tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20617973916615135562024-03-19T03:57:31.794+00:00Psychobob ArtsWelcome to my blog on some 3D printing, modelling and Photoshop projects I have done.Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-51247870090077854502017-12-14T17:23:00.000+00:002017-12-14T17:23:39.426+00:004th place in Shapeways/Valve competition :)<div style="display: none;">
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4th place in Shapeways/Valve comptetion :D
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Surprise in the post!
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<p>
On a previous post I have mentioned Shapeways and Valve reached an agreement, allowing me to once again allow people to purchase my 3D prints (based on Valve owned franchises) on Shapeways. The agreement involves Valve receiving a royyalty per sale. This meant the return of my TF2 sentry and Portal coaster. Huzzah!
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<p>
Shapeways also ran a "Valve Design Competition" where anyone who has opted into this agreement will be placed in a competition. I forgot all about this as it had been a while since the competition announcement and figured I never made the cut, but then I got an awesome surprise in the post. I was placed 4th! That netted me an awesome 12" Blu Soldier Exclusive from GamingHeads and some Shapeways vouchers.
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<p>
It was a very nice surprise and I am certainly flattered I was placed as one of the winners, the winners placed above me have some awesome designs, so congrats to them and check their stuff out. Thanks Shapeways and Valve for running the competition!
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<p>
I'm also working on a new project, it's pretty slow going to due to time availability and complexity, but hopefully that will be up soon!
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<p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/35146-valve-design-contest-design-team-fortress-2-valve-games-win-epic-prizes.html" target="_blank">Shapeways Valve Design Competition Announncement</a>
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<li><a href="https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/36508-announcing-winners-valve-design-contest.html" target="_blank">Shapeways Valve Design Competition Winners Announncement</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.shapeways.com/shops/psychobobarts" target="_blank">My Shapeways shop</a> where you can purchase the winning design and any other designs I may have</li>
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Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-24965974558425209042017-03-22T21:33:00.000+00:002017-03-22T23:00:56.233+00:003D Print: Fallout 4 Medical Protectron and child<div style="display: none;">
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Pre-war magazine: Medical protectron and child on the cover of the Massachusetts Surgical Journal
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War. War never changes.
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<p>
Like many people I have been playing a bit of Fallout 4 and when I came across the "Massachusetts Surgical Journal" I thought the composition and subject on the cover was too good not to give it a go. The protectron is a little different to the in-world model you see, which made it more interesting to me and the pose with the kid riding on it's shoulders looked great. I needed something to get me back into 3D printing and the idea didn't feel like it would be so challenging that it was beyond my abilites, but not so easy that it wouldn't keep me interested. I felt the kid would present me with the biggest challenge as I typically am typically making hard surface model rather than organic.
</p>
<h3>YouTube Video</h3>
<p>
As normal, I'll start with an embedded Youtube video.
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<h3>Planning</h3>
<p>
Seeing as there was a kid in the model and there was no moving parts I decided I would get this printed in the "Full Colour Sandstone" (FCS) material from Shapeways. As with most of my prints, this wasn't going to be a large scaled model and this would make detailing the kid a lot easier. This means I needed to keep in mind the FCS design guidelines as it is more fragile than other materials so ticker walls would be needed. During the modelling stage however, I do push the guidelines a bit and suffer for that; more on that later.
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[The basic plan on part/material separation and the wire route]
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<p>
FCS being a much more fragile material always concerns me a bit. Like the white nylon material "Strong and Flexible" (WSF) from Shapeways, I believe it is printed in a manner where there is a vat of powder all around it acting as support. This is great for the printing process, but FCS comes out the printer in a very "green" or fragile state (almost like damp plaster that hasn't fully dried). It is prone to breakage, dents and falling apart. Once it comes out the printer it is left to dry out and then is later infused with something similar to super glue to harden it. So this particular pose with the legs and arms sticking out made me think that the arms and legs will take damage when they take it out of the printer, so I planned for these to be printed separatly. This also allows me to use more than 1 million polygons which is the limit for individual models with Shapeways.
</p>
<p>
Some parts would be printed in in "Frosted Ultra Detail" (FUD); a slightly transparent material capable of much smaller and finer detail ... it also smells like marzipan! This was so I could print some parts somewhat transparent like the head dome and the defibrillator diffusers. The defibrillator wires I was originally going to make with copper wire but let's just say the curled shape didn't hold for long, so I decided to print those in FUD also.
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<p>
Lastly, I wanted to add in some LEDs for the electrical crackling from the difribilators (because who doesn't like LEDs!?!). I wanted them to flicker so I looked into how I could make this with 555 timers but they were all too bulky and complicated for what is a simple application. So I went straight for some candle LEDs. Whenever I incorporate some simple LEDs, I like to use micro USB as the power source. No need to swap batteries, and micro usb plugs are incredibly common and cheap.
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<h3>Making the 3D model</h3>
<p>
I started with the protectron and modelled it into a T-Pose. This is fairly common practice as it lets you easily model all around the character without too much getting in the way. Whilst I made the whole protectron hollow and the model is symmetrical, the base of the left leg and righ were modelled slightly differently. The left leg would be sticking up and forward (and be visible), so the base of the foot was made solid and it was given a bevelled lip around the permimeter for aesthetics. The right leg would be the leg on the ground holding the model up, but this is also the route for the wire so a hole was left in the center to allow the wire to pass through, and the base was made flat and level so when it was glued to the bade, it had more surface area.
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<p>
Next came the kid which I knew would be the trickier of the two characters for me. The hair was particularly tricky as I normally use hair emiiters when I've done hair in the past, which effectively will offload a lot of the job to the rendering engine. However you can't use this in 3D printing, everything has to be real geometry so that mean I ended up trying to sculpt it from a dense mesh. Like I've said before, I'm not very confident in my organic models yet.
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<p>
Once the models were ready it was time to rig and pose them. This involves building a skeleton for each one, binding the skeletons to each mesh and then making some deformation maps to control where and how the meshes bend. This takes a while to do, but I feel it is worth it as it provides limitations on where things can move or can't as well as making the actual posing or refining of pose a lot easier. During the posing stage, I did try to make the center of mass over the right leg as much as possible, FCS doesn't need to be handled with 'kid gloves' but it is more fragile than my usual choice of materials so I wanted to take care not too much pressure was being added onto the hip joint and cause things to snap easily.
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<p>
Once posed, I then froze the model into the pose and then went back in to do some further modelling. I decided to do it this way as some of the geometry needed to be cut away depending on the final pose and it wasn't being animated. After freezing the geometry I then sculpted in some further detail on the kid (i.e. some muscles in the legs and arms, wrinkles in the shirt) and cut away some of the protectrons internal geometry to make sure the wire route was clear.
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[Basic render of model]
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<h3>The print order from Shapeways</h3>
<p>
Normally there's nothing to say in regards to ordering the 3D print from Shapeways, but this time it was one problem after another. I said it in the video and I'll say it here, it was feeling like a cursed project! If you wish to join me on this bumpy road, read on. If not, you may want to skip this section :
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<p>
(Really not a fan of "Big Brother" myself, but reading this section back to myself, all I can hear is the the voice of the chap who did the voice over :S)
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<p>
<b>Day 1:</b> I placed the order on the 1st of the new year, and like many of you I'm sure when placing online orders, you find yourself checking on the websites constantly to see an order progress. Shapeways estimates <b>6 business days</b> for FCS as well as similar times for WSF and FUD.
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<p>
<b>Day 8:</b> Things were still in "pre-production" indicating the part hadn't been printed yet even though it was due to ship according to the estimate. I was expecting a little bit of a delay with it being the xmas/new year period, but not even moving to the production stage after 8 days concerned me, so I decided to drop them an email.
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[Attempt 1: Hmmmm .... something other than the fingers is missing, what can it be(?) ]
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[Attempt 2: My leg!!!!]
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[Attempt 2: Warped arms :( ]
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<p>
I had a response from one of the customer service team saying it was on route to their distribution center and should arrive in a couple of days, so things were delayed a little but they were moving. Shortly after that email an automated email came through saying the order was delayed and they estimate the new shipping date to be 7 days later ..... oh :( This puts the new shipping estimate at 17 days after order, not good for those who are impatient with orders like myself! At least I was notified I guess.
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<p>
<b>Day 12:</b> A couple of days later another email comes through. A customers service agent contacted me to let me know they spotted a problem with one of the parts and sent me a picture. They said that the fingers broke off and whether it was acceptable or if I wanted to pursue a refund or re-print. At this point before seeing the picture I already considered the fingers breaking and was going to accept it. The size really was pushing the FCS design guidelines so I was for the most part expecting this. So I open the picture and notice something else other than the broken fingers .... what is going on with the texture! It's mostly white and has what seems to be random grey patches in places. So I respond letting them know that their picture has highlighted some other than broken fingers that I wasn't ready to accept. Shapeways website render seemed to show the texture mapping correctly, but it's possible I had introduced something odd into the model files. Did I mess up on the texure mapping?
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<p>
Turns out the problem was on their side, so a reprint was needed.
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<p>
<b>Day 16:</b> On day 12, the order was moved back to "processing" according to the website which is the beginning of the process ... and it hadn't moved since. The estimated shipping date also hadn't updated since the original order so I didn't know when it was shipping out. An email goes out to them asking for an update and ETA. A day later Shapeways responds and lets me know it will be 6-8 days for production on the reprint but they can send out some of the other parts (FUD and WSF) ahead if I want. Those would be pretty useless to me without the other parts so I asked them to just send everything in one go when it's ready. New ETA on shipping 22-24 days since the order.
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<p>
<b>Day 20:</b> Shapeways gets in touch and lets me know the on inspection of the latest print the foot appears to have not survived the printing process. Am I happy to accept it as is?
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<p>
As long as it looks to be a clean break I was happy to accept it, as I can then glue it on. No mention of the fingers in the email so I had my hopes high that this time they survived the printing process!
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<p>
<b>Day 23:</b> Finally a notification to say things have shipped, yay!!
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<p>
<b>Day 24:</b> The parts finally arrive and ..... I see problems :(
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<ul>
<li>Broken fingers ... I can live with that</li>
<li>Protectron arms were warped so they looked lopsided and the parts wouldn't fit together quite right</li>
<li>The shadows on the kid came out darker than expected, the area around the mouth for instance is fairly dark</li>
<li>The biggest issue was the torso was blocked with glue or support material that shouldn't be there, so the wire route is blocked</li>
</ul>
<p>
After an exchange with Shapeways, I eventually settled on having to change my plan. I didn't want to have to go through all of this all over again, so I decided to change my power source from USB power to battery and cram it in the torso, and sand/cut the arms very carefully to get them to line up and fit too.
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<p>
I know this sounds like I'm giving Shapeways a negative review, I'm reallynot! I've used Shapeways before and will no doubt use them again. Their customer service is pretty good and this was eventually resolved through a refund and was probably just a bad set of coincidences, but I basically had enough after all of this and wanted to just get cracking on things rather than delay them another 2 weeks.
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<h3>Modifying the plan / Circuit</h3>
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[BATTERY CLIP, Y U NO FIT!?!]
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[Huzzah! Nothing a stanley knife and some sandpaper can't fix]
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<p>
As the torso was blocked, I couldn't run the wires via the route it as originally planned. I attempted to drill it out with a hand drill which worked to a point, but I couldn't clear it completely as it invovled two 90 degree turns in a very tight 1cm space, so unless I cut the torso in half to get the drill into the right position, that was a no-go. So I abandoned the USB powered wire route that was going to go through the base, leg and then torso.
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<p>
Leave out the LEDs? ...... <b>Nah!</b> Time to look at cramming batteries as best as I can into the torso as new power source.
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<p>
Armed with my trusty digital calipers, I measured the space available in the torso and started looking into batteries that could both fit in the torso and also power the LEDs for a half decent amount of time. Some fit but would only power it for 30 mins, while other would would power it for hours, but were too big for the space available. In the end I went for the 4LR44 battery (which is basically 4x LR44 button batteries in serial). I was considering a rechargeable battery and have a micro USB circuit to plug into a recharge things without having to take anything out the protectron, but it just got too complicated with such a cramped space. Removeable batteries it was.
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<p>
As I would eventually need to swap batteries in and out, I wanted a battery clip rather than solder anything directly to the battery. After hunting around on eBay, I found one small enough in profile to fit .... or so I thought. It looks like I bought one slighly too big, but luckily it's all plastic and thin metal contacts that I can bend to my will!
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<h3>Painting / Smoothing </h3>
<p>
Not much to paint, not much to say. I tried to polish the dome with fine sand paper (up to 1200 grit) and whilst this certainly made it more transparent, it unfortuntatly didn't become completely transparent. I think it was because I couldn't polish the inner curvature easily. The idea was to "tint" the dome blue with some Tamiya clear blue, and whilst I still like the color it was more opaque than I planned. The only other parts to paint were the coiled wires and reflector on the protectrons head.
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<p>
Now in the magazine cover the joints and the hips are chromed. I'm 90% sure I chose not to do this because it was awkward and I just wanted to get it done (this project had spanned months by this point from the time it was started). I may come back at a later date and chrome them, but I decided to leave them un-chromed. Having them un-chromed did grow on me over time, but the option to correct this later is perfectly viable. I also couldn't quite get the shoe covers to look right when I was making them out of the green material I had, so I left those out too. I'm fairly sure, like the chrome, I can add these later if I ever chose to re-visit this. I'll make a new post if I do this in the future and link it here.
</p>
<p>
I also gave the FCS parts a light sand and clear coat in order to try and remove some of the rough texture. It also has the added benefit of making the colours deeper and in some places cause colour edges to get a bit sharper.
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<p>
The base is a simple disc and made from WSF so it's farly durable. So I hot glued a temporary nail into the bottom of it, attached it to the drill and spun it over some sandpaper which made short work of smoothing it. I'll have to remember this trick for the future.
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<h3>Assembly</h3>
<p>
Finally it's time to put it all together. I had to solder the wires in situ, which was pretty awkward but eventually I got it done. I glued the leds in the arms to stop them moving and also some copper coins into the base as additional weight now that the plan had changed and a circuit wasn't there taking up space anymore.
</p>
<p>
So a lot of thing went wrong with the project, but all-in-all, I am still very happy with it. The blocked torso certainly added in some extra complication.
