I still need to do some more work to figure out how to work uvwmap. But one odd thing is that if I just use a standard material for wood, it seems to go on there fine. It is only with the arch and design material that I get that weird effect. So I just have some standard wood on there for now and it is OK, and I have moved on to other things which I will report on. I have a loooonnnnnggg way to to go yet before I am even close to a whole playfield (let alone the whole machine) but I am making progress little bits at time and learning the 3ds software.

OK sounds good, but you probably would be bored. I spend a lot of time trying dumb things and throwing everything out and starting over Then looking stuff up on the internet or going back to the tutorials. Very slowly I am picking up the software. I also have to squeeze this goof-off time in between all the other stuff I have to do which doesn't leave me much time.

I have been doing some work on inserts. Bon Voyage has a number of plain white inserts and then a number of inserts that have letters on them. I came up with an insert material that seemed to work pretty well, it has the right amount of transparency so it looks real when unlit but then looks nice when lit from below, just like real life. Some of these 3/4" inserts are just sort of floating there on the left waiting to be used.

For the letter inserts, after some experimentation it seemed the best way to do it was to make a separate object which is basically a very thin cylinder which is mapped with a bitmap for the letter. The bitmap is a png file with transparency so that when it is lit it will let the light through. So its basically just like a decal. This is placed just on top of the insert and those 2 together make the insert.

It looks like I got a little sloppy doing the cutouts in the playfield art and made the holes a bit big. I think I can fix the black outlines by making some decals, just like in real life.

In this test, I have made the B insert and the O insert and put them into place. The B is lit from below with the standard bulb, and the O is not lit. It looks about right so next I will finish all of the inserts and set them in place, then it will be on to more playfield stuff. I still need to make all sorts of stuff like the spinning gate, rollover wires, guide wires, targets, rebound switches, light shields, flippers, and all of the plastics.

bon voyage insert test 1 (resized).jpg

The "real thing" for comparison. Looks like I could up the light intensity of the bulb under the insert a fair amount to make it match closer. And maybe add some transparency to the letter itself.

bon voyage insert test 1-real (resized).jpg

The letter decals were made in Photoshop. I tried to use the text object in 3ds, but I could not find any way to make the black stroke on the orange letters, something that is easy to do in Photoshop.

Also, I made these at actual size. Every single thing is done to actual size, as you have advised before. But I knew this already from working with Sketchup. If you always are thinking in terms of real-life scale it is much easier when it comes time to put things together. Things will fall right into place as you expect.

Some examples of the letter decals.

letter B (resized).pngletter O (resized).pngletter N (resized).png

letters BON (resized).pngletters VOY (resized).pngletters AGE (resized).png

love your work 3rdaxis, well done

The Pinball Arcade needs to hire you to prep tables for them so much more realistic

The shooter rod is attached to the playfield?

Got insert building down, and made the full set for Bon Voyage. All stacked up and ready to install.

bon voyage inserts (resized).jpg

Playfield test with all the inserts installed, a few are lit from below, and also made "decals" to fix the black keylines. I need to use more caution next time when processing the 2D playfield art - I cut the holes too big. Starting to get into some serious render times now, even with a pretty hefty i7 PC.

bon voyage insert test 4 (resized).jpg

I see what you are saying. I am working my way through all of the parts as a modeling exercise. But I think the real killer when doing a pinball machine is the lighting. If you are rendering with mental ray with final gather turned on you will get the really cool images. But the more lights you turn on the more overhead you get. That is just the nature of it. I have a feeling that a full playfield with all of the GI lamps turned on plus insert lighting will take a really long time to render out.

Star rollover buttons....more low-lying fruit. These were easy thanks to the star spline in 3ds max.

rollover buttons star 2 (resized).jpg

If somebody could scan the aliens of the Big Bang Bar to print them in 3D would be great!

You just need one as both are the same, just different colors.

The ramp looks great! I have a long way to go before I will be able to make something like that.

Doubt the model would be that clean, but maybe a good starting point if you could export the model from future pinball (or at least do a camera walk around to see the detail)

The TOM thread is looking good, I would like to keep this one going as a catchall about 3D modeling if that is OK, and to continue with my learning efforts.

My next piece was a rebound switch. It wasn't really necessary to make the bottom part since only the blades will show on the playfield and I don't plan on modeling everything on the underside - that sounds like a path to madness. But I made most of it anyway because it was easy enough.

rebound switch (resized).jpg

Here is a new rendering of the playfield, now with all of the inserts, the star rollovers, the rebound switches, all of the posts in position. Its starting to look somewhat interesting now.

bon voyage playfield 4 (resized).jpg

looking great, well done

Isn't it possible to make a 3D scan? So there would be no fear to damage the alien.

It works slightly better than it used to, but in general you end up with very jagged surfaces (with lots of holes). There is more professional photogrammetry software out there, but it's not free (and takes lots of time and processing power). Ideally you want to wait for tango devices to come out. Uses dual cameras to triangulate and create a map of distance. The first tango phone is by lenovo, here's a demo:

But what kind of scanner they use when they scan your head and laser them in these glass cubes?

This is popular and cheap, you have them in some shopping malls. It only takes few time and the results are nice.

I think the question is, if they can generate a file which can be used for 3D printers.

I've never seen those.. I would imagine they are also using photogrammetry, but just capturing point cloud data (dots in the air) since the laser is only going to be burning effectively tiny bubbles inside the glass.

professional white light scanners have come down in price (down to about $30k from $120k), but the good ones are still expensive.

Here's what a good laser scanner and software like geomagic can scan in realtime:

The software is also capable of combining multiple scans (for a better base mesh model), but then it also has automatic tools for filling in holes, it'll even create planes and create native features to recreate a model based on the surfaces:

Yes, been having fun, I know I already said it but doing a pinball machine is a great way to learn 3d modeling. So many different things to make, different shapes, different materials, and all sorts of lighting. Thanks for that tutorial on lofting too, that was good stuff and I used that to make a metal post that was hanging out on the playfield.

I have been busy making new stuff, including the kickers, targets, rollover switch wires, and guide wires. Here is the latest rendering. I have all of the posts properly in place, the rubbers, the inserts, the kickers, the rebound switches, the targets, star rollover buttons, rollover switch wires, wire guide rails, the captive ball, and all of the lamps are in place. I turned all the lamps off except one for this one to keep the render times down.

I also cleaned up the file and organized everything into layers and made sure all of the naming for the objects is organized and logical. This is a must because there are are already hundreds of objects and it will be a giant confusing mess if everything is just named willy-nilly.

Still got a lot to do to finish the playfield - pop bumpers, spinner, the ball hole, flippers, then all of the plastics and finally the side rails and aprons.

bon voyage playfield 6 (resized).jpg

Interesting.. different right ramp, TV to replace the mirror on the back? David copperfield on the left (John has said many times this was the original licensed theme they wanted to do). The 2nd photo isn't TOM, it's pinball magic by capcom.

2nd pic might be TOM afterall looking at pinball magic now. It would seem they had to get rid of the wand so it didn't look like Williams was copying