Assignment 2: Self Critique

Self Critique

In my opinion, I think my final animation turns out to be the exact same thing as my storyboard. However, I think that my animation is not very good. There were basic principles of animation introduced, such as squash & stretch ( the squash & stretch of the magnetic part of the arm ), anticipation ( the robotic arm anticipating its picking up of the box ) and ease in ease out ( the robotic arm picking up the boxes ). However, there were some cases where the principles could be introduced, but I didn't introduce them.

For instance, the boxes moving along the conveyor belt. I should have made them ease in and ease out, making the animation more natural instead of an abrupt stop.

Next, when I applied squash, there was a gap in between the joint of the arm end and the arm end itself. Naturally, when I applied stretch, part of the joint was also overridden by the arm end. This caused the animation too look abit more flimsy.

Also, when I was moving the boxes, I noticed that the first cargo box moves slightly. This might be an err on my part, since at one point of time I was having trouble with the parent constraints of my box object. I did not change the offsets properly.

There is also one part where when the robotic arm examines the cargo box, the arm end itself squashes a little. This is due to the squash that I have input in the next frame.

Assignment 2: Scenario 2

This is how I created my Robotic Arm animation.

Process

Using the rigged scene I have gotten from the previous exercise, I have started on my animation.

I then start with my first clip from my storyboard. The robot is busy stacking boxes.

The second clip of my storyboard. The robot goes on to pick up the box. I added a squash deformer so that it would fulfill the basic principle of animation - squash & stretch. The magnetic end of the arm will squash when it touches the box. It will then stretch after a few frames.

The third clip of my storyboard. The robot puts down the box that it picked up. I set the blend parent to 1 so that the box will move along with the arm. When the box is settled, I set the bledn parent back to 0 so that the arm would let go of the box.

The fourth clip of my storyboard. The robot first examines the box. It then gets suprised and then shakes its head in disapproval. I have made the swivel base move when the robot nodded so that it would look more natural and that the robot would look more alive.

The fifth clip of my storyboard. The robot goes on to pick up the box. I also added squash and stretch for this part. However, the squash and stretch is more vigorous now, since the robot pressed onto the box with more force.

The sixth clip of my storyboard. I then made the robot throw the box, by setting the blend parent of the box to 0 when the arm is near the edge. Then, I rotated and move the box, set keyframes so that the box would look like it was thrown.

The seventh clip of my storyboard. The robot will then spin around and around due to the force of the throw. I then set the swivel base to rotate a few times.

The last clip in my storyboard. I then made the robot look at the screen.

I then used the graph editor to make the animation more natural.

A few times that I had used graph editor include:

Making the ease in and ease out motion when the arm goes on to pick a box up.

Making the suprise motion after the arm examines the box.

Making the swing more natural by making it lose velocity the longer it spins.

After smoothing my animation, I playblasted it, using a resolution of 640 x 360.

This is the result of my Robotic Arm Animation:

Week 13 - IK Rigging

This is how I rigged my models so that I can prepare it for animation.

Process

First, I opened the Maya scene file that was provided to me. This scene would be used to do rigging and then be used for Assignment 2, which is the animation of my own robot arm.

First, I created joints at several points of the machine. I then opened the hypergraph and laid the layout stacked so that I can see the hypergraph and my animation at the same time.

I then added an IK Handle and then set the hierarchy for the skeleton. As you can see here, all the joints and parts of the machine are now grouped together.

I then added an Arm Control locator so that it would be easier to move my machine around using that locator. I added an annotation to show what does the locator do.

I then set the rest position for the magnet part of the arm so that the magnet part of the arm would pick up the box properly.

I then parented the swivel base with the upper part of the mechanical arm. This is so that when my swivel base rotates, the mechanical arm moves together with it too, thus acting as a real swivel base.

I then set the limitations of the mechanical arm so that there is a maximum in which the arm can stretch and retract. Then, I collapsed all the elements in the hypergraph.

Next, I set parent constraints to the box so that when the mechanical arm moves, the box moves along with it. This can be adjusted by setting the blend parent of the box to either 1 or 0 to enable and disable the sticking.

This is the end result of my IK Rigging:

Techniques

This lab has prepared me for my upcoming assignment.

It also helps familiarize me with dealing with skeleton hierarchies, IK Handles and constraints.

Reflection

Overall, I think this exercise helped me alot and I learned alot.

