Community
Fusion Design, Validate & Document
Stuck on a workflow? Have a tricky question about a Fusion (formerly Fusion 360) feature? Share your project, tips and tricks, ask questions, and get advice from the community.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Still No Resolution

52 REPLIES 52
Reply
Message 1 of 53
Anonymous
2224 Views, 52 Replies

Still No Resolution

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!!!!)

 

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..... Smiley Frustrated

52 REPLIES 52
Message 41 of 53
PhilProcarioJr
in reply to: Anonymous

 



Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations

Message 42 of 53
Anonymous
in reply to: PhilProcarioJr

THANK YOU for this!! Things are making a lot more since..... I'm away for the weekend so I will play with this Sunday night inevitably once I return.... I must say I'm continuing to get excited about this the more I go.... it seems there's lots more discipline on my end to instill. I just assumed that creases were part of that phase of the articulation and started to crease things.... at any rate, I will play around with what you have in the video on Sunday/Monday and go from there. 

 

Thanks again!! I really appreciate it!! 

Message 43 of 53
Anonymous
in reply to: jeff_strater

thanks!! now that things are getting broken down more I'm having a lot more fun creating this thing and can't wait for the final product!!! 😄 it seems so far this approach is much more appropriate! 

Message 44 of 53
PhilProcarioJr
in reply to: Anonymous

Your welcome, I will try to do more videos this weekend on the basics that should help you more.



Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations

Message 45 of 53

 


Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations

Message 46 of 53
michallach81
in reply to: Anonymous

Hi Ryan, I was busy for couple of days, but it looks like you've made nice progress since. Before you get to far, I have some tips to share, especially that after days of digging I've found very useful tutorial on youtube.

Advices which I and other users gave you, might be misleading without setting up a context.

Why we've told you, to build a carbody as a single t-spline?
Even if Jeff said that zero thickness geometries are not manufacturable, that wasn't the reason.  It is true, and in a most of designs I would suggest to create a solid model (boundary fill/stitch) before you'll add any details. In a same time it's common to design bodywork as surfaces only. In a long and laborious process of designing a car, surfaces will eventually be turned in to solid models, but usually they're designed in a software that don't use ("don't know") solids at all (e.g. Alias). Water-sealed models at this stage may serve as a proof for tolerances between surfaces patches, but that still is not a reason why we said you to go with a single t-spline body.
The reason for that is, that it is very difficult to create good transition between surface that was created from t-spline body, and any other geometry.

I'd like to illustrate that with a basic example:
If you have two stripes of t-splines, it's very easy to blend them, one in to another. You can use bridge tool, you can draw faces between (one by one), or even weld them (vert by vert). All these will work fine, because the transitions are made with use of a same algorithm, that defined both of these stripes. If on other hand you would like to use tools not from t-splines toolbox, it would create very complex transition, or would even fails. Take a look at these:

 

stripes01.gif

 

stripes02.gif

 

Examples above should explain to you, why you had problems to work with your first model.

So, how our conclusion sounds?
If you need a smooth transition between body parts, and those parts were created with t-splines, you have to create transition in t-splines also. There might be some exceptions, but strength of that rule grows along with complexity of a model. That rule means also that if you need to create a transition/connection between two bodies but it don't have to be smooth, you can do that with any other tools (e.g. in patch environment). That is why you don't need to do side windows or door handles as a same t-spline as body.

 

Because you've made some basic model it's good to know how to proceed to avoid errors.

Two days ago I've found tutorial, that address your needs directly. Before I post a link I need to make a disclaimer. Tutorial is made in Rhino, but except some minor differences, you should be able to follow each step. What is most valuable in this tutorial, is the workflow Jean Gorospe utilise.
This tutorial is very long, contains 42 videos, but it's worth watching. In a first vid you can find also a link to all files he's working with (you can import them into Fusion 360, maybe without t-splines but still). Unfortunately he is not making any explanation to the workflow, which would be helpful, and which I'll have to do in this post.

 

Here's link to Jean Gorospe tutorial (whole playlist):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSbFsMvQnZzdozVzUXVcGd0CuRIRsRIze

 

Before you'll watch that tutorial, I would like to explain his workflow with use of few illustration. To have some clear guide, we can split t-spline part of our workflow, in to 5 steps:

 

1. Defining main shape and finding right topology (face flow), that will describes that shape. We have to build single t-spline body as simple as we can, with fewest faces possible. Our only goal is to find right topology, we don't have to bother about how exactly our t-spline is match the shape. Take a look at illustraton below:

 

topology.gif

Whole blue t-spline is almost like stripes form previous illustrations, it has a single flow. It should create nice surface, there are no Star point, nor T point. But the second body (red & blue) describes better the rear of our car. That build would reflect your idea in much more efficient way. It come with a price of having two Star point.
First step is only about, deciding on how t-spline faces should flow. Which to choose? You have to push each variation through the second step. Then you should be able, to tell which topology causing problems, which is either, unmanageable or can't follow the desired shape.
In Jean Gorospe tutorial, that step is shown in vids 8/42 and 9/42. Not only in those two, but in his example it's more fluid, he makes some topology adjustment also later.

 

2. Adjusting edges/curves/profiles. This is rather simple. After we have our base, we need to take a closer look at edges flow.
They should be evenly spaced, have nice natural flow. Please watch this part of Jean Gorospe tutorial, look how he uses sketch as a guide to place verts evenly:
https://youtu.be/KZtbVgGJ9Oc?t=1m39s
This is the last time to make some big changes. Trying to do that later will cause a lot of troubles.