</p>
<p>
On hind sight there are things I could have changed to improve this; if I separated the leg joints at the hip rather than the thigh would have allowed me to clear any blockages. The fingers posed together rather than separate would have probably avoiced them snapping. Everything's a learning experience though, so I'll try and consider this type of issue on the next FCS project :)
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<img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G2P06iRvlhA/WNMBNDVxvTI/AAAAAAAABoI/1-6EJ_VfugAqnAkxb1hmwh_v3HSxGjYVACPcB/s1600/finished_02.jpg" />
</a>
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TbxRPtJszC8/WNMBNI1e5cI/AAAAAAAABoI/xDzdL9TJZXEDeJv3qGJ7uKnhFfDNtj5BQCPcB/s1600/finished_03.jpg">
<img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TbxRPtJszC8/WNMBNI1e5cI/AAAAAAAABoI/xDzdL9TJZXEDeJv3qGJ7uKnhFfDNtj5BQCPcB/s1600/finished_03.jpg" />
</a>
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2qoTldiniM/WNMBNN0oX1I/AAAAAAAABoI/9IqsIQDRMdccfI8-WPgLTQDzuxtYAE2xACPcB/s1600/finished_04.jpg">
<img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2qoTldiniM/WNMBNN0oX1I/AAAAAAAABoI/9IqsIQDRMdccfI8-WPgLTQDzuxtYAE2xACPcB/s1600/finished_04.jpg" />
</a>
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V97jRWILBYM/WNMBNDpKYcI/AAAAAAAABoI/NcGqiSZb9PAxKCZ7v6FGncNP_LNjKvGswCPcB/s1600/finished_05.jpg">
<img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-V97jRWILBYM/WNMBNDpKYcI/AAAAAAAABoI/NcGqiSZb9PAxKCZ7v6FGncNP_LNjKvGswCPcB/s1600/finished_05.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-41325073430897829182014-12-08T23:10:00.000+00:002017-09-30T18:53:22.973+01:003D Print: Team Fortress 2 Sentry design/price change<div style="display: none;">
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Due to Shapeways price structure change, the TF2 sentry needs a design change
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fxs5IArfM58/VIYTBy5G9MI/AAAAAAAABTA/B-1bat4ObTE/s1600/thumb_TF2SentryUpdate.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="articleFirstThumb">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fxs5IArfM58/VIYTBy5G9MI/AAAAAAAABTA/B-1bat4ObTE/s1600/thumb_TF2SentryUpdate.jpg" />
</div>
<p style="color:red;">
<span style="font-weight:bold;">Update (09-2017):</span>
With Valve's partnership program with Shapeways I can once more sell this. It's the wrong franchise, but right now I'm doing a CL4P-TP dance ....
</p>
<p>
A few months ago, Shapeways changed their pricing structure. This affects how they calculate the base price that I have no control over and like many other Shapeways designers, I found my models increased in price. Some by a few pounds, some tripled in price. The one that jumped out the most was the TF2 sentry level 2 parts which were 3.5 times higher than the previous price making it pretty un-affordable. Some Shapeways designers were affected so bad, that they said they were going to have to close up shop and either move to another 3D printing service or quit the game altogether as they felt it put them in an unrecoverable position.
</p>
<h4>So what changed in the pricing structure?</h4>
<p>
Originally the pricing structure comprised of a handling charge (for the entire model regardless of how many parts) and the a fee for every cm³ of material used in the model. The new pricing structure now comprises of a handling charge <u>per</u> part (so if in the case of the level 3 parts there is a rocket silo plus 4 rockets, that counts as 5 handling charges even though they are contained within the same file), a fee for every cm³ of material used in the model (which they did reduce in comparison to the previous fee prices) and also a fee for every cm³ of machine space it takes up.
</p>
<p>
They said these changes will allows them to print 75% of Strong and Flexible models cheaper but it seems all my models seem to fall into that other 25% where they have either not benefited or seriously been affected negatively :(
</p>
<h4>What can be done?</h4>
<p>
On the pricing structure change, nothing can be done. There have been comments from what I can see where people are in the same position as me, but the pricing structure is here to stay. Looking at this from Shapeways point of view, I'm sure this makes perfect sense because at the end of the day they are a business and they need to make sure any incoming funds outweigh outgoing.
</p>
<p>
It seems Shapeways advice on this is generally, "connect everything with a sprue, this will make everything one part reducing the handling charges". Whilst that will technically work, I feel like this is a bit of a cop out and is a backward step from a designer point of view and a consumer point of view. The purpose of a sprue in traditional casting is to provide a route for liquid material to flow through the mold and to reduce air bubbles. It does interconnect all the parts also so you don't lose things (i.e. like some Warhammer model kits) I'll give you that, but that's a minor part of why a sprue is used traditionally.
</p>
<p>
A fantastic advantage of SLS, is you can print things without sprues or other support material as they have the surrounding powder providing all the support you need. By forcing designers to add in sprues to reduce the handling costs, it means consumers then need to use tools to prepare the parts prior to assembly if it has any moving parts..
</p>
<h4>You've had your rant Psychobob, I'm bored of it. Now what?</h4>
<p>
Frankly, I'm going to add in that sprue :( As much as I don't want to, this is the only real way of reducing the prices. As things currently are, they aren't affordable. So I'll have to sacrifice the "ease of assembly straight out of the box" for "cheaper to purchase with some work out of the box needed". It's annoying as it reduces the parts handling costs, but at the same time increases the material used cost (the sprue counts as chargeable material) and the machine space costs (the sprue can't be placed too close to the model so it can be more easily removed by the consumer, this increases the space it takes up in the printer).
</p>
<p>
This means when you receive the items, the sprue will need to be cut away and then the "nubs" left behind will need to be filed/sanded away. I have of course, done my best to place the sprue connections on flat and easy to access places to make the cleanup procedure easier.
</p>
<ul>
<li>Level 1: This will actually be unchanged. Adding a sprue only served to increased the cost of the piece no matter what I tried.</li>
<li>Level 2: This is the one that will need the sprue and the extra work. The sprue will need to be cut away and the "nubs" will needed to be filed down. I have reduced this from 38 to 3 "parts". I opted to making this three instead of 1 as there wasn't a good place to add a sprue connection point on those two wire blocks without making the consumer do so fiddly and careful sanding on them. I have tried to reduce the machine space as much as possible also now that Shapeways have begun to start charging on that in order to bring the costs down more.</li>
<li>Level 3: Like level 1 it will be unchanged. This too only increase the costs not to mention would make this more difficult for the end user as there are no easy flat areas to add sprue connection points without "sealing" the model which would increase the material costs.</li>
</ul>
<p>
With this the level 2 pieces should be back in the affordable range again, albeit, require a little more work when you receive the item.
</p>
<h4>Some quick notes and tips on what needs to be cut away when you receive the level 2 pack</h4>
<ul>
<li>
I strongly recommend using some cutters instead of a knife as it will be a lot safer, but it can be done with a knife too if you're careful. Again, cutters are my <u>recommendation</u>.
</li>
<li>
When cutting away the sprue, cut higher up leaving more of the sprue attached to the part when making the first cut, then go back and cut the excess off from the part when it's free from the other parts. This will reduce damage to the parts giving you cleaner results (as you have greater control over the cutting).
</li>
<li>
The image belows shows what the parts should be once the sprue has been cut away to give you a rough idea.
</li>
</ul>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ljHmvG0tRfM/VIYsUyuV0vI/AAAAAAAABTQ/dW6XmWadTt8/s1600/Parts.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ljHmvG0tRfM/VIYsUyuV0vI/AAAAAAAABTQ/dW6XmWadTt8/s640/Parts.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Roughly how many parts and what they should look like when the sprue is removed]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The rough order I recommend in cutting away the sprue is as follows:-
<ol>
<li>Cut the sprue at the back of one of the gun barrels. This separate the gun barrel for you.</li>
<li>Repeat the previous step for the remaining gun barrel</li>
<li>Cut the sprue to separate the gun barrel mounting plate</li>
<li>Cut the sprue to separate the canister cover</li>
<li>This should leave all the bullet clips on a sprue connected to one another. Cut each of the bullet clips away</li>
<li>If you followed my advice from before, you left a generous amount of sprue still on the pieces. Trim these back with the clippers as close to the surface as you can get and then finish rubbing them down with a small file or some sandpaper. The sprues were attached to flat surfaces so it should hopefully be an easy job with a bit of sand paper or small filing set. They are then ready for painting or further sanding if you want to give it a smoother finish in general</li>
</ol>
</p>
<p>
My level 2 model has been updated on Shapeways to bring the price back down which you can find from the main shop link <a href="https://www.shapeways.com/shops/psychobobarts" target="_blank">here</a>. This will ensure you can see all the latest versions of all the models I've made.
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-3754988840231408112014-04-06T20:17:00.000+01:002014-04-07T09:32:45.807+01:003D Print: Dead Space Nano Circuit Bench<div style="display: none;">
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Dead Space bench to help you upgrade your weapons and survive the necromorph outbreak! Make sure you bring power nodes.
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wIjRbsDSYn0/U0GpAsnbSJI/AAAAAAAABNo/a5xEnbgQjDs/s1600/thumb_deadSpaceBench.jpg" />
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<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
Requires 3x power nodes
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
It seems to be an all too common introduction to my posts lately; "Well, It's long over due, but it's finally complete". I hinted last year that I was working on a larger project; that one eventually never made it off the design table for specific reasons but morphed into this project. I have a very brief <a href='http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2014/04/3d-print-abandoned-2013.html'>post</a> on what the project was going to be <b>here</b>, but I won't dwell too much on that in this post.
</p>
<p>
This project is going back to a franchise I really enjoyed; Dead Space. Previously I made the rig helmet for a friends birthday but I wanted something for myself too. Since making the rig helmet I've learned a fair amount about 3D printing so I was ready for setting myself a challenge a bar higher. So I thought it's time to delve into combining 3D printing with some electronics. I eventually settled on the Dead Space bench, it covered what I was looking for; something from the franchise, has some interesting moving parts and I can add a display module as well to help ground it more as the bench from the game.
</p>
<h3>YouTube Video</h3>
<p>
As normal, I'll start with an embedded Youtube video. This video doesn't go into the full details of the project but does contain some of the all important footage of the final results.<br />
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/a13LkVW8DFU?wmode=transparent" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<h3>Planning</h3>
<p>
A lot of my projects tend to start out with just a very basic concept of how I'm going to do things and a basic sketch. I don't tend to spend too much time on the planning side as 3D modelling allows you to make adjustments as you go, I just need a very basic plan and then dive straight into it. This project however I had to make more than just the basic plan before starting as it would involve electronics and movement. So I spent a little time going over what the bench roughly moved like in the game and then figured out how to make this happen with a physical object as best as I could. Game objects that move sometimes "cheat" (I use that term loosely) in that they either wouldn't be able to function like that in the real work and clip through things in the virtual game world. These days items are becoming more realistic in this area, but some "cheating" still happens.
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A-uA81fHIDE/U0FxJG8mj0I/AAAAAAAAA_Q/gRkg7x4trq8/s1600/Preparation.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A-uA81fHIDE/U0FxJG8mj0I/AAAAAAAAA_Q/gRkg7x4trq8/s640/Preparation.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The basic plan on how the bench moves]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The bench in the game moves up vertically exposing some segment sections in the "central column" area and then the main side "trays" swing down from the vertically standing state to the horizontal state in which they can be used to put items on. The holographic interface then expands to fill the screen and then gives you the various options for the bench in the game.
</p>
<p>
I could mimic the movement and I could see how I could do it with a single servo, so that made things much easier as this would be a small scale bench. The hologram unfortunately was something I obviously wouldn't be able to replicate, but I could at least have a small display screen to mimic some of the functionality. I went for a small OLED module in the end as it was affordable and would cover the basic needs (if I had unlimited funds I could have gone for something like the 4DS transparent OLED which is bigger and as the name implies, transparent; further selling the idea the interface is holographic). The OLED module needs a microprocessor to control what is displayed and as I was going to have to have a microprocessor, I also decided to use it to control the servo. After some research, there seemed to be two popular choices to go with; PIC or Arduino. I eventually settled on the Arduino, or more specifically the Arduino Uno R3 board.
</p>
<p>
I then had a quick think about the power source and as normal, I wanted to avoid batteries. I generally like powering things through a USB on a PC but this project involved a motor which can draw a lot of current causing damage to the PC port. However in this day an age, we have those handy USB AC mains plugs for your smart phones or tablets so I could stick with the USB idea. The plug for my tablet covered up to 2.5A, plenty for what the circuit should draw. One final improvement over my other projects I wanted to incorporate was not to have the USB cable permanently attached to the project. So I decided I would attach a female micro USB port so I can disconnect the cable and put the piece on the shelf when not in use.
</p>
<p>
Lastly I thought about how you would actually initiate these actions via buttons. At first I was going to mount some buttons to the base plate but then I noticed the logo panels on the front and sides of the bench's central column. This was perfect. Three logo panels that I could use as buttons; one to activate the bench and then two to cycle through the screens.
</p>
<p>
So that was the basic planning done, time to get to it!
</p>
<h3>Making the 3D model</h3>
<p>
In reality I actually worked on the 3D model and the electronics in tandem as the circuit components size would affect the 3D model parts, but it's a bit hard to write about them both at the same time so I'm going to split them apart. For the modelling process, I used Solidworks (I seem to be using CAD quite a lot these days for 3D printing, but still use Modo in the process every now and then, especially if I'm playing around with the model design as it's much more fluid to do that in Modo) which has some useful tools such as collision detection so I could simulate the moving parts to see if they collide in undesired situations.
</p>
<p>
The original model was going to use a timing belt in order to give the OLED screen some back and forth movement when the bench activates. However I couldn't easily find a belt of the right size or price for my needs! It was unfortunate, but I changed the design so the OLED module was affixed to the central tray.
</p>
<p>
I had the basic model done but then went on to completely finish the electronics before continuing so I could ensure the model would be able to house things. I'll get to the electronics in a moment, but once they were completed I finished up the model, made a few modifications along the way so they would fit properly and then the model was complete. When making the model I designed it so it could be taken apart, so I modelled press fittings and screw holes so it could be taken apart relatively easily if I needed to (i.e. if the servo ever stopped working or found bugs in my code so I could update the microprocessor code). The model isn't 100% accurate (for instance there are 3 upper blocks in the central column when I believe there are only two in the game, the screen is being suspended via a "pipe" whilst in the game this hovers as a holographic interface). I decided to hollow out the cylinder component of the right hand side tray as I had some Milliput (two part putty) spare from another project, so I saved a little money on the 3D print this way. I also had some styrene, so I decided to make some of the inner mechanism parts with that rather than 3D print them (3D printing via third parties isn't cheap! So I save where I can).
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uhz8TFYY-dw/U0FxJL_vKqI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/n_05SLCrucQ/s1600/Model.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Uhz8TFYY-dw/U0FxJL_vKqI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/n_05SLCrucQ/s1600/Model.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The finished 3D model]
</div>
</div>
<h3>Electronics</h3>
<h4>Prototyping</h4>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x95E_IQWwYg/U0FxKDgqLII/AAAAAAAAA_k/vcfrpe0GYJw/s1600/Prototype1.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x95E_IQWwYg/U0FxKDgqLII/AAAAAAAAA_k/vcfrpe0GYJw/s640/Prototype1.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The initial OLED prototype]
</div>
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1p-I-iVi7yk/U0Fw4iNQa9I/AAAAAAAAA9w/ubQWLgpiLfw/s1600/DSC_9337.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1p-I-iVi7yk/U0Fw4iNQa9I/AAAAAAAAA9w/ubQWLgpiLfw/s640/DSC_9337.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The finished breadboard prototype]
</div>
</div>
<p>
Using a few breadboards I started getting to work on the circuit. I started with the servo as that seemed to be the most straight part to get working. I made a basic circuit which would allow me to power the servo from a dedicated power source for the development stage (in this case 4x AA batteries) but send the control signal from the Arduino. Whilst the Arduino is capable of sending enough power for a servo, it's generally not a good idea to power something like a motor directly off it's pins as it can damage the board or components because the current a motor can draw. That's why I used batteries during development to isolate it. I connected a basic push button to the circuit, added in some code and then I had a fairly basic circuit that would turn the servo to one position when the button was pressed and to another when pressed again. This is the basic control mechanism for activating and deactivating the bench.