However, One thing I like to note is how this is taught step by step. Since this is taught step by step, I might be familiar with this certain scene, but other scenes I have to figure them out for myself, which is quite hard.

However, If i just plainly followed what the instructions said, I would have never learnt anything. This gave me a lot of insight on what's to come for future animations.

References

Maya Autodesk Tutorials - Animation

Assignment 2: Storyboard

Scenario 2

Robot Name: Co-troller

Story: Co-troller is a robot built by a packaging factory to stack boxes for shipping. One day, Co-troller got fed up with his job and decide to rebel. He started to throw tantrums.

1) The robot is stacking boxes.

2) The robot bends down and starts to lift the box.

3) The robot then takes the box and puts it at its side. The next box moves forward.

4) The robot turns to the front. However, it shakes its head in disapproval.

5) The robot then picks up the next box. The boxes moves forward.

6) The robot then throws the box away.

7) The robot then turns around 360 degrees.

8) The robot comes to a stop and looks at the camera.

Week 12 Labs 1 & 2 - Online Tutorial Reflection

1) Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 2D animation? Explain your view.

The animator need not have great drawing skills, but he/she must have sufficient amount of drawing skills in order to make the animation look plausible enough. No one would want to look at a sequences of non-readable scribbles in an animation. It must be clear enough to show what the animator is doing. More importantly is the 12 basic principles of animation. The animation will look better once the 12 basic principles are applied.

2) Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 3D animation? Explain your view.

Basically, I think 3D animation would be easier on those who cannot draw very well. 3D uses models and meshes, so if you are more of a practical person, then you would fare better than people who can draw well. However, the good ability to draw = the good ability to picture things. If a person can picture things better, of course it would help them better in their animation. Best is if a person can have both at the same time.

3) What do you think would separate a piece of poor animation from a piece of good animation? In other words, how would you go about deciding if a piece of animation is good or bad?

To decide whether a piece of animation is good or bad would be to check whether how many basic principles of animation are there in a piece of animation. If there are close to none in an animation, the audience would have no idea what the animator is trying to do. All the characters would be like robots, having not much or no realism at all. The next factor is the frames per second of an animation. If the frames per second of an animation is too low, the animation would look very choppy and not smooth.

4) In 2D animation, you need to be very aware of timing at a frame by frame level, using timing charts and other techniques - but for 3D animation, this is handled using the graph editor, which is more concerned with manipulating rates of change over time.Does this affect how you approach your animation work? Explain.

Yes. Because of my past experiences with animation, I am accustomed to doing frame by frame animations with programs such as adobe imageready. I would usually photoshop a sequence of images, with each image slightly different than the previous image and then join them together using imageready. However, in Maya, the movements of everything is simplified and it saves time also. Now, I am trying hard to work with the interface of Maya as I am still not accustomed to animating with Maya.

5) Give a brief critique of Maya as an animation tool. Don't just say Maya makes animation difficult, or easy, or that you need to learn a lot of stuff to use Maya - explain what Maya does well and not so well in terms of creating animation.

I feel that the interface of Maya is hard to work with. This is because the tools are situated in a very messy manner and that first time users for Maya or newcomers will have extreme difficulty getting accustomed to the interface. It is very hard to find what you are looking for, and one small mistake might lead you to having redo your entire animation. Even the playback of Maya is too fast, as when you try to play it normally in Maya (not playblasting), it does not adhere to the fps (frames per second) rate that I have set and moves abnormally fast, rendering me unable to see anything. However, what I like about Maya is the animation graph. It is easy to use and very good to refer to.

Week 11 Lab 2 - Squash & Stretch

This is how I create a bouncing ball animation with squash & stretch in Maya.

Process

First, I created a new sphere object. Then, I grouped it with itself twice so that one group would handle the translate values and one group would handle the rotate values. I then locked all the unnecessary attributes for each group and locked all the attributes of the sphere.

I then locked all the values of the squash handle except for the rotate attributes and the factor.

I then created a new polygonal plane for the ball to bounce on and textured everything.

I then input different translate values at different frames:

I then opened up the animation graph and then changed the curves so that the bounces look more linear and natural.

At the points where the ball hits the ground, I changed the squash factor of the ball to either -0.5 or 0.5 for squash and stretch respectively. Then, at I made the ball rotate by setting two keyframes, frames 1 and frames 100, with frame 100 have the value of rotate z at -1200.

