Uneven curved corners

I was surprised how well a simple technique worked to get a curved corner that had a different radius in two directions.

To get the first curve I subdivided a plane and moved the vertices to line up with a circle in each of the directions I wanted the corner.

To get the curve round the corner to be a larger curve than the others I added a circle and simply scaled each row of vertices in just one direction until the edge vertex lined up with the view of the edge of the circle.

The other vertices scaled neatly to keep a smooth complex curve. In the above example I scaled [S] and restricted it to the Y axis [Y] which is the direction of the green arrow in the above image.

It was the fact of scaling rather than moving that kept the curve in the other direction looking smooth.
I started from the top and always scaled to the centre line of the guide circle. I just selected the upper most vertex as the last selection and scaled towards that.

It's much harder to describe than it was to do.

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Air filter and engine

We have had the Discovery back for two weekends now. It has a reconditioned engine to replace the previous one damaged by water being sucked in and causing hydrolock.

The engine and engine bay came back from MKL Motors cleaner than I have ever seen it before.

The fitter thoroughly cleaned the air filter housing and replaced the air filter. He also commented on the amount of grub that was inside. Having seen the mess myself I am sure that it was a poorly fitting filter that allowed the water to be sucked in so easily.

Now that I have a used air filter housing to make it easier to fully seal the air intake system I can see that the old housing was damaged.

Damaged to be discarded

One corner was bent and the lugs that keep it aligned were snapped off!

Undamaged to be fitted

I've spent some of the weekend making sure the new one is fully sealed.

Old bicycle inner tube

It didn't all go to plan. One of the screws that hold a sensor to the side of the air box was stuck solid and I damaged the casing removing it.

I eventually ended up fitting a bolt as a replacement.

Today was spent filling holes and joints with sealant and covering the flexible pipe with several layers of gaffer tape.

The housing is easy to remove from the car. Once the top half is removed, the bottom half can just be pulled up.  It is only held in by three large rubber grommets. The hydraulic fluid reservoir gets in the way a bit but that unclips and can be pushed aside easily.

I cleaned away all the old silicone sealant before adding a whole lot more of my own.

I've also spun the intake of the snorkel round to face the rear. There was a  lot of grub and leaves that had been sucked in.

The way it was

The way it is now

I hope facing the other way will reduce the debris accumulating in the air box and pipework.

Modelling with quads

I've been working on some static models of cars. This hopefully this will improve my 3D modelling skills.

I am trying to stick to the pretty much universally recommended way of doing this and that is to use only quads. Not triangles.

There are several articles online about why quads work better. Here's a link to just one explanation but a quick search on Google will find you lots of others. In short, quads can be smoothed, quads maintain edge loops and can be subdivided for improved quality results.

Most balance articles also mention that there are cases for using triangles in some parts of the model but they should be hidden out of sight. I now know why I found it so difficult to get smooth faces on some of my earlier models. I'd used triangles in the wrong places.

From a games perspective, most, if not all rendering is done as triangles but we are talking about the best way to create the model. Quads, apparently also animate better because the folds will be more predictable.

Anyway. The point of this post is to remind myself of how I have made some shapes with quads, avoiding triangles.

At the moment there is just one tip but I'll add more as I work them out.

• Reduce the number of edges subdividing rectangles 

This transitions from a row of three quads down to a row made with just a single quad. A complex shape at the bottom of the face and simplified at the top.

I often end up with this situation when creating curves within otherwise flat faces.

Another example, 10 quads down to just two.


Other useful articles and tips:
What shape should the quads be? Evenly sizes or any shape.
Also look for edge-parallel mode. After pressing Ctrl-R for a loop cut, press E to align to an edge and F to toggle between which edge to align to.

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Street signs

I've named a few of the roads and corners on the slot car track. To go with the names I've made some road signs.

3D printed, as usual, with raised letters.

I've also added a plaque for the name of the layout in the same style.

Discovery 2 Miniature

My 1:32 scale slot car Land Rover Discovery 2 replica, of our full size car, is now complete.

The progress to get here is all recorded in previous postings and on the slot forum. This is just showing off the final result.

A few pictures in a Land Rover's natural habitat... off-road.

The lights don't work but they reflect very realistically

Tooey

I have run it round the track a few times and it went well after adjusting the braids but Tooey found that by simply tapping its top she could easily knock it on its side.  I stopped before she did any more damage than removing the door mirror!

The full size Discovery 2