</p>
<p>
From here the circuit began to grow. I added in the components for the OLED module, it drew very low current and the voltage requirements was only 3.3v. I loaded up a demo code example to make sure I had the OLED connected properly and then from there I began writing the code to make the screen output what I wanted. I wanted to go through a faux "boot" sequence (that would have a shameless plug for my website), then I would need it to wait on the "nano circuit repair" screen until the activate button was pressed. When pressed the servo would activate and then you would be taken to the inventory screen. Two additional buttons were added to the circuit and when pressed they would then allow you to cycle back or forth through the available "circuit" screens.
</p>
<p>
The OLED pixels only have an "on" or "off" state, no opacity controls so the screens I was making couldn't completely replicate the ones from the games. I originally had horizontal scanlines, but without opacity control they added too much "noise" obscuring much of the information, so I decided to omit those. Once the basic OLED functionality was there it was time to add on some bells and whistles. I wrote some extra code functions that would make a vertical "scanline" scroll horizontally on the screen whenever it was idle. As the OLED pixels only have an "on" or "off" state, I was having to update the entire screen quite regularly. Not a problem, but on some of the more complicated screens (i.e. the inventory screen) you can notice it moves slower than on others because of the amount of data it's updating on each move of the scanline. I also added in the bench logo screen complete with blink effect from the game, and I added an animation to the exit status of any of the screens to make the transitions less abrupt and more interesting.
</p>
<p>
I finally added in some additional code to prevent the bench getting stuck in "odd" states. I wrote some code to reset it's position when powered on during the boot up phase (should the bench ever be activated and then have the power removed for instance), prevented the buttons from working until the boot sequence had finished, prevent the next/previous screen buttons from working until the bench was activated etc... These aren't necessarily needed but it's good practice to try and prevent any undesired situations with code enforcement. In the end the arduino code came to just over one thousand lines of code.
</p>
<p>
The Arduino Uno board is quite compact, but it is a development board at the end of the day so it has a lot of extras that you don't necessarily need in every project. You may not need all the digital/analog pins, the voltage outputs, the USB port, the DC jack etc... A lot of people I find tend to put the entire board into the projects permanently, not because they need everything but just because it's the easiest thing to do (I personally think it isn't the most economical thing to do either as you need to replace the entire board if you have another project). I didn't want to follow their example as it's just a waste and wanted to only use the Uno board as the development platform. So I removed the microprocessor, bought the parts I needed to run the chip (a 16Mhz crystal, a few capacitors and a few other bits) and then I could run everything without the board. The parts are inexpensive and it means I can just spend a few pounds replacing the chip so I can use the Uno board again (it's certainly cheaper than just replacing the board all the time). It also means I don't have to add space for the Arduino board which has a bigger form factor than what I could make as I didn't need all of it's features. For anyone looking to do the same, I used the schematic from <a href="http://www.appliedplatonics.com/breaduino/" target="_blank">breaduino</a> to figure it out what components I needed (a lot of it I already had, I just needed a few additional parts like voltage regulators).
</p>
<p>
Finally I hooked up the female micro USB port to the breadboard with a voltage regulator and I had my circuit working without the Uno board. The micro USB was pretty difficult to solder wire to; the pins are microscopic! I eventually did this but I burned out the first USB port I tried, luckily I had a second one. I finally used some heat shrink to help protect the joint so if it ever gets pulled on, the heat shrink should take the brunt rather than the weak solder joint. I did this to all my wiring as it's just good practice if you have the option.
</p>
<h4>Shrinking and finalising</h4>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oJ23B00iFZk/U0Fw4lMmOuI/AAAAAAAAA90/uUGDJdIF3WY/s1600/DSC_9521.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oJ23B00iFZk/U0Fw4lMmOuI/AAAAAAAAA90/uUGDJdIF3WY/s640/DSC_9521.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The custom PCB that I ordered]
</div>
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GsQieTnufJk/U0Fw6C_Qv8I/AAAAAAAAA-I/2VEnzB8r_ws/s1600/DSC_9527.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GsQieTnufJk/U0Fw6C_Qv8I/AAAAAAAAA-I/2VEnzB8r_ws/s640/DSC_9527.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The PCB with the components; prior to crystal fix]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The breadboard ptototype circuit was pretty bulky and messy. For it to fit into the bench, I would need to shrink it and that's where strip board (or vero board) normally come into play. This generally shrinks things quite considerably as you use the copper tracks to replace some wiring. However the circuit was quite complicated and I would have to stack multiple layers of the strip board to make it work. So I looked into the PCB route and eventually went down that path. I found a place that would make custom PCBs and I was a bit sceptical as they provided a pretty cheap service, but took a shot as they accepted paypal (if anything went wrong). So I created my circuit schematic in a piece of software called Eagle, created the board layout and then sent it to them for them to produce.
</p>
<p>
It came out beautifully! As they were based half way around the world, I had to wait 3 weeks but I then got the boards in the post. They provided me with 5 copies of the board (minimum you need to order with them) and they all seems to work. I used the continuity setting on my multimeter to test the board and it all seemed to match up to the schematic I sent them so they did exactly what I wanted them to do
</p>
<p>
I soldered all the components to the board (the crystal, capacitors, resistors, headers etc...), put in the micro processor and then bam! ... nothing worked. At first I thought I made a cold solder joint but they all seemed to be fine. After a few hours of tearing out my hair, I eventually found the issue. On the breadboard prototype everything was good, however when I created the schematic I put the capacitors on the wrong side of the crystal. With some extra wire and stripboard, I made a fix for the PCB board. It's a bit bulkier and looks messier, but it worked and I was up and running. Aside from that mistake on my part, everything was good with the circuit!
</p>
<div class="clearFloat"></div>
<h3>Post process after printing</h3>
<h4>Modifying and smoothing out the parts</h4>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0otlpOA45O4/U0Fw4pPXq_I/AAAAAAAAA-A/lVkxZV3n9GU/s1600/DSC_9510.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0otlpOA45O4/U0Fw4pPXq_I/AAAAAAAAA-A/lVkxZV3n9GU/s640/DSC_9510.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The 'center tray' as it arrived from Shapeways]
</div>
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FUTszmY-LbU/U0Fw6JBwSrI/AAAAAAAAA-M/agezJ_iaVB0/s1600/DSC_9710.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FUTszmY-LbU/U0Fw6JBwSrI/AAAAAAAAA-M/agezJ_iaVB0/s640/DSC_9710.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[A styrene piece for internal guides]
</div>
</div>
<p>
Once I uploaded the model file for printing and received the parts, I cleaned up the parts as usual to remove any loose powder from the SLS process. Before getting to the smoothing stage, I tend started adding the internal styrene pieces (braces and parts to keep the parts inline and prevent slippage when they move). Styrene is cheap, very malleable and easy to work with. I also adding in the milliput into the hollow cylinder and shaped it to have a rounded top. The reason I did this before the main smoothing stage is because I use filler putty in the process and that could help stop the styrene or miliiput bonding to the plastic properly if they are attached after the filler putty has gone down.
</p>
<p>
Once that was done, I then went through the usual tedious sanding stages. As always, very repetitive, very time consuming and it tends to be pretty boring! If you hadn't gathered it yet, this is always my least favourite part of the process.
</p>
<p>
I also felt that the model was a bit too light and was wobbling when the servo activates, so I sealed some 2p coins in the base with some milliput in order to give the base some more weight. This stopped the wobbling.
</p>
<h4>Attaching the permanent pieces</h4>
<p>
As mentioned previously, I designed the part to have press fittings and screws where possible so it would be easy to disassemble if needed (for instance if a servo stopped working). However a few parts did need to be permanently attached to one another. That was the OLED "casing" and the pipe that connected the casing to main central tray. So I had to wire up the OLED screen and then seal it into the casing prior to painting. I then used some white-tac over the screen to prevent the paint sticking to it and some cling film to protect the wiring from the paint. I also decided at this stage to add some hotglue to prevent the OLED wiring inside the piece from getting caught on any moving parts.
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
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<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5cTKZALpqvQ/U0Fw7fSyy_I/AAAAAAAAA-Y/bVSs_Fmhxw0/s640/DSC_9725.jpg" />
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<div>
[The OLED module being sealed up]
</div>
</div>
<p>
I superglued the push switches to the panels that would act as buttons and then covered them in cling film to protect them. They had headers attached to them making it easy to attach/detach them from the main circuit. As the buttons were circular, this unfortunatley mean they could rotate. I didn't discover this until the very end so I had to go with it, but an improvement would have been to use square buttons so they wouldn't rotate. That or circular push buttons that don't rotate! You will probably notice this in the video when I push the buttons they can rotate. This wasn't intentional.
</p>
<p>
I used some brass tubing to act as the hinge for the two side trays and before supergluing this into place, I added some 3-in-1 oil to ensure it smoothly rotated. It probably didn't need this but I thought why not add a drop just in case! With this, all the hard work was out of the way and it was time to get painting.
</p>
<h4>Painting</h4>
<div class="alignImageRight">
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<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Fkevkby0kOA/U0Fw-F1R3jI/AAAAAAAAA-k/cSfdR1IJfyc/s640/DSC_9819.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[A 'button' with it's finished paint work]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The painting was fairly typical and I can't really say too much about it I've never said before. I used an airbrush to apply some acrylic paints, I then used some silver paint to dry brush on fresh metal damage. Finally, I sealed everything with some clear coat and the part was finally ready for assembly (once I removed the white-tac and cling film I used to temporarily protect things from the paint that is).
</p>
<h4>Putting it all together</h4>
<p>
Time for the final assembly. All the parts went together pretty nicely, there were no issues. It was a little difficult getting all the header pins from the switches, LED, micro USB and OLED screen connected to the circuit (as it was done in a very tight space), but that's where a trusty pair of tweezers come into play. They made light work of this and everything connected up great.
</p>
<p>
I finally screwed the base down and I had my finished piece!
</p>
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</div>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-74189523172861347962014-04-06T20:16:00.000+01:002014-04-06T23:39:27.789+01:00The abandoned project<div style="display: none;">
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A project abandoned
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lCxc-ZU2m6c/U0A-E-sheZI/AAAAAAAAA88/Ql_JqSYz9IM/s1600/thumb_Abandoned.png" />
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<a name='more'></a>
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<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lCxc-ZU2m6c/U0A-E-sheZI/AAAAAAAAA88/Ql_JqSYz9IM/s1600/thumb_Abandoned.png" />
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<p>
For a little while now, I had been dropping some hints here or there in comments on youtube and posts that I was working on what was surely going to be my biggest project to date. This project was unfortunately abandoned. Not because of difficulty, finance or anything like that (those would have been incredibly high though), but quite simply because someone else beat me to the punch. Or I should say, their project was similar enough to mine that made me loose my drive.
</p>
<h4>The project was going to be an electronically controlled GLaDOS!</h4>
<p>
The plan was to print a replica of GLaDOS (which would have approximately come to around 12 inches) and combine 3D printing with traditional model making. The model would have been functional in the sense that I was going to design the electronics so that GLaDOS could move via some motors, there was going to be an audio unit for sound and there was going to be some other components such as LEDs and OLED screens to further enhance the piece. The plan was to have some controls allowing you to select some preset scripted scenes where GLaDOS would act out those scenes from Portal 1 or 2, complete with accompanying audio (for instance the intro scene in Portal 2 where she gets re-activated). You would finally be able to plug in a separate "control pad" that would allow you to manually move her (when I say "control pad", I don't mean anything as nice as a 360 control pad. More like a piece of strip board with some rotary switches!).
</p>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-drFByo5zfsc/U0FYTdsR3cI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/h0Gk7t1qTdI/s1600/Glasdos+Render.png">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-drFByo5zfsc/U0FYTdsR3cI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/h0Gk7t1qTdI/s640/Glasdos+Render.png" />
</a>
<div>
[A render of a rough GLaDOS model made during the planning stages; this model isn't 3D printable]
</div>
</div>
<p>
So the bar was set pretty high in this project but more importantly, I had the motivation for it. Over the course of several months I had put together a 3D basic model in Modo, but not one that was 3D printable. This was more just to gauge how things would work. I had also been gathering some pieces that I would need for the project (spindle motors salvaged from some old hard drives that were being disposed of) and bought myself an Arduino to act as the brains of the project. I put together a very basic prototype with cardboard and some electronics (just basic movement at this stage), but progress was going pretty slow. I didn't have as much time as I wanted to spend on the project and there was also a learning curve as I'm not a hardware specialist (my main occupation is software development rather than hardware related).
</p>
<p>
So the weeks dragged into months and then it happened. A chap on the internet going by the name of "Dragonator" put together a very nice model of GLaDOS for those with home 3D printers to download and print out for themselves (<a href='https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:61796' tagret="_blank">Thingiverse link</a>). His project was different than mine in that it was a ceiling lamp. However he did make the piece moveable via servos (as I was planning to do). There was no sound modules, or preset scripted scenes that it would act out (it was all manually controlled) but his model was very accurate in appearance and looked very nice. When I saw this, I lost almost all motivation. I had been beaten to the punch! I can't blame Dragonator and it is a fantastic looking piece, but this for me put the final nail in the coffin and I decided I wouldn't be continuing with the project. I generally like my projects for myself to be unique (as they tend to be quite costly) and this felt too closely matched to what I had been planning on doing and to a good standard too.
</p>
<p>
This left me in a predicament. I had some electronics I specifically purchased for the project but lost almost all motivation for the project they were intended for. Luckily I never ordered the 3D prints (not that the model was ready for that) which tends to be the most expensive part. I wanted to wait until I had the electronics more finalised as that was going to be one of the most difficult parts for me. So I sat down and tried to think up another project. One that I could use these parts for, something that I would be motivated to do and of course, something no one else has done yet. </p>
<h4>... and I'm happy to say I thought of one!</h4>
<p>
The project ended up being the bench from Dead Space. It may not be as elaborate as GLaDOS, but it fit the bill. I can't recall ever seeing anyone else 3D print one of these, it was something from a game franchise I love so the motivation is there and finally it was something I could use the servos and OLED modules I bought on. A new project was reborn from the ashes of the dead one! You'll find a <a href='http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2014/04/3d-print-deadspace-bench.html'>post</a> to this project on my website!
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-59882296605834226172014-04-05T18:05:00.004+01:002014-04-05T18:14:20.892+01:002014 equals a new website design<div class="articleFirstThumb">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tb8Q0U3T6AE/UK93g7KlTgI/AAAAAAAAAWU/K33-Bxzmh_c/s1600/thumb_websiteRedesign.png" />
</div>
<p>
It's 2014, that means it's time for a re-design of the website. I wanted to redesign the website so I have more screen real estate for posts, make it a bit more media heavy (let's face it, a picture can more than likely describe things better than I can articulate!) and also make the website more responsive (so it should work with desktops, tablets and phone screens). I may in the future incorporate "lazy load" javascript if it proves the posts get too media heavy or people are having loading issues, but for the moment I haven't incorporated it. I've decided I'm not going to add lots of fixes for old broken browsers (*cough* IE *cough*), instead I'm going to concentrate more on browsers like Chrome or Firefox which are far superior and let's face it, the bigger market share. IE 11 actually looks half decent, but I'm not going to add lots of fixes and workarounds for pre IE 11 unless I feel it's absolutely necessary. Join the modern era people, use a modern web standards compatible browser!
