Spokey

[sallybode]

Ah, the valve stem. Very good.

[Intbel]

Ah, the valve stem. Very good.

Gotta keep everyone happy
Thanks for your most useful input by the way.

[Ron Duke]

Sally,
IMHO, your tire and spokes are by far the best displayed here. They look like spokes to me, some of the others look like spikes and sticks.
Very realistic rendering of the tire also, Sal!
ron

[sallybode]

Raymond's techniqe for spokes, is great for and orthographic approach but if the tire is rotated, it leads to a more studied approach. I have often played with Xara shapes but did not see spokes for a wheel in them. He is the inspiration here, I am here offering refining technique, not hijacking his thread. He has worked hard, deserves his glory.

Technique: I applied the Xara round bevel to my lines and then duplicated the line and applied Bleach transparency with a linear fade, so that the colour varies from spoke to spoke. I also built the wheel back to front to see what I was doing, placing a copy of the placed fille also in the top layer, to turn it on and off as I am making progress is also extremely useful. Both the layer being traced and the layer I do my checking from are locked.

The small variation of colouration, (not the American spelling, trying to redeem myself for the previous blunder) helps to give the illusion of "space". Including the "nebulous" background

Yes, we are "illusionists", as Raymond commented. We offer the mind a new perspective, on seeing items from the mundane to the fanicful, through someone else's eyes. Beauty is to be had in many places, even from tires, or is it tyres? Lighting is key in almost all drawing, find a light source and be true to it and don't be afraid to be a little dramatic, it is where you find the fun in the artwork. In most artwork that makes the eye linger there are colours which balance in the composition, by balance, I mean there are matching highlights in usually three places, and you can draw them in a rough triangle. Other colour placement generally follows a similar pattern. If you go back and look at other artwork you like, you can find these patterns in it.

It is one thing I normally do in drawings I do, it has become habit with me.

[Intbel]

... if the tire is rotated, it leads to a more studied approach.

Here it is is rotating.
As you mentioned it.

Here, a totally new approach is required for if the wheel is rotated as is, then the reflections and highlights would go around in a most unnatural manner.

So the tyre with its tread and text goes around, as do the spokes and the valve thingo and the hub while the rim and the reflections on the hub plus the "bling" need to remain stationary.

Xara 3D would be a better choice of programme in which to accomplish this thing I think, but 'tis done in Xtreme now ...

[sallybode]

The odd thing with rotating items is that it leads to the optical illusion of the spokes quivering while indeed they are rotating the whole 360, but the valve stem, it is obviously going round and round. If you have watched some of the old westerns, I used to be fascinated to watch wagon wheels seemingly go backwards. Is this a frame rate thing or an optical illusion? Would the same thing happen in Xara 3D, next challenge, take the wheel and animate it there?

Hypnotizing, though really.

Great bling.

[Ron Duke]

To our eye, what the spokes appear to be doing depends on the speed of which the wheels are turning. This can be observed by watching automobile wheels with spokes as they role to a stop and increase in speed.

I think too many times on this forum we think that light effects, movement and other things in life are always the same and look just a certain way; but in fact, that's not real life. Sally's observation of the wagon wheel is a perfect example. If you've ever observed this in life rather than just on film, you'll see the same effect, again, depending on the speed the wheel is turning.
It seems we always think of a light source coming from one place or direction, when in fact there are many instances in life where light can come from many directions all at the same time. For example, when lights on a showroom floor are aimed at the subject but from many different angles.

Raymond, this is a really good thread.
ron

[-=Drifter=-]

Some viewing of spinning wheels info after googling:
This is a stroboscopic effect which happens when you are seing repeated images of the tire. This can happen if you see the tire on film (often 24 frames a second) or on a TV or lit by an AC electric light or any process which regularly breaks up your image of the tire, such as looking through a fan at the tire.
Normally the eye will interpret the succession of rotated images of the tire as the tire rotating because each image has rotated a little further than the previous one.
If the tire is rotating quickly enough that by the time you see the next image of the tire, it has rotated so much that patterns on the tire are slightly backward from the previous image, (for example, maybe it made 99% of a turn), then what you are seeing is exactly the same as it would look if the tire really was moving backwards and so that is what you see.

[Intbel]

With animated gifs there are two choices, or a combination of two:

1. Increase or decrease the degree by which the wheel turns.
2. Increase or decrease the length of time each frame is visible.

I played around a bit and while I got the spokes looking good, the tyre (as per the tread) was going in the opposite direction.

I must have been about three years old when I got my first spinning/humming top and first noticed the strobe effect, even though at that age I never understood it at the time.

[sallybode]

Raymond, never having changed a tire on a wheel with spokes, except for my bicycle, isn't the method of attachment from the center axel and then the fancy nut for lack of better terminology afixes the wheel? Then when the wheel turns, does this remain stationary or does it spin too? It think on a bicycle this spins, but the fork of course is stationary. Not that I don't like the animation, just from the stand point of how things work, just curious.