This is the end result of my bouncing ball animation with squash & stretch:

Questions

1) Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?

Squash and Stretch is useful in the sense that it gives a realistic feel if used carefully. However, if used too much, it could give out a more cartoony feel. So varied squash & stretch could be used to give the desired feel of the animation.

2) Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character - try to be original.

A person was extremely angry at his enemy because the enemy stole all his clothes, his money and his games. So the person used all his force and punched the enemy right in the face. And the enemy's face went through extreme squash and stretch.

3) Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would NOT be appropriate.

A person punching a metal box. When the metal box is punched, there will be squash in the sense that the metal box will get dented, but then it will not fall back into its original position.

4) If squash and stretch doesn't really happen so obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation?

This is because animation is exaggerated from real life. Animation has to give off feeling and environment to stimulate what our five senses would know. Squash and stretch is one of the techniques that help us visualise better what is the animation trying to portray.

Techniques

I have learnt how to give squash and stretch to a bouncing ball animation, by using the squash deformer.

I have learnt how to make a ball rotate as the animation goes on.

Reflection

My animation was not that good this time either.

However, I felt that this animation made me more familiar with Maya and that now I feel more confident using Maya.

References

Maya Online Help

Week 11 Lab 1 - Keyframes

This is how i create a simple animation of a ball bouncing in Maya.

Process

Exercise 1

First, I click on the ball and set a keyframe at 1.

Then, at the frame 72, I moved the ball to the edge of the table and then set a keyframe there. Then, i went back to frame 1 and played the animation. The ball went right through the fence.

I then moved to frame 34 where the ball is right in the middle of the fence. I then moved the ball upwards and then set a keyframe there. When I played the animation, the ball now travels in a smooth arc across the table.

I then switched to frame 50 and moved the ball so that it would be touching the table. I then set a keyframe and moved to frame 60. This time, I moved the ball upwards a little and set a keyfraem there. When i played the animation, it looks as if the ball bounces off the table and then bounces out. Also, when the ball bounces, it looks as if the ball slides off the table.

I then opened the graph editor and then made the tangents linear. This made the bounce look more sharp and linear, making it more realistic.

This is the result of my bouncing ball:

Exercise 2

First, I created a red bowling ball in Maya, by creating a sphere and then using booleans - difference to difference several cylinders in it to make the holes.

Then, I moved the bowling ball to a high point and set a keyframe at frame 1.

After placing the bowling ball at several high and low points, this is how my animation graph looks like. The animation was a bit shabby at first, so i tweaked the animation here and there by manipulating the animation graph.

This is the result of my bowling ball animation:

Techniques

I have learnt how to set keyframes in this lesson.

I have also learnt how to use the animation graph to help make my animation looks more sharp and realistic.

Also, I learnt how to playblast the maya file into a movie.

Reflection

This exercise was rather fun to do.

Although my bowling ball animation might have screwed up a little, I still think I learnt alot in this exercise.

I have also realised how hard it is to make animations look realistic. This is because the physics of the animation will never be perfect, and that timing is also crucial.

References

Maya Online Help

Week 10 Lab 2 - Bouncing Ball Animations

Exercise 1

This is how I created my animations.

Process

a) Bouncing Ball Animation

First, I created an animation chart for my bouncing ball animation to path how the ball moves. Then, I drew out several ball objects at the highest and lowest points of the bouncing animation. This shall be my guideline for the rest of my bouncing ball animation.

If I play my animation now, it would look very staggered and the ball will just move around from one place to another without any motion. Therefore, I have to include buffer frames for my animation so that it would look smoother.

This is how the timeline of my bouncing ball animation looks like after the buffer frames have been added. Whilst adding the buffer frames, I modified the timeline by shifting keyframes so that it would make sure the timing of the ball coincides with the speed at which the ball is bouncing at.

This is the result of my simple bouncing ball animation with pencil:

b) Bowling Ball Animation

This is the animation chart of my bowling ball. Since a bowling ball is heavy, there would not be much squash and stretch and much less bounce on the ball.

This is the result of my bowling ball animation:

c) Rough animation

This is the animation chart of my rough animation. There are three layers, the body layer, the hand layer for hand movements and the animation chart.

This is the result of my animation:

Exercise 2

1. What is ease-in ease-out in reference to animation?

Ease in means that the animation starts out slow and ends up fast. Ease out means that the animation starts out fast and ends up slow.