</p>
<p>
I've added some jquery in the new design (for instance: like the jump to top icon that appears when you scroll down, the slider on the homepage supports touch screen swipes) to give me some nicer features, used some CSS3 and html5 in the current incarnation of the website. I've also built the theme from the ground up rather than using part of a template like I did last time (after all, you're then at the mercy of another developers code which can bite you in the backside, which is what happened in early 2013 to the website). If you spot any problems on the website, please let me know along with what operating system and browser you are using :)
</p>
<p>
Hopefully you'll like what I've done with the website, but let me know what you think in the comments.
</p>
<p style="font-weight: bold;">
My latest project should be up in the next day or two. I just wanted the new website design to go live first :)
</p>
Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-65640005421295373882014-04-05T18:04:00.000+01:002014-04-05T18:08:26.800+01:00Video: Portal pressure button coaster<div style="display: none;">
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This is a video of the Portal pressure button coaster I'm selling on Shapeways.
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3XBAf1zR0Vo/ULDzItKF_RI/AAAAAAAAAYg/G0DaQ-vGN64/s1600/thumb_Video.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<h3>3D Print: Portal pressure button coaster</h3>
<p>
This is a video of the Portal pressure button coaster model I'm selling on Shapeways. More information on this can be found on the full post of the project. More information on this can be found on the full post of the project <a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2013/04/3d-print-portal-pressureplate.html" target="_blank">here</a>.
</p>
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Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-85158821900754259922014-04-05T18:03:00.000+01:002014-04-05T18:03:48.895+01:00Video: Team Fortress 2 sentry gun<div style="display: none;">
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This is a video of the assembly of my Team Fortress 2 model I'm selling on Shapeways.
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3XBAf1zR0Vo/ULDzItKF_RI/AAAAAAAAAYg/G0DaQ-vGN64/s1600/thumb_Video.jpg" />
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<a name='more'></a>
<h3>3D Print: Team Fortress 2 sentry gun</h3>
<p>
This is a video of the assembly of my Team Fortress 2 model I'm selling on Shapeways. More information on this can be found on the full post of the project. More information on this can be found on the full post of the project <a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2013/04/3d-print-tf2-sentry.html" target="_blank">here</a>.
</p>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sO7POvaU9zg?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
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Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-65379883947590099842014-04-05T18:02:00.000+01:002014-04-05T18:02:27.750+01:00What is Dropbox and what is the referral link for?<div class="articleFirstThumb">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HCGoJ0JYW2c/UK93g2g7h2I/AAAAAAAAAWc/-jlVm2k_7ig/s1600/thumb_Dropbox.png" /></div>
I love Dropbox, it's a fantastic tool that I would recommend for everyone!
<br />
<a name='more'></a>
<p>
There are a lot of uses, even if you only have 1 computer, so please keep reading as this may interest you. If you've never heard of dropbox, you can find out more about it at the official site <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/" target="_blank">www.dropbox.com</a> or click <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/tour" target="_blank">here</a> to jump to their "tour" page that describes it or continue reading below about why I love it and it's potential uses.
</p>
<p>
Before I get into meat and potatoes of this, if you'd like to sign up for this, please consider using my referral link below. Not only will this help me but this will also benefit <b><u>YOU</u></b>. For every person who signs up through this referral link, I get 500mb of additional space and so do you. So using this link will give you 2.5GB of storage to start with instead of the normal 2GB :)
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Referral Link: <a href="http://db.tt/fTnVFrRS" style="color: #f97911; text-transform: none;">http://db.tt/fTnVFrRS</a></h4>
<h4><u>General background on what Dropbox is</u></h4>
<p>
The general gist of what dropbox is, is that it's probably the easiest way to store , sync, and, share files online (it's effectively cloud storage space). There’s no complicated interface to learn, it works seamlessly with your operating system and automatically makes sure your files are up-to-date. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms and also some mobile phone platforms (iPhone and Android for instance). You can sign up for free and start with a 2GB account, which you can increase for free by getting referrals, taking part in annual events, completing some tasks etc... with an upper cap of 16GB (if it's a free account). You can also pay for a premium account and get 100GB, 200GB or 500GB accounts for a reasonable monthly fee.<br />
When you install Dropbox, the software will create a specific dropbox directory on your computer and only files put into this directory are synced to the Dropbox cloud. Dropbox is perfectly secure but if you're a little paranoid (like me!) and you don't want sensitive data (for instance finance spreadsheets) uploaded to the cloud, it's simple: don't put those files in that directory and they won't get synced to the cloud :)
</p>
<h4><u>That's what it is, but what can you use it for?</u></h4>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<i> -- The first one is pretty obvious. Backup storage! --</i>
</p>
<p>
If your computer hard drive ever crashes or if you ever accidentally delete a file (and empty the bin on your computer), you can just log into your dropbox account and recover the file(s).
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<i> -- Synching files across multiple computers/devices --</i>
</p>
<p>
This is another fairly obvious one as it's something dropbox advertises quite a lot. I you install dropbox on multiple computers (they can also be a mixture of platforms like Windows, Macs, Linus and phones!) and tell each one to use your account, it keeps all the files on each computer in sync with one another automatically. No more having to keep transferring files on USB from the desktop computer and then copying them to your laptop manually. So if you make a file on your desktop, update it and then go to your laptop, the laptop will have the updated one ready for you. And vice versa.
</p>
<p>
I have this on my iPhone and Android tablet too. Frequently myself and friends will show each other files we've been working on (videos, pictures, music etc...) through Dropbox on our phones, as we always have our phones on us and we don't have to even think about transferring files and keeping them up to date, Dropbox does that for us automatically.
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<i> -- Sharing files online --</i>
</p>
<p>
You can use Dropbox to share files from your account for other people to access. Again, myself and friends use this to show what we've been working on and get some feedback. I also use a it a fair amount at work, when we have to send large files to clients. I believe there is a limit on how many times the file can be accessed a day, so I wouldn't use this to host CSS files or resources for your website, but as a general tool for sending or sharing files with specific people, it's great.
</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">
<i> -- Versioning your files --</i>
</p>
<p>
This is probably one of my favourite uses. When you modify a file in the Dropbox directory, it actually stores them as a new version rather than replacing it completely. So you can log into your account and see all previous versions and even download older versions of your files. There probably is a limit to how many versions it will retain before it starts overwriting the oldest, but I'm sure I've seen at least 30 older versions listed for project files before.
</p>
<p>
For instance, I frequently use this when I start a new project. I create a new sub directory under the Dropbox directory and will have my project files in there. Every time I modify one of these, it will sync and create a new version of the file. So if I'm creating a 3D model and changed something quite drastically from what it was 2 weeks ago, but wanted to see what the old version was like, I can download the older version of the file from 2 weeks ago. I can either choose to restore it so it overwrites the file I have in the Dropbox directory or save is somewhere else with a different filename so I have both versions. Pretty cool feature.
</p>
<h4><u>So there you have it</u></h4>
<p>
Dropbox is a great FREE tool. I'm sure there are lots of other uses out there but these are just a few I would like to highlight. You can also get a little creative with it and find other ways to use it.
<p>
<p>
For instance, I set this up with a few friends to keep a "Terraria" (http://www.terraria.org/) game world in sync with one another. Normally, one of you would have to act as the "host" of the game world and all the data is saved to their computer and only their computer. So if there was 3 or more people, the same person who is the host has to always be available if the others wanted to play that world. What I did was got them to all install dropbox, and then I created a new "shared" folder with them so that whatever we put in there, is synched to all our computers (even though we each had different dropbox accounts). I then got them each to run a few commands to create a symbolic link from this folder to their Terraria game folder and then we were all set up to go. Anyone one of us could act as the host and we would have the most up to date game world file available. So if one person couldn't come online or even if someone just wanted to play the world level on their own, there was no problem as the most up to date world data was always on all of our computers instead of just 1 persons.
</p>
<p>
Again, here's my referral link if you're thinking of signing up to Dropbox. It will give both <u>YOU</u> and me an extra 500mb of data for free!
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">Referral Link: <a href="http://db.tt/fTnVFrRS" style="color: #f97911; text-transform: none;">http://db.tt/fTnVFrRS</a></h4>
<p>
Once my account hit's 16GB (which is the upper cap of free accounts), I'll remove the refferal link as it probably won't work anymore, but I'll leave this post up as I do truly believe Dropbox is a great tool for people to use.
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-52631012377895653622013-04-28T17:36:00.000+01:002017-09-30T19:25:11.011+01:003D Print: Portal 2 pressure button coaster (for sale)<div style="display: none;">
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Buy your very own 3D printed pressure plate, in colour and a perfect scale as a cup coaster!
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zmxRwZr_Nz4/UX1PwaXkSjI/AAAAAAAAAj8/umYC4yFQmPk/s1600/thumb_PortalCoaster.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<p style="color:red;">
<span style="font-weight:bold;">Update:</span>
Valve and Shapeways have started up a partnership program, and with that the return of the coaster to my Shapeways shop!
</p>
<p>
Hope you've read my Team Fortress 2 sentry posting, because I'm not just putting one product up for sale but a second one also. This time it's the Portal pressure plate .... mini style! This isn't going to really be much of a documentation on the build as it's pretty much the same as any other project aside from the additional UV mapping and texturing, so I'm not really going to document much on that front this time around. A basic summary of it is that everything was build from scratch in solidworks, all UV mapping was done in Modo and all texturing was done in Photoshop.
</p>
<h3>YouTube Video</h3>
<p>
As normal (when I have a video available that is), I'll start with an embedded Youtube video. This video will show you the fully coloured piece as it arrives from Shapeways and also my version once I smoothed it out a little bit and clear coated the piece.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1l0h75KTVTI?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
</div>
<h3>General information</h3>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YVWYXlcqt0/U0GicrwRlkI/AAAAAAAABNI/isGf5UEqAlc/s1600/DSC_8244.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1YVWYXlcqt0/U0GicrwRlkI/AAAAAAAABNI/isGf5UEqAlc/s640/DSC_8244.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The part straight from Shapeways with no post work carried out]
</div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GNKD1IVK9oc/U0GicjmCvNI/AAAAAAAABNI/v6MfMfHOpVY/s1600/DSC_8245.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[A close up of the leg piece. Again, prior to any post work]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The pressure plate comes fully coloured from Shapeways and is printed in a different material than my regular plastic pieces. This is printed in a gypsum based powder which gives it a slightly rougher texture than the plastic pieces, but it comes full coloured so you don't have to paint anything yourself, which is pretty damn cool! As it has a rougher texture, I advise you to give the base a light sand with some fine sandpaper to make it a bit smoother (be careful doing this though as the ink only permeates around 1mm deep. The more you sand, the more faint the colour can become and in the worst case, you can remove the ink altogether). You could also give it some coats of clear coat which will help smooth out the roughness of the piece (keep reading for a warning on clear coat).
</p>
<p>
It looks a bit speckly here, that's mainly because the semi-gloss finish reflecting the light towards the camera making it look worse than it actually is. In real life, it looks pretty good.
</p>
<p>
It's very rigid and as a result should be considered to be more fragile than plastic (as it can't absorb an impact like flexible material). However, even with that said, it's pretty sturdy, it just wouldn't survive being thrown across the room or a large enough force.
</p>
<p>
The pressure plate is perfectly sized as a coaster! (The ink can fade when wet, so if you do use it as a coaster, make sure you give it a few coats of clear coat/varnish to protect the colours. Also keep in mind what I've said at the top of the post about the surface).
</p>
<p>
I use mine as a coaster so for me, it was important to seal the piece with some clear coat. I gave the entire surface a light sand with some fine sandpaper to smooth out the surface texture. This caused a little bit of frosting, but once I applied some clear coat, this then removed the frosting and made it look really nice.
</p>
<p>
A word of caution when it comes to clear coating! <br/>
When the "full colour sandstone" pieces are printed at shapeways, they are actually dipped into a CA solution (similar to super glue is a basic comparison) to harden the piece. Some clear coats may react odd to this, so I strongly advise you to first test your clear coat out on a discreet part of the model (for instance th bottom).
</p>
<p>
Below are pictures of my coaster once I had finished sanding and clear coating the piece. As you can see, it looks really nice and to the touch, it's incredibly smooth.
</p>
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<div>
[Mine after sanding the entire surface lightly and putting a few light layers of clear coat]
</div>
</div>
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</a>
</div>
<p>
You can find my shop <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/PsychobobArts" target="_blank">here</a>!
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-14607948807131564352013-04-10T22:06:00.000+01:002017-10-10T20:58:21.434+01:003D Print: Team Fortress 2 Sentry (for sale!)<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
Buy your very own 3D printed Team Fortress 2 Sentry gun! Complete with upgrades.
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Um9TkI17ndU/UWXHIL-i7UI/AAAAAAAAAio/9pSqxer142o/s1600/thumb_TF2Sentry.png" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
The Engineer says: "Like this heavy-caliber tripod-mounted little old number designed by me, built by me, and you best hope... not pointed at you.
</blockquote>
</div>
<p style="color:red;">
<span style="font-weight:bold;">Update (09-2017):</span>
With Valve's new partnership program with Shapeways, I am able to once more sell this product. Booyah!
</p>
<p>
It's been quite a while since I updated my website with any new content. I've had a lot on recently and when I did have time I've been working on, what I can only describe as, my mammoth of a project. I'm not going to give anything away on that one yet, but it's proving to be very ambitious and the costs are starting to add up. So I thought I should do a few mini projects to break things up and maybe, even raise a little fund to help out the project. This brings me to something new. This model is actually purchasable from my new <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/PsychobobArts" target="_blank">Shapeways shop</a> that I've just opened!
</p>
<p>
The sentry is actually split up into 3 separate "products" in my shop. You have a pack for <a href="http://shpws.me/P1QG" target="_blank">level 1</a>, <a href="http://shpws.me/P6wY" target="_blank">level 2</a> and <a href="http://shpws.me/P1QI" target="_blank">level 3</a>. So if you wanted a level 1 gun only, you can choose to just buy the level 1 pack and then you don't have to purchase the parts for the other 2 levels. Each level requires the preceding levels however, so if you wanted a level 2 gun you must purchase the level 1 parts and to get a level 3 gun, you need to purchase both level 1 and level 2. Just like in the game really; you can't build a level 3 gun without first building/upgrading the previous leveled guns.
</p>
<p>
I've designed it so none of the gun actually requires glue to assemble, so this means you can always choose to purchase a lower leveled sentry now and you can choose to upgrade it at a later date. Ordering all 3 "products" at the same time will save on shipping costs however.
</p>
<p>
There isn't a painted version you can purchase, but painting it yourself and making it your own is half the fun.
</p>
<p>
<b>You can find my shop <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/PsychobobArts" target="_blank">here!</a></b>
</p>
<p>
I started this model at least a year ago (probably more), but for at least 10 months it just sat on my hard drive, gathering virtual dust as I was working on some other things. A friend finally convinced me to go back to it and finish it off and pretty glad he got me to do it.
