Still No Resolution

[Anonymous]

I posted a while back about trying to figure out a way to attach my headlamp assemblies to my car....... I, unfortunately, have yet to meet a resolution and have watched many tutorials and played for hours on end with various tools...... can anyone please offer something other than links to more videos?????? Or should I take my project somewhere to someone who can physically show me the answer somewhere?? (I'm not trying to be sarcastic especially if that's the best legitimate way to figure this out.... I'm almost at wits end!!!!)

I want to learn the program but it doesn't seem like anyone wants to share any information to help me do so..... it feels like this should be a simple question to answer........ but even the staff here just links me to more videos... how frustrating is that? Like, we don't feel like helping you use our comprehensive software so we're just going to get paid to pass the buck and send you to another youtube video..........

Then, of course, I get countless emails asking if I found my resolution but can't answer that question (to which I WOULD say, given the opportunity in the appropriate place, that NO I have NOT found the resolution). So not only have I not found a resolution I can't even share that I haven't found a resolution without having to repost and now without intentionally sounding annoyed I probably sound annoyed..... 

Any actual help is appreciated....... although I seem to be rightly losing faith in the so-called community here...... because the only assistance I've gotten is just a buck passed on to youtube..... and, by the way, the rambling video offering tips on designing a car on here/youtube doesn't seem to offer the most efficient way of doing so..... 

I will definitely learn how to do this one way or another but I am hoping it could be with the help and guidance of the "community" and not by traveling down long aimless roads to nowhere land.... 

again... actual help is appreciated...... more video links are not necessarily appreciated unless they actually provide the tips and tools to RESOLVE my issue..... 

[michallach81]

Designing a car is nothing trivial, if your question would be specific then for sure someone would come with an answer.
I don't know what is the nature of your problem, is it a design problem or just modeling?
I'm afraid that you have a problem with defining your model in a first place. You don't know where you're heading, so it's no surprise you don't know which tools to use.
You have made basic mistakes with almost everything, you've misused sculpt environment, sketches don't define your model in a proper way... just everything is wrong.

Don't take my words as an insult, but I think you should leave that car model behind you, and start with something much simpler... maybe an Iron?
There are so many basic rules you should get familiar with, that modeling a car is to complex to start with. Trust me.
I don't want to be counterproductive so, your main mistake was to leave sculpt environment to early, your whole model (at least main body) should be build as a single t spline body, take a look at these vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARwhgH3uuVg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFnoYLhQfLs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvynqpLZZhc

If on other hand, you would rather like to define your model trough sets of surfaces, then you should use Path enviroment instead of Sculpt. Take alook on this vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwa_aH6rQJw
I know that those tutorial are done in Rhino, but before anyone could help you with some specific modeling problems, you should know how general approach look like.

Michał

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Share your project and show me some screen caps of exactly what you are trying to do and I will help you get it done.

[michallach81]

Ryan already attached pictures and even a model in this thread:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/help-with-headlights/m-p/6068343#M47401

but be aware Phil that after solving one little problem Ryan will dive in to another... and another... He should start lerning on much simpler example.

[michallach81]

When I was saying about modeling an Iron, as nice example for start, I was thinking about something like that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyY5P7aLHro

[PhilProcarioJr]

I completely agree he should be starting with something simpler and learning the foundation first but.....

I will still help because that's what I do. I will look over everything tonight as I have a few other people to help first and then I will see what I can do here.

[michallach81]

I didn't mean to discourage you, I was rather looking for support in convincing Ryan to start over.

[Anonymous]

Thank you VERY much for your help! I know a lot of what I've done is sort of choppy and is going to require eventual reworking...... I'm due to present SOME kind of prototype tomorrow late afternoon so I really appreciate any guidance you have... I'm able to push the deadline in the event I end up working on fixing/attaining results past that point. I appreciate any and all of your assistance. 

Here's the link of where I'm at now..... things just seem to keep getting worse and all I am trying to figure out is how to attach the headlamps so that the cut through the body and show what will eventually go on inside the assemblies...... http://a360.co/1TellTO

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

I did get a brief moment to look at your model and I must say you are going to need to do a lot of cleanup on this, but we will isolate the problem area and see what we can come up with to help you with your deadline. Like I said though I can't do anything until later tonight as I am at work right now.

[Anonymous]

I'm not discouraged and don't oppose the idea of trying something else to familiarize myself with more functions of the program. However, my job is to design cars so it doesn't immediately come to mind to start with something else... I am particularly interested in the links you provided just for further education if nothing else but I, as mentioned, have a deadline to meet so I'm more interested in progressing my skills immediately with the car not so much a hammer even though I'm sure it will be helpful to use these as practice to sharpen my skills..... although I do understand a car is an ambitious first project for anything but again its where I'm at with work so I just need to work it out. 

I know that I have been using things the wrong way because I have been learning as I go and, therefore, have come across new tools and techniques throughout the process.... but this design looks so much like the paper design that I would like to work on it rather than start fresh unless there's no other choice........ 

[Anonymous]

Awesome!!! I REALLY appreciate your help!!! I'm pushing the deadline up to Monday so that I can realistically take the time to properly address the issues. 

[jeff_strater]

I spent a bit of time looking at this model this morning.  If I understand correctly what you are trying to do, I have some recommendations.  That's the good news.  The bad new is that I was unable to get this to work (yet).  I (and hopefully others) will keep looking at it.

I agree with what @PhilProcarioJr and @michallach81 said - this sort of model is pretty complex for a first project (I spent months trying to model my Mazda Miata, and still never got it quite right), so I applaud you for attempting this.  And the model is quite impressive for a CAD beginner!  I also agree that this model in its current state is a bit messy.  That's not always terrible, and is understandable, but could contribute to problems should you ever go back and try to edit some of the earlier features.