 

3. Inserting Hard points. It may sound confusing, but what I mean is, that now it's time to add things like wheel arches, headlights (if they influence shape of bodywork, like headlamps in Porsche 911 for example).
This step will aslo require to make some adjustments, like in a step 2, but mainly in areas with added geometry. This is how my example model looks like after steps 2 and 3:

 

adjust and inserts.gif

 

Jean Gorospe tutorial have these two steps mixed in videos from 12/42 up to 15/42.

 

4. Adding details. We are speaking mainly about things like grills, side skirts, intakes, spoilers. To add those, we usually need to split existing faces, that will make our body less manageable. Lines that use to look nice, after adding more and more detail will start to deform. If you'll make them straight again, whole shape will change and with that amount of faces you'll never gonna get decent flow. That's why we need to take care about main shape in steps 2 and 3, so when we add more geometry we don't care for deformations that took place.
In this step we also gonna use exact inputs instead of simple (those are the setup options in t-spline tools, that add lines and faces to existing geometry)
Now it's time to make decisions about shape of those "grills and intakes", later when we'll add cosmetics it will be to late to do that.
My example in step 4:

 

details.gif

 

In Jean tutorial step 4 is in vids: 15/42 up to 17/42.

5. Cosmetics. Last step with working on a main body is to add creases... Of Course you can use creased edges from the first step, but we need them up till now, only to define shape of our model. In finished body creases are highly unwanted. Not because sharp edges are non-manufacturable, but because in t-splines they may create very dense and twisted surfaces where they ends. What we need to do is, first uncrease selected edges, after that, use Bevel Edge tool on the same set of edges. Just like that:

 

cosmetics.gif

 

Jean subaru model don't have any creases in t-splines, so therefore he is not showing that trick.

 

Please watch Jean tutorial, after vid 17/42, he is covering how to add all other detials, that are build with non-tspline tools.

 

There are even more tricks and rules you should know about, when you get out of t-splines, but for us to give you useful advices first you need to share with us finished t-spline bodywork.

Before I end, there's one more thing you should do. First scale your model to real scale, and second remove history, try to work in Direct Modeling environment.

 

Cheers
Michał

 

 

 

 


Michał Lach
Designer
co-author
projektowanieproduktow.wordpress.com

Message 47 of 53
jeff_strater
in reply to: michallach81

that was an awesome post, @michallach81!  Gonna bookmark that one for my own use.

 

Jeff


Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
Message 48 of 53
michallach81
in reply to: jeff_strater

thx


Michał Lach
Designer
co-author
projektowanieproduktow.wordpress.com

Message 49 of 53

@michallach81 Did a fantastic job showing concepts for T-Splines. Thanks for posting this for him. You saved me work this last weekend. Smiley Happy



Phil Procario Jr.
Owner, Laser & CNC Creations

Message 50 of 53
Anonymous
in reply to: PhilProcarioJr

Thanks again for this........ I finished the repairs and tweaked things to what I would consider perfection in terms of this step after following the steps in your video..... I hope.... anyway I think I'm ready to move on to the next part of this later today or whenever you have a chance....... here's the link to where I am at now.......... I do plan to take time out to watch ALL the videos that everyone has posted/suggested... just don't have the time at the moment.. deadline is the last day of the month and can't be changed again unfortunately..... so if I'm able to get things done by then I am willing to be up day and night to do so don't worry. 🙂 

 

http://a360.co/1TellTO 

Message 51 of 53
Anonymous
in reply to: michallach81

This is INCREDIBLY AMAZING!!!!

Thank you so much for this!!! I've bookmarked it so that I can use this method in the future on the rest of the cars I have to do for the lineup. Its incredible that you took the time out to do this and I REALLY appreciate this!!!!!!!!!!! I'm definitely going to take some time out to watch those videos you linked in.... thank you for those as well!!!! 

 

I did move forward with the single piece for now but I will like I said before try this method for the next vehicle I have to render. 😄 SO GOOD!!!! 

Message 52 of 53
colin.smith
in reply to: michallach81

@michallach81

That is a great post.  Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

 

Colin

 

Colin Smith
Sr. Product Manager
SketchBook
Alias Create VR (aka Project Sugarhill)
Automotive & Conceptual Design Group
Message 53 of 53
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

So........ I'm not sure who exactly to accept as resolution since I used a compilation of methods to finish my initial rendering and move forward from there....... I'm still learning, always will be, and will continue to absorb CAD knowledge. I can't express enough gratitude for everyone reaching out with suggested methods...... the thing I'm experiencing with designing cars on Fusion360 is that there really isn't a wrong way to do it rather there is a way that works best with your design and the machines it will meet. I have several vehicles and they are all radically different from one another and I am seeing where some methods might not work on some cars where they do so well with others. There are several videos, posts, tutorials and what not that are available none of which are wrong.... the decision on which method to use just depends on a lot and mainly what you are trying to accomplish which may be difficult to determine in the beginnings of a car design and may also develop differently as the car becomes a graphic conceptualization (especially for beginners like me insisting on such a difficult task for the very first project)... some people start their cars on CAD while others like myself start the design on paper, clay, or both which makes the experience of conceptualizing the car on CAD something the designers have to accept as a fluidic and adaptable process....... long and short is that I am still working on getting the car 100% completely finished inside and out but I have been able to, by using the methods shared here, move on to the interior of the vehicle and begin the works of the mechanical parts of the car. I'm quite pleased with the car and again have a lot of you to thank for the methodology. 

 

So a resolution HAS indeed been met...... and it lies with all of you who posted methods of crafting a design here on Fusion360. I've attached a screenshot of her as sort of a thank you for helping... so you can see where your suggestions led me. 

 

Screen Shot 2016-04-13 at 7.01.32 PM.png

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Technology Administrators


Autodesk Design & Make Report