</p>
<h3>YouTube Video</h3>
<p>
As normal (when I have a video available that is), I'll start with an embedded Youtube video. This video is actually more aimed at being an instructional video on how to assemble the gun and how to change it into the 3 different leveled sentry guns. However at the end of the video, you will see some pictures of my sentry gun that's been smoothed and painted.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sO7POvaU9zg?wmode=transparent" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<h3>Making the 3D model</h3>
<p>
So, I dusted off my model file and loaded it up again in Modo to finish it up. The file had barely gotten off the ground from level 1, but that turned out to actually be a good thing. I've learned one or two new things about 3D printing since starting the model and I was now making it with the intention of selling it on Shapeways so changes needed to be made.
</p>
<p>
I needed to change the model somewhat to be printable at my target scale. This meant some details needed to be changed or even omitted. New details also needed to be added to facilitate the idea of being able to upgrade the gun from level 1 to 2 and finally on to 3.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7XddCIl_3Ks/U0Ggn7Jsm2I/AAAAAAAABL0/VeztZ7_yC6Q/s1600/PortalTurretRender.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7XddCIl_3Ks/U0Ggn7Jsm2I/AAAAAAAABL0/VeztZ7_yC6Q/s1600/PortalTurretRender.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[A quick render of my 3 versions of the gun]
</div>
</div>
<h3>Post process after printing</h3>
<h4>Cleaning/smoothing out the parts</h4>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uJrOSMYYpwo/U0GghkJHfGI/AAAAAAAABKg/rFQBW9uksXI/s1600/DSC_8074.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[The level 1 parts assembled straight from the box]
</div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3u6LYMpyK7E/U0Ggh2KY0qI/AAAAAAAABKk/GXVeLtivcA4/s1600/DSC_8085.jpg">
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<div>
[After sanding]
</div>
</div>
<p>
I then went on to follow the same practice I have done on previous models. I started with a good clean of the pieces as there was trapped powder that hadn't been cleaned out. Most likely you will have powder trapped in same areas I did, so I've put down a list below so you can have a list of areas to check (of course, you should just give them a quick general clean too). Some of the parts are small, so clean them in a bowl of water so you don't lose anything down the drain. I used a very expensive tool (an unfolded paperclip) to help me pick free some of the powder.
<ul>
<li>Level 1: Within the main tube on the leg section</li>
<li>Level 2: Within the Gatling guns</li>
<li>Level 2: Between the barrels on the Gatling guns (I used a paper clip here to free the material between all the barrels)</li>
<li>Level 3: Within the 4 rockets</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
Once cleaned, I then tidied up some of the small holes. Because of the nature of 3D printing, small holes generally don't come out perfect, so these needed tidying up so they're not obstructing the wire later on. The holes are designed for 1mm wiring, but the wire I was using happened to be 1.5mm wiring. So I used a 1.5mm drill bit to clean up these holes, but if you are using 1mm wiring you should just use a 1mm drill bit. Of course, try threading through the wire to make sure it's ok. Below are the hole locations.
<ul>
<li>Level 2: 2x on the canister cover</li>
<li>Level 2: 2x wire blocks</li>
<li>Level 2: 2x Gatling guns</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
I then went onto the smoothing stage (optional stage, as paint helps smooth the surface, but I just choose to do this).
</p>
<h4>Painting and applying the finishes to the parts</h4>
<p>
Finally on to the fun part. Painting!
</p>
<p>
Some of the paint work was airbrushed on, but a lot of the model was actually painted on with a brush. Using some thinned acrylic paint, I gave the model some colour and followed the sentry gun texture from the game (mostly anyway, I didn't follow it exactly). I decided to go with team red ..... because I only had red and ran out of blue paint :P
</p>
<p>
I tried to make sure that nothing was painted on too thick as paint adds thickness and can potentially stop pieces fitting into one another properly if it's too thick.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3llW_yfeTM0/U0GglMweEXI/AAAAAAAABLM/NYtKTmIZex4/s1600/DSC_8123.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[Painted pieces prior to decals]
</div>
</div>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IjvvpiAveIA/U0GghgB1F5I/AAAAAAAABK0/CdPnwjs9GT0/s1600/DSC_8091.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[The decal applied to the pod]
</div>
</div>
<p>
As always, I want to protect my paintwork with some varnish. I think it's even more important when you have parts touching and so it protects the paintwork when they rub against each other.
</p>
<p>
Onto the decals next! There was only 1 decal I put on, but you can put a decal onto each bullet chain link to add some additional detail (I didn't have any clear decal sheets left so I haven't done this yet, but may do in the future); the warning label on the side of the rocket pod. I then hit the pod with 1 more coat of varnish to protect the decal.
</p>
<h4>Putting it all together</h4>
<p>
Time for the final assembly. This bit was a snap. If you watch my youtube video above, I show you how everything fits together and it's pretty straightforward. The only additional thing was to cut some wire to thread the wire blocks onto (again, all covered in the video).
</p>
<div class="clearFloat"></div>
<h3>The finished product!</h3>
<div class="galleryGrid">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IkZn119L2Ds/U0Ggi8pxEUI/AAAAAAAABK4/3VhXKGaj_Pk/s1600/DSC_8147.jpg">
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</a>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nhCPc1J5oh4/U0GgojTbCLI/AAAAAAAABL4/1K1kmC4_odw/s1600/DSC_8215.jpg">
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<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D1F8ovAC0sg/U0Ggnsuw8ZI/AAAAAAAABMA/RF5xiwICC2A/s640/DSC_8226.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
<p>
Well, that wraps up this post. Remember, you can purchase the model (unpainted) from my <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/shops/PsychobobArts" target="_blank">Shapeways shop</a> and the levels are split up into 3 items, so you only need to order up to the level you want :)
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-22207137090363342472013-01-03T21:51:00.001+00:002014-04-06T19:31:52.134+01:003D Print: Atlas (Portal) Part2<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
Atlas's custom base is now finished. Look at the lights, lookit!
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ed4BpvF1n3Q/UNYDUJFUqLI/AAAAAAAAAbw/WufWaicQ71w/s1600/thumb_AtlasBase.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
Cake, and grief counselling, will be available at the conclusion of the test.
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
Well, It's long over due, but it's finally complete. The custom base for my Atlas model has been completed and they've now been fitted together. With this, Atlas now has a proper USB cable to provide it with power and has a fancy base to show it off. I've always said the custom base would be it's own mini project and to that effect, "part 2" of the Atlas build. So here's it is!
</p>
<h3>YouTube Video</h3>
<p>
As normal (when I have a video available that is), I'll start with an embedded Youtube video. This video is a little short as it's pretty much just a showcasing of the finished project rather than going into lot's of detail.<br />
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TqnOA2ML-7E" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<p>
3D printing is said to be "cheap" and affordable, but unfortunately that's not something I would completely agree with. It's at it's lowest and most affordable price to the public consumer, but it's still expensive enough to be something you can't afford to do every week (especially when you add up the material costs for post-printing work) and it's something that can quickly become expensive once you get over a certain sized print. So I wanted to see if I could bring the costs down by 'scratch building' certain parts instead of 3D printing the entire thing.
</p>
<p>
So once I determined how big the base would need to be for Atlas to sit on it, I thought I may be able to make the large red button part myself with some raw materials. After all, it looks fairly basic enough, right?
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
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</a>
<div>
[Attempted plaster base, that eventually ended in a failure. "To the bin with you sir!]
</div>
</div>
<p>
I cut off the end of a CD spool case I didn't need, shaved off the outer edging (as I wanted a 45 degree edge and this got in the way of that) and then glued in some cardboard cut-outs I made to act as guides for when I carve in the cross indentation in a moment. I then filled in the entire piece with plaster, left it to dry for a little while, but not completely. When it was semi-hard, I then cut the cross indentation details (this is where the cardboard within the plaster helped guide me). All in all it seemed to be going ok, a little lumpy, but nothing a little sanding wouldn't cure after it had fully set. Great! ... but things didn't go to plan. I left it to dry for about a day and half and came back, it was still a little soft, had cracks everywhere and eventually crumbled. An utter failure! It could have been that I should have done this in layers leaving it to dry in between them, or added some 'netting' to the plaster to help it's structural integrity or it could have been bad plaster (as I got it from a £1 shop). All I know was it was a failure and I didn't want to delay things further by trying out different methods. So I had to abandon this and go down the more expensive route; 3D print the entire thing (I don't really have the necessary tools to cut something accurately like this out of wood and CNC doesn't appear to be any cheaper than 3D printing, in fact it's more expensive judging by the quotes I got!). See below for a picture of the plaster base I tried making, when I left it to set over night.
</p>
<div class="clearFloat"></div>
<h3>Making the 3D model</h3>
<p>
So now I was committed to printing the entire thing, it was time to make the actual model file I was going to have printed. Up until this point I only had a rough model I quickly made in Modo during "part 1". I was going to carry on in Modo, but recently I used Solidworks for the <a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2012/09/3d-print-Claptrap.html">Claptrap project</a> and learning from that experience, the design of the button would be quicker to do in Solidworks than Modo, as it was fairly simple in design. So, I began modelling this in Solidworks and in a few hours I had a model file ready. Some detail, as always, had to be sacrificed due limitations of the printers/printing material or due to post-printing reasons, but all in all I was pretty happy with the detail in the model :)
</p>
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</a>
<div>
[Finished model in Solidworks, ready for upload to the website for printing]
</div>
</div>
<h3>Post process after printing</h3>
<h4>Smoothing out the parts</h4>
<p>
Once I uploaded the model file for printing and received the parts, I went through the usual smoothing stages. As always, very repetitive, very time consuming and it tends to be pretty boring! This is always my least favourite part not only for these reasons, but my fingers ache quite a lot after doing this as it generally is 1-2 full days of sanding (as mentioned in other posts, I do it all by hand as I find it's easy to rub away detail you want to keep if you're not careful).
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
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</a>
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pTJQpCM0bIY/U0GXSMhFnjI/AAAAAAAABDE/OZp5q9X_trI/s1600/DSC_6407.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[Parts smoothed out]
</div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zNKrEQQ5Iro/U0GXTGU5C2I/AAAAAAAABDU/rtKGcjFazX8/s1600/DSC_7207.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zNKrEQQ5Iro/U0GXTGU5C2I/AAAAAAAABDU/rtKGcjFazX8/s640/DSC_7207.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The base beginning to take shape, reminds me of the X-men symbol]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The parts were really nice and smooth after this and all the stepping that naturaly comes from SLS printing was virtually gone (the appearance contradicts this in the in-progress photos, but trust me, it was gone :P).
</p>
<p>
The original plan was to have the base be free-standing. However I felt that the base flexed a bit too much and I was worried it was prone to damage. So I decided to mount this on some MDF. I've used MDF as a base in the past on the <a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2012/04/3d-print-tron-lightcycle.html">lightcycle project</a>, so I've learned a thing or two since then. I chiselled out some channels for the wiring to fit in like last time (a lot neater this time now I've had some experience in doing this)and then I tried something new. I 'sealed' the wood. This is because MDF absorbs paint a lot and when it absorbs moisture from the paint, it doesn't look great (It looks patchy, tacky and 'furry' on the edges) unless you use a very heavy body and gloss paint like I did last time. This time I wanted to use a thinner paint so, this is why I 'sealed' it with a cheap mixture of glue and water. It worked really well and the MDF was very smooth to the touch.
</p>
<h4>Painting and applying the finishes to the parts</h4>
<p>
Most of the prep work was ready, time to paint the pieces. I mixed up my paint colours to match the game as best as I could, and then put them in bottles for easy access when airbrushing.
</p>
<div class="fullImage">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YEd8G3R81mk/U0GXTvfG91I/AAAAAAAABDc/3RW_Ar4VGRg/s1600/DSC_7216.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YEd8G3R81mk/U0GXTvfG91I/AAAAAAAABDc/3RW_Ar4VGRg/s1600/DSC_7216.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Really digging that red button]
</div>
</div>
<p>
Painting the 'ring' section of the base was pretty hard as I needed to mask off areas between colours for some clean lines. Anyone who has tried doing masking around curves probably knows this pain, but eventually I got my masking laid down.
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1fhMQwZrBI4/U0GXU_A2srI/AAAAAAAABDw/NN7ODaFXdEA/s1600/DSC_7224.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1fhMQwZrBI4/U0GXU_A2srI/AAAAAAAABDw/NN7ODaFXdEA/s640/DSC_7224.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[I hate masking around curves!]
</div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KtO887GNuwQ/U0GXVSA6scI/AAAAAAAABD0/bylfnX2hkyM/s1600/DSC_7226.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KtO887GNuwQ/U0GXVSA6scI/AAAAAAAABD0/bylfnX2hkyM/s640/DSC_7226.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Not too bad if I do say myself. Probably should have blended the post-shading a little more here or there, but all in all, pretty nice]
</div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FUOaBSg1kD8/U0GXahLLhOI/AAAAAAAABE4/obMlxA7iLRI/s1600/DSC_7322.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FUOaBSg1kD8/U0GXahLLhOI/AAAAAAAABE4/obMlxA7iLRI/s640/DSC_7322.jpg" />
</a>
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B0p_7wEseV4/U0GXYcsI8XI/AAAAAAAABEU/XW0bUeycji8/s1600/DSC_7259.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B0p_7wEseV4/U0GXYcsI8XI/AAAAAAAABEU/XW0bUeycji8/s640/DSC_7259.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Decal Issues :( ]
</div>
</div>
<p>
It was pretty terrifying when I was about to airbrush after the masking, as I had no idea if the curve line I masked would look good until AFTER I took the tape off. For instance, if I started to wander during the taping, one part of the curve would be thicker than another and it would look pretty bad. I just had to judge the masking as best as I could and bite the bullet and start airbrushing. I also wanted to put in some pre-shading and post-shading, making it harder :S
</p>
<p>
Next came the decals. I figured, "Finally, something that won't be too hard and is pretty straight forward", wrong! I made my custom decals on photoshop and printed them out to decal paper. This is where the problem started. When I wetted the decal paper to slid the decals off, the ink started fading and peeling off the decal transfer. I figured it's probably because I used an inkjet this time around so I tried again on a laser jet this time (like I've done for all the other projects), but this behaved in the same way. Something had to be wrong with the decal pages. I didn't want to just waste these decals and buy new pages as these are more pricey than normal paper and I don't like wasting things. So I tried a new idea. I clear coated the decals BEFORE using water to remove them. This worked great. Not only did it preserve the ink, it actually made it look a little deeper, a little more 'misty' (which helps with diffusion in what I wanted to do) and also made it harder for the decal paper to crumple and fold on itself.
</p>
<p>
The decals went on like normal <i>seemingly</i> and I then clear coated again to protect them now they were on the pieces. However one of the decals started getting some strange bubbles after the clear coat, so there wasn't much I could do about it (it wasn't terrible, but a little disappointing). I may need to think about looking into decal softener solution in future projects to try and avoid these problems.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WUETfd7lsDk/U0GXWZDJs-I/AAAAAAAABEE/Pk61jh_i0G8/s1600/DSC_7305.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WUETfd7lsDk/U0GXWZDJs-I/AAAAAAAABEE/Pk61jh_i0G8/s1600/DSC_7305.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Windows and decals now in place]
</div>
</div>
<h4>Making the circuit</h4>
<p>
Most of the other work was now done, time to make the circuit for the base. A very basic LED circuit as always and definitely not my tidiest circuit. I needed to house everything in the middle and rather than having a clean circuit by cutting a fresh block of stripboard with the correct number of rows and length, I decided I didn't want the small cut-outs I had from previous projects to go to waste. So I used 2 old pieces of smaller stripboard to make the circuit. I also added some additional support raisers to help provide more support in certain places and keep the wires out of certain areas.
