (to prevent tearing in the mesh) then use the Remesh tool under Mesh --> Remesh, similar to Smooth --> Decimate in Rapidworks.  It asks for a percentage and poly count.  Just type in the poly count and it retriangulates the model.  Then you can go back and select all the polys around the hole with the "F" key and select mesh --> patch.

 Goat progression

The feet progression.

Because the feet were made on the base, the scanner didn't really like it much.  So I had to rebuild the feet twice.  Once in Rapidworks and again in Mudbox.  Nothing different was involved with Mudbox, I used all the same tools as the rest of the body.
 

Sitting Figure:

Import from ScanStuido

Udder mess

Scan Studio, Sitting

This part of the figure is the sitting portion of the process.  I did not run into any significant issues with this part.  The figure fit perfectly centered in the view port, and I only needed to do 2 scans, a top, and a side scan.  I aligned them with minor errors.

Before cleaning

Bridging the hoof

RapidWorks, Sitting

I first I fixed the viewport alignment with tools --> align --> Datum and changed the right image to match my view window for the front.
Then I used Mesh Buildup Wizard to attach all my scans from scanStuido to make a workable mesh.  The main problem is that the dew claws and the forward section of the hoof were misaligned similar to the standing figure, so I spent most of my time in RapidWorks cleaning up those areas.

Cleaned version 1

I had a few crazy boundaries that required some finesse.  Like I mentioned before the areas around the hooves were the worst.  I had to destroy most of the exterior mesh to rebuild it with the fill holes tool, golf and bridge were most useful.  I don't much like plateau much because it doesn't really know which part of the mesh to destroy; sometimes it erases the entire mesh.

The groin area was not possible to fix in RapidWorks.  I had to adjust in Mudbox.  There was a lot of non-manifold edges there, and I did the same as the hooves.  Used bridge and golf to remake the modeling of the legs and the teets.  The legs are folded over one another in this location and because there isn't a "pinch" tool like Mudbox/Zbrush.  In this program, you have to trick the mesh by building and destroying the mesh over and over till you get the right elevation for the geometry.


Mudbox, Sitting
The udders, the modeling around the buttocks and ankles, the creases, and the hooves were lost in the scan.  Same as the body and the arm I used the smooth, bulge, and knife tools. 

Cleaned version 2

Arm:

Mudbox Cleaned

Because all the issues I had with the standing figure I needed to create a new arm.  The mesh for the arm was fused to the udder, and I need to create a part that could be separated from the rest of the mesh for when the goat is sitting.  The standing figure is holding their udder while the sitting figure is not.

Scan Studio, Arm

Only one full 360 revolution scan was required for this model. I used 6 photos to complete the scan due to its simplicity.  It's just an arm.

RapidWorks, Arm

Same as the last two meshes, I first uploaded the scanStudio file then used mesh buildup wizard to attach all my scan data.  The bottom had a hole, and it was patched with bridge and golf.

Mudbox, Arm
Imported to Mudbox where the smooth, bulge, flatten, and knife tools were used significantly.

Rhino, All
I imported all the models into one file and manipulated them to begin my cutting.  I put all object on the origin by using Move and typed 0,0 in the toolbar.  Then used the various perspectives to position each object to intersect its corresponding geometry that I want to cut.

At this point, I wanted to see how the geometry matched up so I can go back and forth on Mudbox & Rhino.  Before and after, I wanted to bulk up the appendages. I made a minor error when creating the extra arm, so thats the last thing I need to fix before I cut all the geometry for 3d printing.

Problems:
This project was much more ambitious than I thought.  I am seeing that the descrepancies between the scan and the next stage in Mudbox/Maya/Rhino is a significant amount of repair and remodeling time.  Because Rapidworks doesn't have much for modeling a lot of gemoetry is lost when repairing the alignment problems.  I spent several hours just working in Mudbox which I didn't expect was going to happen.

The hardest part for this project is correcting my own bad geometry.

Brandon Wehenkel: Independent Study (Update 1)

Concept:
The scope of this project is to make a 3D printed figure that has interchangeable parts. The best example of what I was trying to do is similar to 3DTotal Games' Kickstarter project.  My idea is to create a figure that can be displayed in a standing position or a sitting position.  The idea stems from my interests in action figures and anthropomorphism in the art world.  My 3D printed sculpture will be painted when finished.