2. What does frames-per-second mean?

It represents the amount of frames that run through in one second. One frame = one picture. The higher the fps of an animation is, the smoother the animation.

3.The spacing of the ticks in the animation chart below is for an object bouncing with linear speed over 12 frames - draw a similar chart, but with ease-in and ease-out

Techniques

This exercise made me familiar with different animation techniques, such as onion skin, keyframes, ease-in ease-out and animation charts.

Reflection

Maybe because I have some sort of animation background, I felt that this exercise was quite easy to do.

I didn't really like the interface of Pencil though. Maybe because I was more used to big programs such as adobe flash and adobe imageready.

Overall, I felt that this exercise has given me a refreshing new look on animation.

References

Pencil guides

Week 10 Lab 1 - 12 Basic Principles of Animation

Exercise 1 & 2

Squash & Stretch

The ball bounces off the ground several times, giving it a squash and stretch feel when it deforms.

Anticipation

This can be counted as anticipation in the sense that I would want to anticipate the blast that I am going to fire, hence the charging up stance.

Staging

As you can see, the animation is focused on me jumping, ignoring much of the background.

Straight Action or Pose to Pose

This clip is using the pose to pose principle as you can see, the moves are abrupt and they are not that smooth. There are many sudden pauses in the movement.

Follow through & Overlapping action

This principle can be seen when I jump, and then my hair moves too.

Slow in and out

This can be seen when I bounce the ball towards my friend, having extreme points when the ball reaches the ground.

Arcs

As I throw my ball to my friend, the movement of the ball creates an arc.

Secondary Action

As you can see in the video, I move my arms when I run.

Timing

The ball gets slower as it reaches the ground.

Exaggeration

As I "Punch" my friend, he stumbles, creating an exaggerated effect that my punch hurt.

Solid Drawing

As the ball gets nearer to the wall, the shadow gets smaller.

Appeal

My friend slams the table before punching me, giving the impression that he is angry.

Exercise 3

Staging - 0:38

The camera is focused on Poison (the girl) as she talks.

Anticpation - 0:40

Hugo (the big guy) anticipates his kick when he was going to kick the cage open.

Follow through & Overlapping action - 0:44

As Hugo runs, his hair moves too.

Exaggeration - 0:48

As Hugo lands, Marduk (the bald guy) stumbles due to the impact of the jump and Hugo's weight, suggesting that Hugo is extremely big.

Squash & Stretch - 0:53

As Marduk gets hit right in his face, his face deforms, giving Squash and Stretch

Timing - 1:26

As King (The guy wearing the cheetah mask) grabs Hugo by his legs, he swings him, building momentum and swinging faster as he moves.

Arcs - 1:32

As King swings Hugo, it forms a circle around him.

Appeal - 1:54

Guy (The person on the left) crosses his arms, giving him a serious and cool look.

Techniques

This exercise has taught me the 12 basic principles of animation.

Reflection

I think this exercise was rather easy.

It was also rather fun too, when i was taking videos of me and my friends doing all the movements that we are supposed to do in the lab sheet. I find this exercise very important, and I think that the 12 basic principles of animation are much less burned into my head.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation

Assignment 1: Self Critique and Research

Self-Critique

I could say that my model looks about 95% similar to the original product.

Comparison of top view.

Comparison of side view.

Comparison of front view.

Comparison of back view.

I think that the general appearance of the object looks good and matches the real model, and that most of it is made of 4 sided polygons, but the reason I rate it at 95% is because there were some parts that were modeled wrongly.

For modelling the base, I used the method of simply shifting vertices around, without any deletion. It may seem fast at first, but at the later parts, the loose vertices would cause lots of lots of irregularities in the surfaces in which you have to find carefully where are these loose vertices. There are still some loose vertices at the bottom of the base of the arcade stick, but if i delete the edges around them, it would screw up the entire look of my model. This is my err in modelling.

Secondly, the part that i modeled wrongly was the back of the arcade stick, where the wire cabinet and buttons can be found. It cannot be seen in the picture i provided, but there are several lines behind the arcade stick. Also, the wire cabinet should not be protruding. The bottom two corners of the outline of the wire cabinet should be rounded but i did not bevel them. Also, there is supposed to be a clip at the bottom of the arcade stick and I did it the first time round. However, Maya crashed and I forgot to do it the second time round.