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8zlsFMyGse0/U0GXYWhCb6I/AAAAAAAABEc/pTTyNK1KwEQ/s1600/DSC_7350.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8zlsFMyGse0/U0GXYWhCb6I/AAAAAAAABEc/pTTyNK1KwEQ/s640/DSC_7350.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Looks a bit messy, but it works]
</div>
</div>
<h4>Putting it all together</h4>
<p>
Time for the final assembly. The 2 final steps was to connect atlas to the base circuit, so that they both share the same USB cable and to also assemble Atlas, the button, the ring and the wooden base together.
</p>
<p>
Assembling the ring, the corners and the wooden base were easy and straight forward (block 1). Atlas and the red button were not a problem either (block 2). Getting these 2 blocks connected together however, wasn't so easy as the wires were too short so that I couldn't have them side by side when soldering the 2 circuits together. So I grabbed 2 pint glasses, a ruler and suspended block 1 above block 2. This gave me enough room to solder everything together and then I assembled these 2 pieces to make the final project.
</p>
<div class="fullImage">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VnrGl54ktz8/U0GXZERLzyI/AAAAAAAABEk/Ig7lP-eM6vs/s1600/DSC_7354.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VnrGl54ktz8/U0GXZERLzyI/AAAAAAAABEk/Ig7lP-eM6vs/s1600/DSC_7354.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The pint glass assembly line. I'm thinking of patenting this idea ...]
</div>
</div>
<h3>The finished product!</h3>
<p>
It's been a long time in the making, but we're finally here and it's complete. I'm tempted to make a perspex box to fit over the top just so it doesn't get dusty :P
</p>
<div class="galleryGrid">
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<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YujACfw9DHs/U0GXc5o9gyI/AAAAAAAABFM/L4_TlUidFOo/s640/DSC_7414.jpg" />
</a>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DbwbWmQyaXc/U0GXbciIAAI/AAAAAAAABE8/Jrpu-lDiGyo/s1600/DSC_7710.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DbwbWmQyaXc/U0GXbciIAAI/AAAAAAAABE8/Jrpu-lDiGyo/s640/DSC_7710.jpg" />
</a>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Len5p454gFA/U0GXZ2GwhQI/AAAAAAAABEo/ZxJjCq1B6ZU/s1600/DSC_7394.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Len5p454gFA/U0GXZ2GwhQI/AAAAAAAABEo/ZxJjCq1B6ZU/s640/DSC_7394.jpg" />
</a>
</div>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-64854609163789312852013-01-01T14:52:00.000+00:002014-04-05T18:05:24.528+01:00Website issues for 2013<div class="articleFirstThumb">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tb8Q0U3T6AE/UK93g7KlTgI/AAAAAAAAAWU/K33-Bxzmh_c/s1600/thumb_websiteRedesign.png" />
</div>
<p>
Nothing says "happy new year" then your website developing issues! Part of the website was built from a template and it seems the designer of the template decided to host a whole load of code from his website. He's now changed that code on his website and as a result broken everyone's website that used his template (I've just come from the template website and everyone is experiencing this and as you can imagine, are not very happy).
</p>
<p>
I'm looking into fixing this, so please bear with me. I'm also looking at changing all the back end code so everything is hosted off local files I control rather than remote files on his website, so this won't happen again in the future hopefully once I've done that. This will teach me to use a template!
</p>
<p>
I'll update this post once I've sorted everything.
</p>
<p>
<b>Update:</b> Well that didn't take long! I managed to fix the main javascript file within about 10 mins so the website should be in theory back to normal again. I still need to update and migrate a lot of code to local files so this doesn't happen again, but for now the website should look normal again (if you're using a decent browser that is ... *cough* anything but IE *cough*)
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-83393514392096317892012-11-24T15:47:00.001+00:002014-04-05T18:02:39.748+01:00Time for a website re-design<div class="articleFirstThumb">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tb8Q0U3T6AE/UK93g7KlTgI/AAAAAAAAAWU/K33-Bxzmh_c/s1600/thumb_websiteRedesign.png" />
</div>
<p>
It's been a while since I've updated my blog with new content. I've been quite busy in my day-to-day life and when I'm lucky enough to have a little free time (not that often unfortunately), I've been using that to work on a new project (which is a bit of a monstrosity, so it will take quite a while to finish) or using it on photography. So I thought to keep myself motivated to update the blog a bit more I would give it a bit of a re-design.
</p>
<p>
The layout isn't vastly different from my last design, but I was a bit tired of the majority of the blog having dark colours, so I wanted to change that and have the last few recent posts on the home page rather than just the most recent post. I found myself a template that was mostly what I wanted and then tweaked and changed things to what it currently is. I found a few bugs in the template that I also fixed, but it was on the whole a really good template that I liked. All I need to now try and figure out is how to make my post thumbnails something other than the first picture in the post without having to do these weird workarounds :)
</p>
<p>
I don't really use Twitter myself nor do I have a website Facebook page, but I did want to add some buttons so people could easily share links to my website on their favourite social network as I know a lot of people use these tools. It's pretty much the standard feature on blogs these days and I didn't have that on my last design. I also added a "pin it" button as I do use Pinterest a lot. If you've never used Pinterest before it's well worth checking out. The only problem here is that for some reason I can't get this to work on the current design. I didn't want to hold up the re-design so I've left this on my "to add" list to do at a later date.
</p>
<p>
I wanted to also try and coincide my re-design with a post showing that I've finally finished my Atlas model. Unfortunatly this didn't go to plan either! I'll be aiming to hopefully find time in the next few weeks to do this as it should have been finished months ago, but I'm afraid I got side tracked with the Claptrap commission for Gamespot UK, the new project and other things going on in my life. For the past few months it's been gathering dust waiting to be finished, so I thought it was about time to do just that!
</p>
<p>
Hope you like the new look and features!
</p>
<p>
<b>Edit:</b> I also finally got around to changing my CNAME records so I can use my own domain on this blog rather than the default. So the domain should now always be psychobob.co.uk instead of psychobobarts.blogspot.co.uk. Much shorter and if I ever move hosts I can now redirect things easier :) The only downside of this is that I seem to lost my Google plus share counter. I'll see if I can get that count back without removing my custom domain, but I'm not enitrely sure if that is possible :(
</p>
<p>
There is one or two Internet Explorer issues that need to be fixed I believe, but I probably won't invest a huge amount of time fixing all of these on the account that it's a pain to develop for and the other browsers don't have them (I'm sure this must sound very familiar to anyone who does web development)! Please consider using Firefox or Chrome as your main browser, as not only are far better browsers than Internet Explorer, but they also tend conform to web standard much more IMO.
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-89355961276453922792012-10-20T13:35:00.001+01:002014-04-05T18:01:25.276+01:00Claptrap post-competition<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
Well, the competition is now over and a winner was picked!
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZXsM4I-6Zq0/UK93gykctCI/AAAAAAAAAWY/YO04QKBdJzc/s1600/thumb_trophy.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VLqlp-vn4Z8/UIKY7lZl-RI/AAAAAAAAARc/mE60qZYzR9w/s1600/Winner_Pic2.jpg" />
<div>
[The mesh in Solidworks .... with a little photoshopping to join the 2 pictures :P]
</div>
</div>
<p>
Well, the competition is now over and a winner was picked!
</p>
<p>
If you haven't seen it yet, please check out the "making of" post <a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2012/09/3d-print-cl4p-tp-commissioned-piece_28.html">here</a>.
</p>
<p>
Congratulations to Kevin, the winner of this model. He was kind enough to send me some pictures of it in it's new home. He has it sitting on his desk at work and it looks like Claptrap has some friends also!
</p>
<p>
Just for posterity, here's some screenshots of the GSUK competition pages along with some of the comments (it's a bit too small to read because of the way Picasa resizes them, but it's more for me than anything :P). Here's the links to the pages on GSUK if they still exist on their website: <a href="http://uk.gamespot.com/features/win-a-one-off-borderlands-2-claptrap-model-6394537/" target="_blank">Page1</a> & <a href="http://uk.gamespot.com/features/borderlands-2-claptrap-model-complete-now-win-him-6397384/" target="_blank">Page2</a>.
</p>
<p>
Time for the next project!
</p>
<div class="clearFloat"></div>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7tBTJZe2liw/UK62a_Y7wgI/AAAAAAAAAVY/iT0IpqtY-tM/s1600/GamespotPage-Video2.jpg" />
</div>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m4wUFs9MXTc/UK62aiYF8qI/AAAAAAAAAVU/CMyZnpqTMBk/s1600/GamespotPage-Video1.jpg" />
</div>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-89056713191623248242012-09-28T14:34:00.001+01:002014-04-06T19:41:39.474+01:003D Print: CL4P-TP (Commissioned piece) - The actual build<link href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NkoTRI4ZfDU/UGWhVcA__fI/AAAAAAAAAQw/bCvFCoaIlmg/s1600/DSC_7125.png" rel="image_src"></link>
<br />
<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
I can't believe it, my first commissioned print that will be given away in a competition!
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VNp-OrqPIVo/UK-BCuAaanI/AAAAAAAAAXg/vL3xIYkH2zE/s1600/thumb_Claptrap.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
Hello traveller!
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
I can't believe it, my first commissioned print that will be given away in a competition! I can't express how excited I was about this when I was approached for this project. Not only is it a great opportunity, but it's also of a character I quite liked from a game that sucked away 30 hours of my life!
</p>
<p>
This is probably the most complicated paintwork job I've ever tried to tackle, but I was very pleased with the results at the end of the project.
</p>
<p class="oldText">
Don't forget, you can win this guy at the competition link below! Competition - Close date: Unknown, so enter soon!
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Gamespot competition link:</span>
<a href="http://uk.gamespot.com/features/borderlands-2-claptrap-model-complete-now-win-him-6397384/" target="_new">GSUK competition page</a>
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: red;">Edit: The competition is now closed!</span>
</p>
<h3>Youtube videos</h3>
<p>
Before getting started on the model making process, here's a quick video I put on youtube for part 1 on the 3D model making side of the project. It's been uploaded to GSUK's channel, but I also wanted it on my own (please watch it, I rely on those youtube views to give me that warm fuzzy feeling on the inside so I keep making more of these!). Below part 1 is also the part 2 video.
</p>
<h4>Part 1: Creating the initial 3D model</h4>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4xML282BGLk?wmode=transparent" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<h4>Part 2: Processing the physical model</h4>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7ix4mNc3RpM?wmode=transparent" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<h3>Making the 3D model</h3>
<p>
I start where I always do; creating the model.
</p>
<p>
First as always, I trawl the internet for reference material. I had grabbed all kinds of reference images, which covered multiple angles, distances, some were concept art, some were proper renders and some was fan art. I also had the game on the 360 so I had that on the side for some first hand reference (even though the consoles have lower resolution textures, it's still invaluable) and I had a list of youtube videos that I also thought would be helpful (if you haven't watched the Borderlands official webisodes, watch them, they're fantastic!). From there, I grabbed my usual notebook to make my plan of attack so that the model would be able to house the LEDs and I could get everything clear in my head. This LED circuit would be a bit different than normal also as I wanted the aerial to light up like it does in the game, so I made sure to jot that down so it wasn't forgotten!
</p>
<p>
Like most of my models, I decided to make this a model that is locked in a pose rather than one that has any moving parts. This was to increase it's durability for whoever wins this.
</p>
<p>
To try and make this mesh as clean as possible and because of the lack of complicated curves in the model, I decided to try something new this time when creating the model. I used Solidworks instead of Modo to create it. Solidworks is a CAD software, which is designed with fabrication in mind, so there are a lot of useful tools in this that isn't available in Modo and it produces cleaner meshes for printing. On the whole I did find it more difficult than Modo and less fluid, but I think that's because I had never really used CAD software that much before this point.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s363EtAEQ5o/U0Geed-_P2I/AAAAAAAABJQ/iinH9UlDWYo/s1600/Render.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s363EtAEQ5o/U0Geed-_P2I/AAAAAAAABJQ/iinH9UlDWYo/s1600/Render.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The mesh in Solidworks .... with a little photoshopping to join the 2 pictures :P]
</div>
</div>
<p>
As always, I generally upload in-progress temp versions of the model to Shapeways, so I can check how much it's currently going to cost. Like all projects, I have a budget, so this allowed me to keep an eye on costs and adjust things if necessary.
</p>
<p>
Once the model was completed, I then placed the order and eagerly awaited the arrival of my parts. This normally is 10 working days but Shapeways had printer issues delaying things, meaning it took closer to 16 or 17 days. Many emails emails were sent back and forth and one thing I can't fault Shapeways on, is that their customer service is fairly responsive considering they're in another country so I was very appreciative of that as I was worried about whether they would get me the prints in time.
</p>
<h3>Post process after printing</h3>
<h4>Smoothing out the parts</h4>
<p>
I've documented this before so I won't go into it again in too much detail, but as this is printed in WSF, it has a bit of a grainy texture due to the nature of how it's created. So this needed to be smoothed out. I did this by hand and worked my way through different grit levels of sandpaper and also went from dry sanding to wet sanding. This is always the worst part as it's so tedious and boring, but it's worth it in the end. I think it took me almost 2 whole days in the end (it goes a lot slower than normal sanding as you don't want to remove detail accidentally).
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W8k-qAGXgsw/U0GeYxmKGWI/AAAAAAAABII/k5GtIzg_o0Q/s1600/DSC_6850.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W8k-qAGXgsw/U0GeYxmKGWI/AAAAAAAABII/k5GtIzg_o0Q/s640/DSC_6850.jpg" />
</a>
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I-eqB2zBZ-Y/U0GebaJuejI/AAAAAAAABJA/5DIayMVEXHQ/s1600/DSC_6857.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I-eqB2zBZ-Y/U0GebaJuejI/AAAAAAAABJA/5DIayMVEXHQ/s640/DSC_6857.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[The plastic cups past the test! ..... on the 3rd try that is]
</div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tySi-Y2Nnrc/U0GeZByTMoI/AAAAAAAABIQ/avPmTsoBJvA/s1600/DSC_6891.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tySi-Y2Nnrc/U0GeZByTMoI/AAAAAAAABIQ/avPmTsoBJvA/s640/DSC_6891.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Rust and scratch undercoat on some of the pieces. I didn't need to be neat as this was mostly going to be covered up]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The FUD pieces I printed also needed some smoothing and there was a fair amount of wax support material on the pieces, so this needed to be cleaned off before proceeding. I just did this with a bit of plastic I cut from an old butter tub to scrape this off.
</p>
<p>
One thing that needed modifying before proceeding was the wheel spoke pieces. These were supposed to printed with the hub caps as 1 piece, but it looks like I may have left a 0.1mm gap between those pieces and they ended up being printed separately So I used some extra strong glue that I know melts the plastic and fuses them together to make the bond very strong.
</p>
<p>
At this stage I put all the pieces together temporarily to make sure everything still fit and that no further modifications were needed. Everything looked ok.
</p>
<h4>Painting and applying the finishes to the parts</h4>
<p>
This is where things started getting pretty interesting in the model build. I wanted to weather the model quite harshly as in the game's story, he's not exactly being maintained, Bandits constantly attack him and even vault hunters attack him (let's be honest, you know you did it!).
