pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Hey have you seen 44's VEX mech.'s? they work great! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS8P0ZnK7PA

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Yeah, 44 was one of the reasons we dropped the project, we saw them in person at worlds and were amazed and gave them credit for first HS vex legal mecanum. But another reason for doing this design was to make HS legal VEX omnitread, that ran on the concept of the mecanum wheel. Not sure if it would have worked very well but it was a cool idea and only wish it was more feasible to make...

- Andrew

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Beautiful render. What was it done in?

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

It was rendered in 3ds max on one of our members... er a super computers I guess you could call it!

- Andrew

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

*quietly shies away ... xD
That render quality is INCREDIBLE. I am completely in awe. After looking at the full size picture, I was almost under the impression that this was a finished product, in tangible existence and completely tactile. It was not until I read further that my suspicions were put to rest.
Good Job. I believe you just inspired me to start a download of 3ds. I need to learn how to render actually photo-realistialy. That said, it'll take a lot of work to get to that skill level.
Wow. I am really in awe.

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Good design skills take work. Rendering, not too much skill as it is patience and having an eye for lighting and textures along with a solid computer/software package. (Trust me, I used to spend more time making something look good in a render than I used to spend on the actual design).

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Glad to do some inspiring! And there are more to come! Just have to be a little patient :p I will post here the render when the final robot is released :D

Believe me when I say this the render its self was not done on my personal computer (not enough power) Something this size would probably literally burn my computer. I am running about 5.2 Ghz of power with 8 gb of RAM, while the computer this was rendered on currently has about 31.5 Ghz of power with 24 GB of RAM. It pumped out this render in under an hour if I remember correctly.

If you look at the difference between this render and the other one I just recently posted you can clearly see which computer did which picture :p


Happy Rendering!

- Andrew

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

As a former animator I'm taking offense to this. Creating an effective render takes just as much skill (and imho a little more talent) than designing something. The artist must take into consideration the angle of the part, the lighting, what you can show off and what you can't (for static images) and several other factors that all contribute to the quality of the render. Remember, the point of a render is to convey the design in a simple and effective manner. If you make a render of a dark piece on a black background than you are not being effective. Just the same as if your goal was to design a ball shooter and your design sprays gear teeth across the field.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't discount the work other people do just because it looks easy. I've read books on lighting, hundreds are articles on shot composition, and spent tons of time practicing to learn what every setting can do to an image (for my camera which is a very similar artistic pursuit). Engineering has rules that can't be broken, arts have rules that can't be broken except when they should be... or when the artist feels like it... or when it looks good. It is a completely different mindset and, if you take the time to really learn it, I would claim it is as hard as any engineering.

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Can you explain? I'm not aware of anything currently with such high clock speeds. Are we talking a networked rendering cluster or multiple cores or what?

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

If scaled up to FRC size and weight, the roller gaps might become an issue.

See the discussion in posts 1, 15, 16, and 19 about roller gaps at this thread.

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Sorry you feel that way, but I still stand by my statement. Perhaps Solidworks' rendering software just lends itself to making nice renders easier, your experience with animation rendering may have been different. And like I said, some people can just have a good eye for that type of thing. Should've added in "in my opinion"

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Except this was not done in Solidworks. I have experience in Solidworks' rendering system and I do say that it makes most renders acceptable (it is hard to REALLY screw it up).

But... I suppose this is what I get for saying that something artistic is hard to a bunch of engineery types.

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

This isn't a Solidworks drop and play with some settings and go render, as obviously indicated by the quality of the render. It's a 3DS Max render that obviously had quite a lot of time put into it.

Why are we bashing students for being so proud and inspired by a part design that they make a beautiful presentation of it? Yes, the render isn't as important as the CAD file, but no one was saying it was.

Re: pic: VEX Mecanum Wheel/Tread
 

Not to take away the work you did rendering these (they are incredible; having done renders way back when in AutoCAD on a 386 computer I know there is a ton of work involved), but the thumbnail photo of the other photo has the strange effect of two little fuzzy animals with big bulgy eyes. It doesn't show in the larger photo, but now I can't look at the Image Gallery and not see them l:eek:king back at me. :)