Computer Aided Design 📋

🕘 Date / Time:

Hello pleasant person reading my second task documentation blog. Hope everything is going just fine. ^^
Since I haven’t settled on an idea for my final project yet :(, a temporary one had to be generated for this week's task.
That project idea was inspired by the fact that I’ve been hanging out with children pretty much recently. I chose to make an automatic mechanism for the control of a fully functioning classic marionette puppet.

Free Hand sketch:

Having to design an initial character, I started a free hand sketch.

Digital versions:

The 2D model was sketched using Auto CAD.

Here are some steps:
*The heros of this drawing are (3 point Arc and mirror command).
1- Started to draw half a leg, then mirrored it around an axis.
2- Then half of the pelvis.
3- Half of the chest and an arm.
4- Then mirrored the whole body around an axis.
5- Started drawing half the face.
6- Completed the face using my favourite command > Mirror. :D

Leg Step 01 — A mirrored marionette lower leg.

leg and pelvis Step 02 — Upper leg & half the pelvis.

chest and arm Step 03 — Half a chest, upper arm, lower arm and hand.

full body mirrored 04 — Full marionette body mirrored.

face mirrored Step 05 — Mirrored marionette face.

final full body Step 06 — Final full body.

The 3D model was sketched using Blender 2.8.

I’d had never used Blender before, the first time I knew about it was last Wednesday.
Which only means one thing: “lots and lots of tutorials”. :D

Started with this tutorial to become familiar with the user interface.
Youtube channel: BornCG.
Playlist: Blender 2.8 tutorial series.
Progress: Episode 03.

Episodes of this tutorial are pretty long but they helped me a lot in grasping a wide perspective of this amazing software.

My first output. Suzanne, it's a default character in blender, what I did was that I followed the tutorial through materials, lighting, shadows and reflections and came up with a golden monkey ornament.

A golden monkey head — The default look before editing.

Getting familiar with the program somewhat and given that I have very limited time, I switched to another awesome tutorial I found on character creation which was fortunately close enough to what I intended to create.

Youtube channel:Sebastian Lague.
Playlist: - / Videos main title: Blender Character Creation.
Progress: (E03: Rigging).

The two downsides were:
1. that this tutorial is 4 years old and the guy was using an old version of blender that is different from 2.8 I am using.
2. Episodes of the tutorial are not listed in a playlist; they are scattered around his youtube channel.

Here is my creation following the tutorials.
Started by inserting elevation and side view images each in a perpendicular to the other. the elevation was in the x-z plan and the side vew was in the y-z.
For each and every part of that puppet added a new cube, then manipulated it into the shape in the image.
Mirror modifier was the hero of the era, as the body I'm making is symmetric around the z-axis in the elevation not to mention its checked clipping checkbox.

Blender Step 01 — Added a cube to form the pelvis. Adding three horizontal loop cuts and moving vertices to match the image.

Blender Step 101 — The cube side view. Adding one vertical loop cuts and moving vertices to match the image.

Blender Step 02 — Copied the pelvis to scale it in the z-axis and manipulated it to create the chest.

Blender Step 201 — Adjusted the side view. To match the image.

Blender Step 03 — A new cube for the upper arm, scaled it in the x direction and created 2 vertical and 4 horizontal loop cuts to get the rounded arm shape.

Blender Step 04 — Coppied the upper arm, manipulated it a bit to create the lower arm. Created hands, upper legs and lower legs in the same method.

Blender Step 05 — For the head, I added a cube subdevided it, then smoothened the vertices multiple times till it became more like a ball, cut in half then added the mirror modifier, then scaled it in the z direction.

Blender Step 501 — For the spherical joints they were created the same method as the haed, a cube, subdivision then smoothing the vertices. And of course each part was adjusted in the y-z plane as well.

Had the model almost done, I started adding bones for movement & animation.

Bones step 01 — Turned on x-ray mode to add the bones. Main 3 bones were added.

Bones step 02 — Added the the right side bones, named them properly then mirrored them.

Bones step 03 — With every bone in the right place, I was able to bend my character's knee.

Bones step 04 — That additional ankle bone was added for balance and movement control.

Bones step 05 — The two floating bones were added to control the knees bending direction.

Rendered — A rendered image of the final result for the incomplete first character creation trial in my life.

Learning outcomes:

This week was kind of a stressful one. I spent so much time trying to settle on an idea for my final project, attempted to learn Blender from scratch and I thought I had to do animation and simulation in such a short time.
I learnt that:
1- Practice makes perfect.
2- Time management is crucial, and that I should not favor a new tutorial playlist to keep learning over starting my documentation earlier. (Except that I assume I will always do.)
3- CAD softwares vary in a good way but the main principles are pretty much the same.
4- I should learn about parametric design soon enough as it's a necessity and unfortunately I didn't get to practise it through this task.

Downloadables: 💾

AutoCAD file .dwgHere
Blender file .blendHere