But...  The bad news is that my attempt to cut out a hole for the headlight failed.  Here is a screencast of my approach, which should be valid, but is perhaps revealing a bug in Fusion modeling.

But, a question for you:  What is the goal of this project?  A lot of the boidesI see here are surface bodies (no thickness).  Which makes it not manfuacturable, so I suspect you don't have any plans to 3D print this or anything like that.  So, I assume that perhaps the goal is just to produce a rendering.  If so, then maybe there is no need to cut out an opening for the headlight.  The surfaces overlap, but from a rendering point of view, will look just fine, IMO.

Again, I apologize if I misunderstood the question you are asking about the headlights.

Jeff Strater (Fusion development)

[PhilProcarioJr]

@jeff_strater

You can't cut the surface because of all the errors in the time line. One of the errors is on the surface your trying to cut.

@Anonymous

You first need to fix all of the time line errors. That should be any Fusion users first priority. Never, ever leave errors or warnings in your assemblies or models. Your asking for headaches and ultimately failure. Your next problem is trying to move on to future steps without finishing the first steps. If you want to cut a surface then that surface should be in a finished state for that particular step. Your surfaces are not. They are in an erroneous state and a bunch of them are not patched correctly. By that I mean the stitch operations all have errors. Another problem you will run into is when you try to thicken these surfaces. Even if you fixes the errors, these surfaces will never thicken because of the sharp folds. These sharp folds are not even possible to create on a real vehicle and therefor shouldn't be in your model. I am a tool and die maker by trade so I know this for a fact. Steel will not bend to a sharp corner, there has to be some kind of radius. You said you realize your model is choppy, that right there tells you that fusion will have errors. it also tells you most of Fusions tools will fail. So your first step should be to fix the errors. If the errors can't be fixed you will have to remodel the parts with errors otherwise what you want to do is impossible.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Your errors are because your using cached geometry. Share only the two surfaces that touch the headlight please. 

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Another thing we will need is a completed headlight housing. Without it what your wanting to do will be a nightmare. With it, it will be easy. Post back when you have these things done and we will go from there.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the applause! This entire project has been ambitious and that's been part of the fun I've been having... I sort of just dove into CAD with only experience with 3D modeling through Google SketchUp... so I'm minimally familiar with basic functions.. the rest has been left to youtube and learning from others like here.... 

The goal of the project is to at some point print it and at another point manufacture it....... so it seems like there's a lot of work to do in order to get to that point..... At this moment I just need to have a rendering and throughout the year I am going to work on fixing all the errors and getting it to a point of perfection so that I can inevitably create a convertible and sedan variation of this vehicle.

Thank you for taking the time to help me out with this. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much for the guidance and advice... I will work towards doing these things over the weekend and next few days and will post accordingly. Thank again! 

[michallach81]

Hi Ryan, through weekend I was playing with your t splines for some time... but without any success. I still think that you won't finish this model. There's to many errors in each step.
If you insist to start with a car model and especially with t splines, then I suggest you to build main body as a single t spline surface, and without details. No windows, no mirrors, without lights... plain body. From that it would be much easier and more efficient to help you adding details.
Fusion don't have tutorials for creating cars, but its twin Alias Speedform have, even more whole program is aimed at car design, in its help you will find only car related examples.
You must be aware that Alias Speedform have couple (two or three) more tools which Fusion don't have, but nothing important. For now you should use Alias Speedform help and tutorials.

Here are some links:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/ALSSF/2016/ENU/    (look at "Tutorials and example workflows" section)

some youtubes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6e0XhIPzOE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWNxhRo6AAw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QBgdj_DwfU

also don't forget to read/watch tutorial from:

http://www.carbodydesign.com/tutorials/3d/car-3d-modeling-tutorials/

maybe this one:

http://www.carbodydesign.com/2015/11/webinar-alias-speedform-for-conceptual-3d-modeling/

Cheers

[Anonymous]

Hey there.... I can kind of appreciate where you're coming from because, yes, I completely agree that this was an entirely ambitious place to start with my first project..... however, I am finding a bit of success following some of the aforementioned guidance from other users and your videos were of some help. I have gone through and begun to remove and correct errors (though there are many), I have completed the headlamp assemblies (which took several days), and learned quite a few new tricks that I think will prove useful in resolving my ultimate goal which is the attempt to not start from fresh with this particular model.

I appreciate the copied texts for links to more videos that I have watched after you posted them the first time but they proved to be of nearly no use. Now that a couple of things have been pointed out a few days ago I have been really enjoying making use of my time fixing these errors and using this ALL as a learning experience. The only benefits I found from the videos was a larger source of learning that has helped me broaden my perspective of the program and moving forward I will be able to use these when finishing things like the interior and making things perfect so that eventually this can be more than just a rendering. 

That all being said I am almost done removing the errors and reworking a few things that are part of the cascading results of fixing the errors and I am actually looking forward to resolving the issues on the current model that are preventing me from the inevitable reveal of the vehicle. I will post and share the new bits once I have finished them which will likely be by the day's end so that those who are willing can give some more greatly appreciated feedback. 

I really, really appreciate you taking the time and effort to show me some places to learn more and more because inevitably I am looking to master the program and not just design a couple cars. 

Thanks TONS!! 🙂 

[Anonymous]

Though it might be simple...... I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of cached geometry...... I'm making great progress otherwise in removing and correcting errors and have finished the headlamps.... I will share later tonight. 

Thank You!!!!