Research

http://www.cgonlinetutorials.com/tutorials/joy-stick.html

As done in a previous blog post, this tutorial helped me learn about beveling corners to give them a smooth look, texturing and tips on how to model the buttons and the joystick of the arcade stick. Although this exercise was much easier, the output was less satisfying compared to the arcade stick I had done and this model was pretty much two times more simpler than the arcade stick I have created. However, the concept for the models as a whole are basically similar.

http://maya-vfx.blogspot.com/2008/01/tutorial-booleans-basics.html

This tutorial teaches me more about booleans. It teaches me about why sometimes after using a boolean the geometry disappears. This is because of normals, that if the normal is pointing inwards, it needs to be flipped so that it can be used for a boolean. Also, I have learnt about the pros and cons of using booleans and why we should not use them all the time.

http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/info/maya/manual/UserGuide/ModelingPoly/PolyRender.fm.html

This tutorial teaches me on how to fit the texture of my art on to the art plane in proportion and how to use apply textures the correct way. It teaches me how to use a UV map to align the texture to proportion so that the ratio would be correct and the texture map would fit nicely into the plane or face/faces.

Assignment 1: Modelling the Street Fighter 4 Mad Catz Tournament Edition Arcade Fighting Stick for PlayStation 3

This is how i created the Street Fighter 4 Mad Catz Tournament Edition Arcade Fighting Stick for PlayStation 3.

Process

First, I took the pictures i took of my arcade stick and then created three planes in maya to contain these pictures as textures. These textures will be used to guide me in creating my arcade stick and to check whether proportions are correct or not.

Then, i created a cube following the proportions of the pictures.

First, I used the insert edge loop tool to create new edges and vertices. I created 2 of them across the Z axis of the object at the sides. Then, I used the insert edge loop tool again to create 4 more loops of edges across the X axis of the object, each pair for different levels of irregularities of the arcade stick. I then scaled the vertices at the side, using the picture as a reference. I moved the vertices at the bottom a bit to the left. To create the part of the arcade stick that is circled in red, I removed the bottom edges that were connecting to the part that is circled in red. I then followed up by proceeding to shift the vertices of the arcade stick forward so that it would look like the edge has disconnected.

The front part of the arcade stick was made by shifting the vertices down so that it would look triangular. However, at this point of time, i forgot to delete some edges that were left behind by earlier modifications. These would cause a problem which i would explain later.

At this stage, I decided to texture the base and some other parts of the arcade stick because I could only work without lighting. With lighting, the thing would look kind of blurry to me. However, because of this, it would be very hard to differentiate which part of the arcade stick is actually which component. Therefore, i coloured it.

I then made a new cube object for the art plate. Using edges, I selected the corner edges and then beveled them to make them look rounded. I deleted the edges on top and below that were formed by the bevel. However, I kind of screwed up here as when i tried to apply surfaces, the model looked wrong and the proportions for the art plate was not correct. Therefore, I just decided to create a new cube altogether to contain the art of the arcade stick. I then duplicated this rectangle shape and then used the shape to difference into the plate. I did this was so that I could create a small line in between the red plate and the art plate. I know the technique of bumping, but the problem here is that I only have the texture for the art plate, and not the entire plate object.

I then created buttons for the arcade stick. These buttons would be the core buttons of the arcade stick. I first created a sphere polygon for the button placeholder. Then i scaled it so that it would fit into my reference picture. I used a temporary cube to difference the button placeholder so that it would not intersect into the arcade stick itself. I then created a cylinder polygon for the button itself. I beveled the top edges of the button and then duplicated the button. I then used the button i had duplicated to difference into the placeholder, scaled the original button a little bit smaller so that it would look like it left a space between the button and the placeholder. I then used boolean - union to combine the two polygons together to create a single complete button.

I then textured it to become blinn - white and then duplicated it 7 times to create the seven other core buttons. I then changed the colour of the two buttons on the right to black.

I then proceeded to make the joystick of the arcade stick. The joystick was fairly simple, I simply combined a cylinder and a sphere and then scaled it to proportions. I then created a pipe at the base of the joystick to form the ring around the joystick.

Then, I proceeded to do up the details of the arcade stick. Firstly, I created screws. The screws were fairly easy to make. I created a sphere, created a cylinder with subdivisions 6 and then used the cylinder to difference into the sphere. I then textured the screw blinn - black. To be honest, the screws for the real object are actually really rusty now. However, because they were once black, I shall colour them black instead of rusty as it spoils the entire look of the object.