The inspiration for this project begins with Greek mythology, specifically Pan the Satyr servant to Dionysus (the god of wine and parties) who is half-man half-goat. Goats are one of my favorite animals, and I found it quite fun to make a goat sculpture. I want to create my own figurine. I am an avid collector of action figures as well as an active member of the furry community.  I prefer to work with anthropomorphic art when I have the desire to make something.  The sculpture was influenced and inspired by some artists I follow.  Bear in mind those who have a "*" in front of their name have works that involve nudity and may not be appropriate for all.  *ECMajor (who is the best source for anatomy for anthropomorphic characters,) *Tchaikovsky2 (my favorite artist), Danny Choo, *Miura Etsuko, *Hans Bellmer, *Liu Xue, *Kristine Poole, Beth Cavener, Ryohei Hase.


Modeling Techniques:
I was required to make my sculpture before the 1st day of class because of the complexity of the design and also my skill.  Sculptures such as these need a lot of time and planning for it to be done correctly.

 Scetch

Full body Scetch

I started first in the sketchbook May 2017 with a few hand-drawn pictures of how I wanted my figure to look.  I drew a few poses to understand what I wanted to make, but I never knew exactly which pose till I had clay in hand.  I started modeling my sculpture in August 2017 with the creation of a metal armature.  The clay modeling phase took several weeks.

 WIP V1 Bust (August 2017)

 WIP V1 Body (October 2017)

 WIP V2 Body; Udder V1 (October 2017)

Armature V3 (November 2017)

I decorated the armature with tape and tinfoil to speed up the cooking process.

Armature with tape and a beginning layer of clay (November 2017)

Udder V2 (November 2017)

Udder V3 (December 2017)

Sitting V3; WIP Standing V1 (December 2017)

Once the sculpture was to the point of desirability, I needed to make a sitting version as well.  I also learned I needed to create a new arm after I finished my first scan.

 V3 sitting finished with extra arm (January 2018)

I cooked the sculpture shortly after New Years, so the family didn't have to worry about needing the oven.  The texture darkened some.

Cooked (December 2017)

Then I took the project into Scan Studio where nothing turned out right except the first standing sculpture.  The top and bottom of some surfaces did not show well in the scanner.   I scanned everything in 360 HD with 14 layers.  All the scans took 72 minutes, and I did 9 scans.  6 of those scans corrupted or failed to align.

The only thing that scanned correctly for the standing figure.  The extra arm and the sitting sculpture scanned much better than the standing figure.

Massive Issues:

In Scan Studio with the 6 scans that caused problems I also tried to do individual scans, and for some reason, they couldn't align with existing families.  I made 2 individual scans (took about 10 minutes each) when the sculpture was on its side to try to get underneath the udder and chin, but those corrupted the entire 1st scan process.  I did manage to get a save file before the corruption, so it didn't waste a huge chunk of my time.

I used a zip tie to try to keep the sculpture in an angled pose for the scanner, and it didn't translate for the scanner.  Also due to the size of the sculpture, I had to make several dissected scans for it to fit in the view window in HD mode.  The torso was the most frustrating because it did not stay inside the view window when doing a 360 scan.  For some reason, the scan corrupted when the scanned object went outside its cutouts.  I could not do a 360 scan of the torso because of the corruption issue, so I only got HD layers for the legs to the stomach.  This was the scan after I turned the model on its side to try to get the modeling around the holes.  It was not possible to fill them with this bad scan.  I scanned 2 different ways, and both were unusable.

  Holes

After I scanned the sculpture, I noticed there were a significant number of holes. The top of the head, underneath the chin, a large chunk of the udders, the calves, and all of the base.  I was told this could be fixed in nextEngine where I could bridge the holes together, it is my next step.  I lost 3 days dealing with the masking process for Agisoft then two days figuring out why the point cloud wasn't working.

I used Agisof Photoscan as well, and it didn't work either.  I took 40 pictures with my lazy susan on a cloudy day in my backyard, uploaded them to photosphop, and created a mask for all 40 individual photos (1 of the 40 is on the top of this blog post).  I followed this tutorial and this tutorial.  I uploaded them to Agisof, aligned the photos, and was given a cluster of dots that sorta looked like my sculpture.  I then created a dense point cloud to create a better image, and it didn't change much.  I only had a little more than 4000 points in my dense point cloud which was not good.

Agisof Photoscan dense point cloud error

1st four weeks expectations were to scan the model to 3D, remodel in Mudbox and Rhino where I wanted to cut the model into smaller pieces for 3D printing.  Unfortunately, I ran into too many issues with the scanner that put me back.  I came in several times after regular school hours, and I kept running into significant problems with the scanning process.  I had to delete some of my scans because something corrupted and ruined a bunch of the save files.

 This was the best alignment I could receive.  There are some ugly layers of certain parts of the legs, the udder, and the arms.

