Piston

When the work was delegated it was agreed that any modelling should use minimal polygons. Rob had made us aware that once animation was added as well as textures to any models, the render times would increase substantially.

My task was to create the Piston. I started with a cylinder and set the dimensions based upon the scale agreed during the groups previous meeting.

I then split the cylinder into multiple sections, this was to enable me to match up all indentations from the head of the piston.

By setting the cylinder to an editable poly it allowed me to manipluate specfic points of the model.

My first thought was to extrude the indentations on the piston. The problem with this is the surface becomes ridged and would mean I would lose the initial smooth texture.



My next idea was to move the points manually, this would allow for detail to be kept but the problem would be the time taken to keep the symmetry all the way round the piston.

The third option was to select an edge and use the Loop function to make sure the same set of edges round the cylinder were selected and use the scale tool to draw areas in and keep the smoothness of the object.



To keep the squareness of the indentations of the piston head I used the movement tool on the selected edges to model them into place.



The next stage was to bore the centre of the piston head. My initial idea was to delete the vertices individually. A problem I found with doing this was it offered no depth within the piston.



I realised that the best way to produce the depth within the base of the Piston as well as save time was to use the boolean modifier which allows a model to be subtracted from another.

This technique was also used on the face of the piston where the bolts mount to.