I then created a cube according to proportions for the part where the utility buttons are kept in. This object is gonna act like a stamp; I am going to use the base of the object to create a depression based on the bottom of the "stamp".

To create this stamp, I used the insert edge loop tool to create a subdivision for the "stamp". I beveled the corner edges of the stamp. I then selected the bottom edges of the stamp and then scaled them in so that they would match the depression as shown in my picture.

There you have it! My "stamp" completed! However, notice the irregularities in the texture of the "stamp". I will explain this below. However, as the "stamp" was just a temporary object that is going to disappear soon, I did not care about the irregularities.

I then differenced in the "stamp" into the arcade stick. With that, I started to create the buttons and switches on the utility panel.

Firstly, I created a new sphere polygon for the button. I then duplicated the object to create the other button. The buttons were pretty straight forward and easy to do. I then created a cube object for the lights on the panel. With that cube object, i duplicated it 7 times to create the array of lights. The reason i used a cube object is because the the lights were protruding a little bit from the arcade stick, so i need to use a solid polygon that would ensure the look that the lights are actually protruding.

For the next part, i decided to create the switch part.

For this section, I turned on the Snap to Grids tool to ensure that the new cylinder objects and the new cube object would be aligned properly.

Firstly, I created a new cube object. Then i created two new cylinder objects which are of same height and width with the object. With the Snap to Grids tool on, I do not need to worry whether they are not properly aligned or not.

I then removed the top edges around the axes of the cylinders. This caused a problem. When I tried to boolean - union the objects together, my entire geometry just disappears. Then I realised what was the problem. At first when I did the removal of the edges at the top rotating around the axis, i did not remove the bottom edges, hence the error.

After I did the removal, the boolean - union succeeded. This shall be the shape for my switch. I then duplicated the switch to form a smaller oval like shape for the switch slots. I then differenced in the smaller oval into the bigger oval. Then, i create a cylinder shape for the switch itself. I then duplicated the final ovals and then placed the 2 of them onto the panel.

I then took the art for the art plate from the internet and used that art as the texture for the plate itself. I turned on lighting so that it would look nicer now. The texture plate would help me much better than using pictures to reference from. This is because I know where are the placement of the buttons and joystick and whether I got them right the first time around or that I should adjust them.

Then, i duplicated the previously created core buttons and scaled it down in size to make the Start and Select buttons behind the arcade stick. Here comes the hard part.

At first, I boolean - difference a cube object into the arcade stick to form the wire cabinet, so that I can differentiate between which part of the object. I then created a beveled slot cover for the cabinet. First try it worked. However, when everything was done and all set to go, Maya crashed on me. I was extremely pissed at this point because it reset me back to when I just created my stamp object but did not boolean - difference it in yet. This taught me a valuable lesson; to always save my work every 10 minutes.

My second try was when all the problems started coming in. I tried to difference the wire cabinet into the arcade stick. However, the main problem was that when I tried to boolean - difference it into the arcade stick, my entire object disappears. I found out that the problem was probably that the normals were pointing in the wrong order. However, the problem was still not solved as the normals were all correct. Therefore, I improvised.

I created the illusion that there is a wire cabinet inside the object, but actually, if you were to see through it, there isn't. I made the big cube i made to protrude out of the arcade stick and the booleans - difference in the cover slot of the wire cabinet. There, my wire cabinet is complete.

I then created a new pipe shape for the "legs" of the arcade stick. I selected the bottom edges of the "leg" and then scaled them out. Then, I put a new sphere shape in the middle of the "leg" for the screw. I then created yet another stamp to create the hole of the screw. I textured the outer part blinn - black and the inner part, which is the screw blinn - silver/steel/grey colour. I duplicated 3 of these and placed all of them underneath the arcade stick.

There, you can see my arcade stick legs placed neatly.

Previously, I mentioned about the irregularities in the surface texture. This is caused by many loose and unwanted vertices in my model. At the end, after I finished modelling my model, I came to realise that some surfaces on the model were extremely irregular. It was a pain to remove all those loose vertices one by one as I could not remove the vertices by itself and had to remove the edges first. I then used the interactive split tool to reconnect the vertices once I had deleted the hidden unwanted vertices.

This is the end result of the Street Fighter IV Mad Catz Tournament Edition Arcade Fighting Stick I have modeled.

The Four-panel view of the Arcade Stick.