Materials:
Black Polymer Clay
Grey and Peach Polymer Clay
16 and 18 Gauge galvanized wire
Masking tape
Heavy Duty Aluminum foil
Clay modeling tools and pliers.

Brandon Wehenkel: Waffle Lamp

 

Ghosted Black

 

Ghosted Colored

 Ghosted Black and Colored

Concept:
My initial idea was to create a lamp with a lid that also doubled as a frame for my engraved object.  However, with the numerous times, I restarted and changed my idea I had to ditch the idea of a frame for the lamp.  So I made a separate object which I talk further about in my engraving blog post.

I was inspired by Quinn Baldacci's rocket lamp with the lid.  I thought that was an ingenious idea to create a cavity for the light bulb while also keeping a design seamless and uninterrupted by large holes.  I created two designs that integrated the lid aesthetic. First was recreating the idea from Quinn Balacci's rocket and second was the bell shape inspired from Taiwanese Buddhist Temples known as a Pagoda.  I used an actual A-Frame design for the body of the lamp.

I saw the pyramid shape in Tamara Brennan's pyramid lamp and DISENO Y MANUFACTURA DIGITAL CAD/CAM's clear (acrylic) hanging lamp.  Their waffle style was what I wanted to replicate: using the corners as the rib for the horizontal cuts, plus the hanging lamp was gorgeous.  I would have enjoyed incorporating chains into the project, but I made a decision to make the lamps static on a flat surface instead.  I didn't have to worry about gravity and all the annoying small holes for the chain links.

I also was planning on using two materials for this project, so I also needed to figure out which ribs and which cuts were going to be what material.  Unfortunately, acrylic sheets are not cut to a traditional thickness measurement that matched wood sheets, so I had to be precise about where my inset slots were going to be.

Laser Cut Sheets

Modeling Technique:
I used polyline a majority of the time to create unique shapes.  I used curves to create an A-frame which I then polar arrayed 10x to get the style I wanted with a the flat triangle/ asymmetrical rectangle, I Boolean Unioned, Boolean Differenced, Boolean 2 objects multiple times.  I used project to slice the lids and the base.  I alt tapped to duplicate shapes.  I used spiral, twist, and pipe to create the light bulb inside as well as Interpolate Curve.  I used revolve to create the lid.

I had a hard time deciding which style I wanted.  I was going to make a frame for my engraved tile that was built into the lamp, but it just looked ugly.  I spent a lot of time deleting and revising my ideas.  The three styles were mostly from manipulating array polar and boolean 2objects.  I really wanted to incorporate an A-frame style into the design with a pyramid.  I ditched the pyramid idea because it covered up a lot of the triangles that were created from the polar array also I used contour multiple times with many failures with that pyramid shape.  Contour was used after I figured out which design to work with.  I have two materials, so I alternated the lid and the base as wood for a size difference of .1875 inches apart.  And the middle part which I call the torso is .220 inches apart.  I hope that small difference in thickness won't matter.  I felt like I might have messed up somewhere in deciding where to cut due to the size difference.

I used surface --> planar curves as well as extrudeCrv several times in the contour and section process.  I messed up a lot and needed very precise measurements when creating the complex waffle structure.  I followed the tutorial, as well as the class discussions.  I used Orient for the piped ribs.  I used split to cut them.  Again I might have messed up somewhere, so I'm hoping the print works.  This design is very abstract to me, and It has become an ordeal for me when I can't quite figure out how the slices will fit.

I also hope the hole I created for the cord works as well.  I didn't like that the cord could just freely sit anywhere through the design, so I had to create a base for the lightbulb to sit in.

 Keyshot 1 w/ Reference

 Keyshot 2

Materials:
In Keyshot:
I used glass for the vertical pieces and the glass on the lightbulb, I used hard plastic for the lightbulb base and soft plastic for the cord and textured wood for everything else.  I changed the colors of everything except the glass.
I liked the bump on the wood, so I made it slightly more pronounced.  I think originally it's at 0.5, I just bumped it up to 0.6.

 WIP

In real life:
2 - 24" x 48" x .220" sheet of acrylic, $56 each
5 - 24" x 48" x .1875" sheet of MDF.  $7.42 each (didn't end up being .1875 for all of them)
Home depot advertises, Medium Density Fiberboard (Common: 1/4 in. x 2 ft. x 4 ft.; Actual: 0.216 in. x 23.75 in. x 47.75 in.) and even that is still wrong.
Westinghouse Snap-in Candelabra base socket, 6'.
1 LED Lightbulb.
1 bottle of Gorilla Glue
3 bottles of Locktight Super Glue
Tears

Keyshot 3 w/ Cut Sheets

This lamp design was definitely not for beginners.  I had experiences I will never want to reproduce again. MDF is not worth the effort.  It's too fragile, and Home Depot does not cut every 1/4 slab the same.  I had 3 different sizes when I bought 5 boards. Needless to say, none of my slots worked with MDF.  It just broke or became very brittle. I think one vertical piece survived intact.