</p>
<p>
So I was going to do the usual pre-shade and post-shade with the airbrush that can give a subtle weathered look, but I wanted something additional to really punch up the weathering. I wanted chipped paint effects! As I needed to figure out how to exactly do this, I needed to try it out on something I can throw away if it goes wrong. Normally people use plastic spoons to test out their paint ideas to make sure everything works but I prefer something a bit bigger; Plastic cups!
</p>
<p>
So after eventually getting the right process tested out on some plastic cups, I then began applying the paintwork to the model.
</p>
<p>
I started by creating the undercoat. This was a dark brown mix I made and then I started adding different shades of browns and oranges to create a rusty like finish. I then added some silver paint to the model in the areas where there was going to be fresh scratches/damage rather than old damage that had rusted.
</p>
<p>
I then applied the yellow paint work over the top of this (I used pre-shade and post-shade layers for the yellow paintwork) and then allowed it to dry soft (so not fully dry). Once it was at that stage I then chipped away the top layer to reveal the rusted layer and fresh scratched areas (the silver undercoat). Each chip and scratch was done individually so it did take some time, but if it looked like the paint was drying too much, I just used some heavily diluted isopropyl alcohol to help it chip (too much and it would eat through the paint work, so I did need to dilute it heavily and use it sparingly).
</p>
<p>
I also applied the same chipping technique to the grey trims near the wheels, the big white stripe that runs around the chest and also those thin red and white stripes that run over the top and around the top vent (I was pretty proud of those as they were tiny!).
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
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</a>
<div>
[Hopefully you can see those weathered red/white strips running over the top and around the top vent. It's painted on, no decals!]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The rest of the paint job was fairly standard and involved some dry brushing. Once all that was done I then added a fine dust/dirt layer over the top of everything to mimick the textures in game, where the bottom half has more dirt than the top. Once that was all finished, it was time for the decals.
</p>
<p>
The decals were again, pretty standard and I've covered it before. I created some custom decals on Photoshop, printed them onto some decal paper before applying them to the model. There weren't actually that many decals I applied to the model, but there were a few. The "caution" labels near the shoulder panels, some tiny dots representing bolts on all the steel repaired panels that are on his lower body, the big warning label on the front and finally the audio synthesizer panel just below that.
</p>
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</a>
<div>
[The few decals I added]
</div>
</div>
<h4>Making the circuit</h4>
<p>
Time to wire up the LED circuit. Following the usual pattern, I worked out the circuit on some paper, cut some board and soldered the wires, LEDs and resistors to create the circuit.
</p>
<div class="alignImageRight">
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</a>
<div>
[Nice lighting from the circuit test. I used 2 different colours, turquoise and green]
</div>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kso3mvUECU4/U0GeaM6e1TI/AAAAAAAABIk/eFNMfbUzurE/s1600/DSC_6957.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kso3mvUECU4/U0GeaM6e1TI/AAAAAAAABIk/eFNMfbUzurE/s640/DSC_6957.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[All those 1am nights are starting to pay off as it comes together]
</div>
</div>
<h4>Putting it all together</h4>
<p>
Most of the hard work was now done and it's time to start putting it all together. I assembled the main body to be sure that everything actually fits together still with all the circuit and paintwork. It did and it was looking great!
</p>
<div class="clearFloat"></div>
<h3>The finished product (hell yeah)!</h3>
<p>
Don't forget to watch my <a href="http://youtu.be/4xML282BGLk" target="_blank">1st</a> and <a href="http://youtu.be/7ix4mNc3RpM" target="_blank">2nd</a> youtube video. You get to see some pictures whilst listening to some Mad Moxxi in the 2nd one at the end!
</p>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xkUnMQAGgz0/U0GedLlQjlI/AAAAAAAABJY/pICBOmqg1VU/s1600/DSC_7081.jpg">
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</a>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uE72kQF0sL4/U0GedRY495I/AAAAAAAABJE/-zqIO3A-E-o/s1600/DSC_7125.jpg">
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</a>
</div>
<p>
Thanks for reading this post, it was a bit of a tough project to considering the time I had to do it, but I eventually got there by sacrificing some sleep :P As my friend says, suffer for your art!
</p>
<p>
If I haven't mentioned enough in this post, please watch my youtube video at the top of the post, that view count going up tells me people are interested in what I'm doing and keeps me motivated to make more of these. Tell your friends!
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-73178446479382339662012-09-04T21:28:00.001+01:002014-04-05T18:00:47.485+01:003D Print: CL4P-TP (Commissioned piece) - Notice<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
I've been a bit quiet lately but I can finally announce what I've been working on
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tysmH49U_oI/UK-Izx4xtFI/AAAAAAAAAYM/nmTynaiE2rs/s1600/thumb_notice.jpg" />
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<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
Hello traveller! ....
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
Well, I've been a bit quiet lately but I can finally announce what I've been working on and why you haven't see part 2 of the Atlas model up yet. The reason is *insert fanfare here*, I've been commissioned by Gamespot UK to make something! That great robot from Borderlands; CL4P-TP (Claptrap)!
</p>
<p>
What's even better is that they're giving it away in a competition!
</p>
<p>
I'm currently waiting on the 3D printing company to deliver the initial goods to me, so for now this is just an announcement post rather than a documentation of the build like I normally upload. That will come in due course!
</p>
<p>
So, while you eagerly await my next update (you know you are!) please take a look at the video I made, showing the general computer modelling process and visit Gamespot UK to enter the competition!
</p>
<p class="oldText">
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Gamespot competition link:</span>
<a href="http://uk.gamespot.com/features/gamespot-uk-commissions-awesome-borderlands-2-claptrap-model-6394537/" target="_new">GSUK Competition link</a>
<br />
They haven't told me a competition closing date yet, so enter soon!
</p>
<p>
<span style="color:red;">The competition is now closed!</span>
</p>
<h3>Youtube Video</h3>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4xML282BGLk?wmode=transparent" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<p>
Gamespot has added a copy of my video on their channel and website, but I wanted to have a copy of it on my channel also :)
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-66213815505778743142012-09-04T18:00:00.000+01:002014-04-05T18:00:25.397+01:00Video: Claptrap from Borderlands<div style="display: none;">
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These are the "making of" videos I made of Claptrap from Borderlands for Gamespot UK.
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3XBAf1zR0Vo/ULDzItKF_RI/AAAAAAAAAYg/G0DaQ-vGN64/s1600/thumb_Video.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<h3>3D Print: Claptrap (Part 1)</h3>
<p>
This is the video of the 3D model file creation stage for the 3D print I made of Claptrap from Borderlands. This was actually a comissioned project by Gamespot UK. More information on this can be found on the full post of the project <a href="http://psychobobarts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/3d-print-cl4p-tp-commissioned-piece_28.html" target="_blank">here</a>.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4xML282BGLk?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
</div>
<hr />
<h3>3D Print: Claptrap (Part 2)</h3>
<p>
The follow up to part 1, where the model was printed and then I processed the physical parts, made the circuit and put everything together. More information on this can be found on the full post of the project <a href="http://psychobobarts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/3d-print-cl4p-tp-commissioned-piece_28.html" target="_blank">here</a>.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7ix4mNc3RpM?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
</div>
Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-90542965193983473372012-04-27T22:17:00.000+01:002014-04-06T19:18:07.350+01:003D Print: Atlas (Portal) Part1<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
Here it is, the biggest 3D print project to date!
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UbEEHSncdhY/UK-IEHT3qJI/AAAAAAAAAYE/0fvqFkklAcg/s1600/thumb_Atlas.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
Continue Testing ....
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
Here it is, the biggest 3D print project to date! This is the third one and this time ..... I'M NOT GIVING IT AWAY AS A PRESENT TO ANY FRIENDS! It's all mine!
</p>
<p>
This is by far the most ambitious 3D print project I have attempted and it's definitely required the most effort. Anyone who has played Portal 2 should recognise this character, and even if you haven't played Portal 2 but play games, I'm sure you'll know who this character is.
</p>
<h3>Youtube Video</h3>
<p>
Before getting started on the model making process, here's a quick video I put on youtube. It has some commentary and will show the model at some different angles as well as some close up shots that there may not be pictures of :)
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XRbi-4Urz7o?wmode=transparent" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<h3>Making the 3D model</h3>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ynoesZ5DYfg/U0GXdogyyMI/AAAAAAAABFQ/ICk2JNnCu_8/s1600/Render_1.jpg">
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</a>
<br />
<div>
[The medium poly mesh, just prior to modeling completion]
</div>
</div>
<p>
I start where I always do; creating the 3D model.
</p>
<p>
After many hours of trawling the internet I had managed to grab around 50 reference images. All of which covered multiple angles, distances, some were concept art, some were proper renders and some was even fan art (fan art can be great ref material). It's all invaluable reference material when creating the 3D model, so it's worth spending time and getting a lot of it. From there, I grabbed a notepad to make my plan of attack so that the model would be able to house the LEDs for the eye and the 2 elbows and I could get everything clear in my head.
</p>
<p>
I decided to make this a model that is locked in a pose rather than one that has any moving parts. The reason for this was that I was concerned slightly about the weight on the joints of the model, as some would be quite small and thin.
</p>
<p>
As with any character, generally the easiest way to model them is in the standard T-Pose.
</p>
<p>
Throughout the modelling process, I generally upload in-progress temp versions of the model to Shapeways, so I can check how much it's currently going to cost. Like all projects, I always set myself a budget, so this allowed me to keep an eye on costs and adjust things if necessary.
</p>
<p>
Once I had the T-Pose model finished, it was then time to build a skeleton and pose the character. In the end I chose to have him in a crouched pose and also remove one of the lower arms. Doing this meant that the weight was better supported throughout the model (at the time I was still concerned about the stress on the joints), I wanted a pose that you don't normally see for Atlas and the removal of the lower arm fit with the theme I had in mind.
</p>
<h4>What is the theme I had in mind?</h4>
<p>
The theme I had in mind for this, was that Atlas has been through a testing chamber and not come out of it unscathed (lost part of an arm). Atlas makes it to the final red button to complete the chamber and what does he get ... GlaDos on the tannoy simply saying "Continue testing"; it's not over yet for Atlas. This final image was what I wanted to try and create when you look at the model.
</p>
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</a>
<div>
[Final render of the model in it's pose on a half finished base]
</div>
</div>
<h3>Post process after printing</h3>
<h4>Smoothing out the parts</h4>
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[Parts in the process of being smoothed]
</div>
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</a>
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4Pk2IvZiiI0/U0GXIm_8bXI/AAAAAAAABBs/Eskr-OecwlA/s1600/DSC_3862.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[The parts temporarily assembled. All mustard coloured pieces are those that have been smoothed by hand, everything else in white were as they arrived from Shapeways]
</div>
</div>
<p>
Whenever you have something printed in WSF, it has a bit of a grainy texture (this is a result of the way it is printed as it starts off life as powder and then is heated via lasers a cross section at a time to create the object). I wanted to have the model as smooth as possible, but I didn't believe a lot of the parts wout survive the polishing service that Shapeways provides (it's basically a rock tumbler the parts are put through for several hours). So I had it printed in standard WSF and not the polished variant.
</p>
<p>
Since the original <a href="http://psychobobarts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/3d-print-dead-space-helmet.html" target="_blank">Dead Space helmet</a> project, I feel WSF has been improved and is less grainy, but it still wasn't good enough for me. I wanted it smoother. So, using some filler spray, I began giving the armor pieces a few coats and began smoothing it out with wet sanding (working my way up the grit levels slowly).
</p>
<p>
Once done, the pieces were incredibly smooth.
</p>
<p>
Now I temporarily put all the parts together with some white-tac to see how things were looking. Some minor modifications were needed (a few additional holes were needed for running wires, minor shape adjustments with a knife were needed etc...).
</p>
<h4>Painting and applying the finishes to the parts</h4>
<p>
After watching lots of painting videos on youtube for tips, I eventually decided to pick myself up an airbrush off eBay to try and improve my paint finishes. It was pretty tricky to learn how to use, but eventually I got the hang of it and painted the parts. Using an airbrush gave me a very nice, even finish to the model. It also allowed me to give Atlas a subtle weathered look, which was something I wanted to do, in order to achieve the theme I had in mind for this. I ended up using acrylic paint for this rather than enamel paints.
</p>
<p>
Once the parts had been painted, I gave them a quick coat of clear gloss varnish and applied some decals I made on Photoshop to the model. I then gave it one more coat of clear gloss varnish to seal the model and protect the decals.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
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<div>
[All the parts that have been finished being painted and had the decals applied]
</div>
</div>
<h4>Making the circuit</h4>
<div class="alignImageRight">
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</a>
<div>
[Circuit assembly]
</div>
</div>
<p>
Next, it was time to wire up the basic LED circuit for the model. I worked out the circuit on some paper, cut some board and soldered the wires, LEDs and resistors to create the circuit. What made things slightly tricky is that some of the the wires were actually going to be on display, so I didn't want any red wires (which is the normal way to denote a positive wire) on display; just black wires.
</p>
<h4>Putting it all together</h4>
<p>
Most of the hard work was now done and it's time to start putting it all together. I put the circuit into the central eye piece, and fired it all up to see what it looks like.
</p>
<div class="fullImage">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z0i0rNWh1ts/U0GXKNMO7SI/AAAAAAAABBk/efbYJWsxddI/s1600/DSC_3902.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[I see you]
</div>
</div>
<p>
It was looking great, so it was time to assemble the rest of the pieces also. This was slightly tricky to do as I needed to thread a lot the wires through the holes I drilled prior to super gluing anything into place and it was pretty fiddly as the model was complicated and on a small scale. I also added the aerial piece in the back.
</p>
<div class="fullImage">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GhlaObP8d2o/U0GXM4TheJI/AAAAAAAABCE/IUBNJWC9omM/s1600/DSC_3907.jpg">
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</a>
<div>
[Atlas starting to take shape]
</div>
</div>
<h3>The finished product (well this part anyway)!</h3>
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</a>
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</a>
</div>
<h4>Thanks for reading</h4>
<p>
Please look forward to part 2. In part 2, I'll be making an awesome base to finish off the model and possibly make a few adjustments to Atlas to make it even better.
</p>
<p>
Part 2 may take a little while to do, as I'm going to have a busy few months coming up, but I'll try and fit time in where I can!
</p>
<p>
<b>Update:</b> Part 2 is finally done! Follow the link <b><a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2013/01/3d-print-atlas-portal-part2.html" target="_blank">here</a></b> to go to it
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-39285386833243218852012-04-27T15:55:00.001+01:002014-04-05T17:59:21.611+01:003D Print: Tron Lightcycle<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
This was something I made as a gift for a friend's birthday, him being a bit of a Tron fanboy
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6RcCzo8Jr0g/UK-D_XiIy1I/AAAAAAAAAXw/k8z9JUojlWM/s1600/thumb_Lightcycle.jpg" />
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<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
Greetings programs!
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
This was my second 3D print project. Like the <a href="http://psychobobarts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/3d-print-dead-space-helmet.html" target="_blank">Dead Space helmet</a> project, this was something I had printed up to give to a friend as a gift for his birthday, him being a bit of a Tron fanboy (too bad I gave it to him 2 months AFTER his birthday)!
