Armillary Sphere

Second attempt at this image posting business!! Took me half a dozen attempts to get into my own webpages to upload the darn thing! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/confused.gif
Anyway, I am attempting to post an image of an Armillary Sphere I am working on, its a sort of 3D spherical astrolabe. No surface detail yet, I was just so pleased to get this far with it, I felt the urge to post it as is, I hope nobody minds http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...sphere%201.png

Well, it looks pretty good so far, Mike. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

i will second that mike... Looks pretty darn good so far.

Mike

http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/eek.gif
That's totally and utterly impossible to do within Xara3D. Only you could manage it! Can't wait to see the final image.
Egg

I'd like to see a tutorial for that one!
You certainly push Xara3D to limits! Awesome work Mike
Jim

Guys, thanks. It uses the same tricks as the X-Wing and TIE fighters, I use the Swing2 animation to swing the rings and frame legs into position, the blue sphere is a small dot with a large rounded bevel, and the central pole is the same dot extruded and swung into position. There should also be a couple of latitude rings representing the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, but I am having trouble getting them positioned correctly, though they aren't really necessary.

I will post again when I have added the engraved detailing. That will take a little while.

Mike

I am definently waiting to see that... Very nice so far.

Mike,
You're amazing...
ron

The armillary sphere now has some surface details. I would have preferred to do this by subtracting the engraved details from the rings etc, as I did in the astrolabe, but Xara3D was completely mangling the resulting shapes, so these details are done with textures instead. I think the image is still quite acceptable, as long as the lighting is controlled.

Comments, criticisms, and suggestions are welcome, as usual. I expect I will start putting a tutorial together, in the next day or so http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif .

Mike


http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...%20cropped.png

Very nice, Mike. Very nice. Verrrrrrrry nice.

What else can I say?

Your wife must be a very understanding woman -- mine complains that I spend too much time on this sort of thing already, and you keep raising the bar! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Did I mention that it's reeeeeeeely nice... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Another masterpiece of ingenuity, Mike. You're right, the textures are mangled a bit. Like the graduations in the horizontal ring. So, is this thing going to be animated?

FANTASTIC !
Is it just 1 Xara3D file?
I'm not sure about a tutorial but I'd like to see the strange shape it makes in an animation.
One thing, I think the wooden stand would look better in a darker wood, like rose wood.
Egg

That's a terrific piece of work, Mike.
Why don't you put it in the 3D section? I'd imagine it'd be a difficult task even with one of the mainstream 3D packages.

Cheers

Roger

An hour and a half later I've got this far. Why do you do this to me Mike, I just have to see how it's done http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif
Egg
http://www.xlwebdesign.co.uk/tg/armillary1.png

Very Nice mike,

the only thing missing is a shadow... but who cares, it is still great! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Terry, thanks, my wife is happy to tolerate my hobbies, as long as I get the chores done first!

G-man, thanks, and the two steel rings are more mangled than I realised, but I think I can fix that, but the other mangles were so extensive when I subtracted the graduations and circles from the rings and transferred the apparently clean results to X3D I just despaired, and applied them as textures instead. I'll post the one that broke my patience later. Meanwhile, attached is a top view showing the steel ecliptic rings, with the mangled gaps.

Egg, yes, this is just one X3D file, and I took your point about the wood, I had meant to do something about that, mea culpa http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif but the image below has a darker wood, just by deepening the red tint of the X3D shape. Just for interest, the original sphere I based my sphere on is all brass, and is by no means the most complex example, and in fact I left off two additional rings that I was unable to place properly. I wasn't concerned much about that, as it would have made the sphere very confusing to look at, if you see what I mean, with too many similar rings all over the place. And your own image shows you've got the trick to it! The rest is just adjustments http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Roger, thanks, I may just do that!

John, thanks, and I did try a shadow in X3D, but never got it to look right, and it didn't come out too well when I viewed the reduced-colour exported image.

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...20view%202.png

This is the import problem I had when I started creating the surface details. The left hand image is the XaraX shape, the right hand is the same shape imported to Xara3D. Not a pretty sight! It looks like X3d fed it through a mangle then tried to re-assemble it again. I can tell you I was not a happy bunny when I saw it.

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...%20problem.png

Yes Mike, I could see you fuming! I've never seen a import as bad as this in Xara3D.
Egg

Looks like it changed a lot of your curves to lines. I hate when that happens... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Mike,
Amazing work. Frustrating, though, when 3d doesn't cooperate.
ron

Egg, I have two animations for you, both are largeish, 253K, and 269K. The first one shows the armillary sphere in flatpack form, morphing into the fully formed sphere, and the next post should have the fully formed sphere swinging gently around to help view the 3D relationships of its parts.