Lamp 1

 Lamp 2

Lamp 3

Brandon Wehenkel: Granite Tile Engraving

Edit 1

Edit 2

Concept:
I loved the idea of engraving stone.  My sculptor's instinct of mine went crazy hearing that it was possible for this project, so I used one of my old drawings from my beginner's art classes and imported it into curves.   Like many of my other projects in the past, I like to incorporate the human and animal aesthetic, so I designed Bubbah, my gorilla-human character from my scanned object post.

My initial plan was to recreate an old 80s family portrait idea.  Where there is one person, and their face is superimposed and faded behind, off to the back somewhere in the photo.  But it became too muddled.  Too many lines and it didn't quite look how I wanted it.

Ghosted Frame

I wanted to create a waffle frame for this project as well, so the engraved stone wasn't laying flat.  I used an A-Frame design to create the frame.

Detail

The border is designed with this style.

Modeling Technique:
Adobe Illustrator, raster and image trace
Rhino
Photoshop

This cost me a lot.  I have 13,678 curves and 5548 hatches.
I used TWEENCURVES, and that's about it.  I got help from Professor Scott for making curves very quickly, and I used that about 80% of the process.  The other was hatch, copy, paste, move, interpolate curve.  I used picture frame and measured a rough size for my 12x12 tile and just started drawing over the reference plane.  I went into Adobe Illustrator several times to try to import curves, but it looked like garbage.  Just think about how children draw before they know how to, it was just scribbles. Apart from the nose and eyes nothing else was recognizable.  So I had to create the entire design from scratch.  I stayed up till about 4 am for about 5 nights in a row starting my work about 5 pm.  There were a lot of tedious, repetitive moves.

 Frame Laser Cut Sheet with Lamp

I used the same technique as my lamp design for my frame.  I even used some of the same curves. Such as the "A-Frame" curve. I wanted to incorporate an A-Frame design, which I provided a link earlier of what one looks like.  So I used a triangle with a sliced top to make the initial shape.  I sliced the curve a tiny bit more, so the angle the tile sat was similar to a picture frame, where it isn't completely 90degrees.  The frame should slide into the cuts I created; unfortunately, it did not.  Even though I measured 13/32", I should have made the cuts a tiny bit bigger. I used the pipe and orient commands to create the cuts in the planar surfaces.  I used section to create the verticle planes and contour to create the horizontal planes.

Materials:
12" x 12" x 13/32" black granite tile.
2 - 24" x 48" x .1875" sheet of MDF (didn't end up being .1875 for all of them)
Home depot advertises, Medium Density Fiberboard (Common: 1/4 in. x 2 ft. x 4 ft.; Actual: 0.216 in. x 23.75 in. x 47.75 in.) and even that is still wrong.
Gorilla Glue
Locktight Super Glue
Masking Tape
Black Spraypaint

 Building Process

The frame is in the back, and it didn't work out, the materials I bought were too varied in thickness.  I had bought a sheet of MDF 1/4 in size measured it to be .1875 instead.  I went back the next week and got the same material from the same stack on the shelf, and it was a different thickness.  I didn't know this till I was putting the pieces together.  It was also too fibrous and broke with the littlest of pressure. I couldn't get it to fit the tile right either.  I'll need to recreate the design again, and it was my own project within a project, so it wasn't worth the fuss.  My father helped me redesign a new frame from the broken pieces that survived the accident I had.  Its not the prettiest fix but it is very nice in terms of funcionality.  I only wanted something to hold my tile for better viewing pleasure so the image below is to show the alternative for my frame.

 Uncolored Frame

Colored Frame

Based off the cut sheet image, I can see where I went wrong.  I put the horizontal cuts on a different sheet than the verticle cuts.  Because the place I bought the sheets from did not cut all of their sheets exactly the same, I ran into a project destroying issue.  My horizontal sheets could not fit the verticle sheets, and I ended up breaking a bunch of my MDF cuts.  I had to create an entirely new design from my broken pieces.

Engraving

The small details that I shared above did not fully render.  I chose too small of curves together and should have made my curves further apart.  A lot of my detail was wasted to the grain of the stone.  I learned my lesson and will know for my process next time.

Engraving with Frame