</p>
<p>
Even though he's more of a fan of the original film, I opted to make Flynn's light cycle from Tron: Legacy instead. It looks much cooler!
</p>
<h3>Making the 3D model</h3>
<p>
Like the previous project, reference images and a plan of exactly what you want to end up producing are key when it comes to 3D printing.
</p>
<p>
Something I wanted to try and replicate was all the sections that the light cycle emits light from and also make a light trail if possible (after all, that is one of the main things that make the light cycle a light cycle). So to achieve this, I made up a plan and decided to print this in 2 materials at Shapeways offers; WSF (White Strong and Flexible - A nylon plastic material) and FUD (Frosted Ultra Detail - a Semi Transparent material).
</p>
<p>
I went over to Shapeways and grabbed the material specification sheets for my intended print materials (WSF and FUD). Both materials have a different specification so it's important to go over these before making the model to ensure you're not going below any of the minimum specification for those materials you want to print in. Once I had that, my reference photos and my plan of attack, I proceeded and created the 3D model.
</p>
<p>
I made sure to keep the parts that were to be printed in WSF and FUD separate from one another in different files, so they can uploaded and printed in the two different materials.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5PhuMYwh2Sk/U0AMNbZo5DI/AAAAAAAAA2w/V9c28hfetEg/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+1+-+Basic+Render.JPG">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5PhuMYwh2Sk/U0AMNbZo5DI/AAAAAAAAA2w/V9c28hfetEg/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+1+-+Basic+Render.JPG" />
</a>
<div>
[A basic render of the model]
</div>
</div>
<p>
The next step was to then upload the model to Shapeways and place the order in my chosen material. Originally I had chosen WSF and FUD, but when I cam to place the order I found out Shapeways offered what the call PWSF also (Polished White Strong and Flxexible). This is basically where they print the model in WSF, but put it through a rock tumbler essentially to polish it slightly and try and remove the slightly grainy texture that you get on WSF. This isn't suitable for all objects as they can break in the process, but looking at my model I was confident it wouldn't break nor would it be an issue so, I decided to take the plunge and try it out as there wasn't a huge increase in price and I wanted to have a smooth finish.
</p>
<h3>Post process after printing</h3>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b0koSffW80g/U0AMNV90xPI/AAAAAAAAA2w/mubud8uRSHU/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+2+-+Painting.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b0koSffW80g/U0AMNV90xPI/AAAAAAAAA2w/mubud8uRSHU/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+2+-+Painting.jpg" />
</a>
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q21PX6J85K4/U0AMNf0tAoI/AAAAAAAAA2w/mLCj3pY8ISc/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+3+-+Painted+and+wiring.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q21PX6J85K4/U0AMNf0tAoI/AAAAAAAAA2w/mLCj3pY8ISc/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+3+-+Painted+and+wiring.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
<p>
Once the model arrived, I decided to put it together to see if there were any issues, everything mostly looked ok. Two things I did observe were; PWSF came out quite nice and it did come out much smoother than standard WSF in this model but some of the indentations I modeled printed great on one side of the model but not so good on the other side. This I believe occurred because of the model orientation during printing rather than something that happened as a result of the polishing process. It wasn't so bad that it ruined the model, but I certainly noticed it on inspection and learned something new to look out for when uploading in the future (orientation of the model when printing).
</p>
<p>
Now begins the painting!
</p>
<p>
Using chrome spray can, I painted the back of the light cycle for the trim (I used masking tape to prevent it going on parts I didn't want) and then used some basic enamel paints from a local shop to paint the rest of the light cycle.
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: red;">Now here's where something went a little wrong and I hope if you read this, you learn from my mistake!</span>
<p>
<p>
As the model is a black and white model my intention was to just paint the black areas, leaving everything else in the original white plastic colour.
</p>
<p>
The WSF material (as well as the polished version) is a very porous material and sucks in paint. So when I painted black on the windows and then around the edges (which I wanted to be crisp), the WSF plastic started to absorb the paint and caused a "bleeding" effect around the edges as it did this. This is something I didn't really have too much of an issue with on the Dead Space helmet print as I was pretty much painting the entire thing, leaving no original plastic visible. So to try and correct this, I painted white over the bleeding parts to cover it up (which it did) but unfortunately if you look close you can see a colour difference between the white paint and the white plastic colour (which actually has a tinge of cream). Something I learned from this, it's a good idea to prime the entire thing no matter what you're painting! It will help prevent the bleeding effect and if you do make mistakes and need to go back over them to cover them up, you hopefully won't see a colour difference when you clean it up.
</p>
<p>
I then went on to wiring up the 4 LEDs and 4 resistors to a USB cable and then placing them in the relvant spots inside the model, before supergluing everything together.
</p>
<h3>The base</h3>
<p>
For the base of the lightcycle, I took an old bit of MDF I had in the garage and chiselled out some sections for the wires to sit in so everything would sit flush. The reverse side (that didn't have anything chiselled out) was given a few coats of outdoor black gloss paint I had lying around to give it a nice finish. This is the side you will see whilst the chiselled side, would be the bottom of the base you normally wouldn't see.
</p>
<p>
The wires were then fed through the chiselled sections via 2 holes and I covered the chiselled section with some red felt so you wouldn't notice it was there, stops the base scratching anything it sat on and also made it look a bit nicer :)
</p>
<div class="fullImage">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d-0YCpw_oyQ/U0AMNdBZmAI/AAAAAAAAA2w/oiQKWuQVQtQ/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+4+-+Base.jpg">
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d-0YCpw_oyQ/U0AMNdBZmAI/AAAAAAAAA2w/oiQKWuQVQtQ/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+4+-+Base.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Bottom of the base with channels chiseled out]
</div>
</div>
<h3>The finished product!</h3>
<p>
And here is the finished light cycle!
</p>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7tWCWUfBbdU/U0AMNWYXYzI/AAAAAAAAA2w/cLoAGDT7p7k/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+5+-+Finished.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7tWCWUfBbdU/U0AMNWYXYzI/AAAAAAAAA2w/cLoAGDT7p7k/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+5+-+Finished.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h1UxV7UjsKc/U0AMNccS9VI/AAAAAAAAA2w/yZcZh6RmSnw/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+6+-+Powered+up.jpg">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h1UxV7UjsKc/U0AMNccS9VI/AAAAAAAAA2w/yZcZh6RmSnw/s1600/Tron+Light+Cycle+6+-+Powered+up.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Of course, it's incomplete until you plug it in. Once you do, you get all the goodies lighting up]
</div>
</div>
<h4>
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it!
</h4>
Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-3769295987054763632012-04-27T01:00:00.001+01:002014-04-06T18:58:55.088+01:003D Print: Dead Space Helmet<div style="display: none;">
<!-- Comment: This is for the thumbnails, don't delete -->
Any self respecting Dead Space fan should know 2 of the main key points to surviving a necromorph outbreak
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WSNV_TtcP70/UK-GI5uvXSI/AAAAAAAAAX4/k5sYphTINOg/s1600/thumb_DeadSpace.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div class="tagline">
<blockquote>
Cut off their limbs!
</blockquote>
</div>
<p>
Any self respecting Dead Space fan should know 2 of the main key points to surviving a necromorph outbreak. Cut off their limbs, and having a decent rig for protection.
</p>
<p>
A friend of mine who has who happens to a pretty big Dead Space Fan had a big birthday coming up. So I decided to try and put some of my years of self-taught 3D modelling skills to use and make him something for his birthday (I figured a render of something from Dead Space that could then be printed out as a poster). Whilst I was deciding on what to model and render, I was shown the <a href="http://www.shapeways.com/" target="_blank">Shapeways</a> website and discovered the world of 3D printing. Everything from there then fell into place and I came up with this idea. A miniature USB powered Dead Space rig helmet.
</p>
<h3>Make the 3D model file</h3>
<p>
Once you've read a little on 3D printing, the first starting point is pretty obvious. Make the 3D model. I gathered lots of reference images, booted up the game on the console (so I could try and see some first hand source material) and began making the actual model in my choice of 3D modelling packages; Modo.
</p>
<p>
When creating the 3D model for 3D printing, there's a few rules you need to follow that you don't necessarily need to follow if the model is staying in a digital form (e.g. as a render or animation). You need to ensure the model is "watertight" and has no "non-manifold" edges. You also need to take a look at the specification for the material you're intending on printing in (there's lots of options out there) to ensure you're not making anything smaller than the material allows, have minimum wall thickness etc... Also think about if you want it in lots of pieces for any reason (e.g. makes it easier to paint or modify in post). Things like textures/shaders are unnecessary unless you're using a ZCorp printer that can printer colour, but in this case I wasn't going to be doing this.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yAsqgxuV3BA/U0AI23dIjYI/AAAAAAAAA2c/KFosfXLyHPc/s1600/Dead+Space+Helmet+1+-+Render.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yAsqgxuV3BA/U0AI23dIjYI/AAAAAAAAA2c/KFosfXLyHPc/s1600/Dead+Space+Helmet+1+-+Render.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Render to get a basic idea of what it's looking like once it's finished]
</div>
</div>
<p>
Now that the model has been finished I converted the file to an STL format and uploaded it to Shapeways. For this I used NetFabb that allows you to convert the file, scale it, work out volume, fix/identify any issues in your mesh. The great thing about Shapeways website is once you've uploaded it, within about 5-20 minutes you can see the the cost of the item (it sometimes takes up to 20 minutes as their system needs to calculate the volume of your model and run some checks).
</p>
<h3>Post process after printing</h3>
<div class="alignImageRight">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r51IIE6a17w/U0AI2-wIZ6I/AAAAAAAAA2c/RBZNgYn67Kw/s1600/Dead+Space+Helmet+2+-+3D+Print+Arrived.JPG">
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r51IIE6a17w/U0AI2-wIZ6I/AAAAAAAAA2c/RBZNgYn67Kw/s1600/Dead+Space+Helmet+2+-+3D+Print+Arrived.JPG" />
</a>
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Asdf8jqiEB8/U0GVKuxkLcI/AAAAAAAABAc/BR0par-g3DM/s1600/DSC_0675.jpg">
<img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Asdf8jqiEB8/U0GVKuxkLcI/AAAAAAAABAc/BR0par-g3DM/s640/DSC_0675.jpg" />
</a>
</div>
<p>
Once the order was placed, Shapeways printed the parts and sent them to me.
</p>
<p>
The picture here is a series of shots of the parts straight out of the box. I temporarily blu-tacked things together just to see everything printed ok and to get an idea if anything needed any modifying. Luckily nothing did! It all joined up nicely.
</p>
<p>
Next I superglued everything together and painted the model with some Humbrol enamel paint. Using dry brushing, I tried to give it a copper / weathered look.
</p>
<p>
Next, I took an old USB cable (I generally have dozens of spares as they come with electricals all the time), I cut off one end and made a basic LED circuit. The idea of using a USB cable was so I didn't have to worry about batteries running out/leaking. I also mounted the Helmet onto a base which was an old container from a lens filter I bought for the camera (it has a nicely shaped recess on top which seemed to match the size of the piece).
</p>
<div class="clearFloat"></div>
<h3>The finished product!</h3>
<p>
The finished product stands about 8.5cm tall and as it's powered by an LED, should be good for 50,000 hours! Just about enough time to clear out the Ishimura of necromorphs.
</p>
<div class="stretchImage">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P3kPdPxgMIU/U0GVKkNsTgI/AAAAAAAABAg/k-sdFOT7XWo/s1600/DSC_0738.jpg">
<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P3kPdPxgMIU/U0GVKkNsTgI/AAAAAAAABAg/k-sdFOT7XWo/s1600/DSC_0738.jpg" />
</a>
<div>
[Here's a shot of it plugged in next to a coke can for an idea of scale]
</div>
</div>
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</a>
<div>
[Of course, I can't leave out a picture of it all lit up in the dark!]
</div>
</div>
<h4>Thanks for reading</h4>
<p>
Hopefully it was useful to someone and you found it interesting. I look forward to getting my next two 3D print projects posted up! For now, I'm going to sleep, it's 1am right now!
</p>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-88129165388372615052012-04-23T18:00:00.001+01:002014-04-05T17:58:20.477+01:00Video: 3D printed Atlas from Portal 2<div style="display: none;">
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This is a video of the 3D print I made of Atlas from Portal 2.
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3XBAf1zR0Vo/ULDzItKF_RI/AAAAAAAAAYg/G0DaQ-vGN64/s1600/thumb_Video.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<h3>3D Print: Atlas (Part 1)</h3>
<p>
This is a video of the 3D print I made of Atlas from Portal 2. More information on this can be found on the full post of the project <a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2012/04/3d-print-atlas-portal-part1.html" target="_blank">here</a>. This is just for what I'm calling "Part 1" of this project. The second part will be where I connect Atlas up to a permanent base that will also be custom made.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XRbi-4Urz7o?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
</div>
<hr />
<h3>3D Print: Atlas (Part 2)</h3>
<p>
The follow up to part 1, where I finally finished the custom base. The custom base was a 3D printed Portal button, that housed it's own circuit to illuminate some LEDs and Atlas's circuit was also connected to this one so everything ran off 1 USB power cable.
</p>
<p>
The video I made below was fairly different from the ones I've made so far. Starting with the Claptrap videos I did a few months ago, I've been trying to up my quality a bit and put more effort into the presentation of the videos I've been making. The video doesn't have much commentary apart from the initial introduction, but I did try to present the photos and embedded video content in a nice format :) The video was created using After Effects.
</p>
<p>
More information on this can be found on the full post of the project <a href="http://www.psychobob.co.uk/2013/01/3d-print-atlas-portal-part2.html" target="_blank">here</a>.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TqnOA2ML-7E?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
</div>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2061797391661513556.post-55961416793813865272012-04-23T18:00:00.000+01:002014-04-05T17:56:58.584+01:00Video: Mini portal turret in real world test<div style="display: none;">
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This is a mini project to try out motion tracking. I decided to make it a bit more fun and use a turret from the game Portal.
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3XBAf1zR0Vo/ULDzItKF_RI/AAAAAAAAAYg/G0DaQ-vGN64/s1600/thumb_Video.jpg" />
</div>
<a name='more'></a>
<h3>Attempt 1 at motion tracking</h3>
<p>
This was my first attempt at motion tracking. I decided to do a mini project so that it would make it more interesting. So, what better than Portal :P
</p>
<p>
This was the first test video, the motion tracking wasn't brilliant as the objects slid around a bit and the physics wasn't great either. Doing this with phone camera footage made it quite hard as it was pretty blurry and the image broke up from time to time throwing off the tracking. Something I learned from this; Try and use a proper camera if you can, it will be much easier!
</p>
<p>
I used Modo to model, animate the basics and render out the final passes. I also used Blender for Physics (as this was done on Modo 401 where physics wasn't available), Boujou for tracking and After Effects for compositing all the basic passes together.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5ig8jKLLMVQ?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
</div>
<hr />
<h3>Attempt 2 at motion tracking</h3>
<p>
This was the second attempt at motion tracking and it was much better. I re-did the motion tracking and physics to improve things. Once happy with that, I then gave the models some material, added in a laser effect, sound and did some colour correction/clean up in After Effects.
</p>
<div class="video-container">
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/16SN4y3MYaA?wmode=transparent"></iframe>
</div>Psychobobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01427099613797185701noreply@blogger.com0