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...ropped%202.gif

And this is the second animation.

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...20anim%202.gif

Very Cool Mike.. Looks even better to me.

Can you put that in the library next the the large globe? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Fantastic! Don't know how you do it, Mike.
ron

Excellent, Mike. You make Xara3D do so much.

Fantastic.
I just love that flat-pack ani. That would be almost imposibble to create in a full 3D prog.
How did you get that extremely thin axis bar for the central globe?
Egg

Hi Mike,

you should do so car part animations. Could make you a pretty penny, showing how to pull a carb off a car for instance.... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Egg, thanks again, and the extra thin rod is a single dot, extruded in the z-direction (as all extrusions are). X3D makes all shapes a minimum of 1 unit thick in the z-direction, but imposes no such restriction in the x/y directions. The end caps are a square cornered1 bevel on the thin rod. The dot is re-used for the blue globe, too. You can see in the flatpack anim that at the beginning, the rod sticks out well beyond the rest of the flat shapes, then slowly rotates into position. The full-swing anim is like a dance but it is more than 2 Megabytes in size, at 256 frames and smooth at 16 frames/Sec. I chopped off the last three-quarters of the cycle then took out every second frame to get it down to a postable size, as well as cropping off the dross, and with using Swing animations to get the shapes in their correct orientations, there is a lot of dross all over the place!

Bill, John, Ron, more thanks!! I'll not get my head out the door http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Mike

PS John, I'm not so sure about carbs, but I think I've got pistons down to a fine art http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Mike Sims:
This is the import problem I had when I started creating the surface details. The left hand image is the XaraX shape, the right hand is the same shape imported to Xara3D. Not a pretty sight! It looks like X3d fed it through a mangle then tried to re-assemble it again. I can tell you I was not a happy bunny when I saw it.

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...%20problem.png

---

Great work as always, Mike! You're incredible. As far as the problem you mentioned, I don't know if this is a possible solution or not, but some of the fonts I use get "mangled" in a similar fashion by X3D when the bevel setting is on "miter." I've found that changing it to "round" often does the trick.

Of course, this works in the simple world I live in. I'm sure in the world of the "xara gods" things are much different http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Art

Hi, Art
Thanks for your suggestion, I tried it, but it made no noticeable difference. However, in the process, I discovered that if I import the ring by itself, without adding the two sizing dots, then it comes through almost intact, and if I add just one dot, it is still mostly OK on import, but adding the second dot brings on the manglies with a vengeance. It doesn't seem to matter which way round I add the dots, one or other first then the second, or both together, the end result looks OK in XaraX, but disastrous in X3D.

If I knew what the fundamental reason for it was, it might be possible to pre-treat the XaraX shape in some way before importing it to X3D. If someone at Xara reads this and has an answer or suggestion, I'm listening!

Mike

I did some more experimenting, and I can get a pretty good import if I export the ring and both dots from XaraX as .wmf file! If I import the wmf, Xara3D interprets the sizes a little differently, so I needed to tweak the aspect ratio and object sizing a little, to get it to fit the rest of the sphere. I'm off to try the method on the other shapes I wanted to engrave!

Mike

It's been an adventuresome few days, but attached is what is probably the final image. The use of wmf files definitely helped, but some shapes XaraX refused to export as wmf, so I asked for help in the XaraX forum, and was able eventually to replace all the textured engravings with proper bevelled versions.

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...%20cropped.png

the one on the black background does look better, I have to admit... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I have a picture that would make a very nice background for you. Ho about an polished Italien marble floor?

I've now worked out how to add the equator and other latitude rings, and while it works, it makes the sphere a bit confusing to look at, which is something I thought might happen. I'll play with it a bit more to see if I can make it work better, visually. Hmmm, I wonder if an Italian marble floor might help http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...cropped%20.png

Geeez I don't visit this board much.... what have I been missing!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Great work Mike you have ne awed http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Italian marble floor, and the sphere looks right at home, thanks, John. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Availor, it is a nice board, isn't it. Thanks http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Mike

http://www.xaracen.pwp.blueyonder.co...me%20small.jpg

Hi Mike,

You still have the wooden legs hanging around somewhere. I think the wooden ones would look better next to the piano. The red legs just do not match the decor'... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif Can you do anything with a shadow also? Maybe in X1? The fine details are the hardest... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Looks great tho... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif too bad you could post the large picture... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Mike
As you say, the additional rings just confuse the image and make it over fussy.
Egg

Speechless...