Makin' Stuff

 I have been working on a small sample set of coasters on Rhino to be laser-cut from plywood.  Before the actual laser-cutting process, I rendered a 3D-model of my design to get an idea of what it might look like, seen below: The purpose of the render was to give an impression of what the final, non-digital product may look like.  However, the 3D render was not necessary towards the process of laser-cutting itself.  Rather, laser cutting requires a 2D view of the piece with colour-coded lines telling the machine where to cut and where to imprint.  An example of this map is shown below. The result was a set of four sample coasters with different engravings, each cut from the same colour of wood.  The engravings and edges were darker thanks to the laser's heat, which helped them stand out more. The process that I followed was first creating a basic shape which all of my coasters will follow, then making a copy to make it 3D and render it to give myself an ide...

 Before going through with the coaster concepts I had previously designed, I got to work on upgrading one of them.  The idea I wound up going with was my "Christmas coaster" concept, except I wanted it to be less of a seasonal thing.  So I came up with the idea for the coasters to be a part of a year-round decoration, hanging from a chain that is to be hung from a wall rather than a Christmas tree.  Here is my new-and-improved coaster design in sketch form: I planned to make multiple coasters with varying designs on them each using the same shape and materials.  So, in rhino, I started by creating this as an untextured base: The black area of the base indicates where it will be indented.  The pattern of each individual coaster will also be indented.  The coaster itself will be made from plywood.  To give myself the ide of what the final product will look like, I rendered the design and came up with this: (The house being one of the small number of...

 I plan to model a set of coasters using Rhino.  Before I started anything, however, I first created some concept sketches for the various ideas for sets I had, shown below. The concepts, in order, go as follows: 1- Toaster Coasters, shaped like slices of bread.  Though they all have the same shape, they'd assume varying levels of done-ness and some might have spreads on them to create variety within the set. 2- Honey coaster, each a yellow/orange hexagon shape with a risen border.  On their own, they don't look like much, but when arranged together they form a honeycomb pattern. 3- Coaster tree, each green and shaped sort of like a flower but with a small hole in the center.  Although they are identical in size, when stacked one on top of the other on a pole, they'd presumably resemble an evergreen tree, especially with a green cone on top. 4- Tic-tac-toesters (I'm so hilarious for these names), each an ordinary square, but half of them have x's printed on them...

 As stated in my previous post, I have finished a castle made in Rhino and was ready to begin texturing it.  However, as I was working on that, the worst possible thing happened.  My computer updated unexpectedly, which closed down all of my tabs.  I unfortunately underestimated the importance of saving, which has to be done manually in Rhino, and all of my progress was lost.  Thus, I had to start all over again.  On the bright side, restarting meant that I was able to fix some of the issues I had with the original work.  Here is my new-and-improved castle concept in shaded mode: With the new concept done and dusted, I got to work on the rendering.  I explored the various materials in the library provided by Rhino, and settled on a stone look for my tower.  I also changed the background to a orange-pink gradient to resemble a sunset sky and set the tower on a base made to look like grass (The grass materials available through Rhino, however, ...