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Author Topic: Snare Drum  (Read 7588 times)

birdofash

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Snare Drum
« on: January 17, 2009, 11:06:09 pm »

Well this started as a quick sketch of what I am planning on building in the next few weeks, but I think that with a little work it could look very nice..
So it's a snare drum with an acrylic shell, but not an ordinary one- it is (or will be) made from plate acrylic, cut into wedges and welded together at the seams to make a solid shell. The lugs are offset onto alternating segments. (those are just prototypes I made just to get an idea at the time)

Now about the model. The focus of this render is the snare drum of course; it is missing the snare strainer and the lugs are also incomplete at the time of this rendering. I also didn't set up any lighting so the white drumhead on top appears much darker than it should. Anyways, the other drums and the ride cymbal in the back ground are remnants from a previous attempt at making a drum set, back before I had figured out lathing and the such. It's all floating drums right now. I eventually want to complete the entire kit, including hardware. Maybe even animate it if I have the time (and patience with the camera. I'm horrible at operating it like I want. And also the undo buttons not doing what I think they should in scene mode. If I move an object or rotate it on accident, I WANT IT TO BE UNDONE WHEN I HIT UNDO!!!)

From the improvements side of things, I really wanna see what the bearing edges will look like once I cut them with a router. For non-drummer folk, bearing edges are the top and bottom of the shell where it comes in contact with the drumhead, usually cut to a 45 degree angle on both sides forming a 90 degree angle on top. My situation is unique however, since the shell is not "round" (I say round in quotes on the basis that nothing is truly round in 3D programs, just lots of segments). 45 degree angles cut from "circle" of where the drum contacts the drum head will result in varying heights of cut on the edge. For example, its like sharpening one of those pencils with the six sides- cone shape from the point comes down at a continuous angle, but differences in radius make a wavy-looking cut. Any help modeling this without tons of point editing would be greatly appreciated.

Any other C&C welcome too. :)
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birdofash

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Re: Snare Drum
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2009, 11:28:22 pm »

This is what I mean by the edge thing. Right now it seems my only option is to edit everything by hand, and I hate doing that because its so inaccurate. I'm a math/science guy so I hate anything that isn't precise lol.
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Boywonda1

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Re: Snare Drum
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2009, 07:11:20 pm »

I know what you mean about precision,but sometimes it's really hard to be precise when you're not patient, ~well usually happens to me~ i like the snare drum even though i only know little about it lol :)
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"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.” -Albert Einstein

ENSONIQ5

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Re: Snare Drum
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2009, 09:05:07 pm »

I understand the problem birdofash.  I think the only really automatic way of doing this would be to use booleans, where one mesh is used as a kind of 3D knife to cut a second mesh.  Unfortunately Anim8or does not (yet) have a boolean function.  There is very likely a workaround however.  I will have a think about this one and get back to you.
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birdofash

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Re: Snare Drum
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2009, 08:01:14 pm »

Edited one "wedge" by hand on the top using that cone in my example as a guide for moving the points by hand, then copy-paste-flip-combine to get the other side, then copied that wedge into all the other positions and joined the points. Not too much work, but Boolean would have been way easier. Pic attached..
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