3rd Marking Period Blog Post
Intention Definition & Exploration of Ideas
I have been working on trying to create a more efficient design of a keyboard. This falls into the category of industrial design. Industrial design focuses on how things can be improved and how things may be constructed to allow the user or person experiencing whatever object that is before them in the best way possible. My focus, being on trying change the layout of the keyboard, is to find a way so that they layout of the keys may be organized in a fashion that is the easiest for the user. The keys should be layed out in a way that each finger is used to the best of its ability. Even though that this sounds weird, I believe that this is a way to think about constructing the keyboard. Thinking in this way will help me reach conclusion than just experimenting with the layout of the keyboard and spending an unnecessary amount of time testing things out.
Planning
I was planning to completely finish the keyboard, and start incorporating my own designs in blender. I would have to make the letter on the key caps and then make them transparent so that the light can illuminate the keyboard more. You would also be able to see which key is which. I went about this process by first creating all of the letter objects for each key, sizing them to a reasonable scale. After doing this for each key, I then would convert the letter(s) into a mesh, then lower them so that they were in the key cap properly. Once I have lowered and scaled it, I would use boolean modifier to then combine the two together. Following the boolean modifier, next I would go into edit mode on each key cap. Grab the faces of the key that weren't transparent and convert them back to their original texture. When all of these steps were done for the entire the keyboard, I then render the picture to see if there were any problems with the lighting, and fix any mistakes accordingly. Finally, I would move onto adding in my own designs, trying to make it look appealing and make it efficient for the user.
Producing
I haven't been able to execute everything that I have planned for. I have run into some problems that have really stalled my progress completely. When I was first trying to combine the two texture, I didn't know that I would have to use something called bool tools. Once I installed bools tools, I was able to get the rest of the keys done for the most part. After this, I moved the keys down to the keyboard base, and checked out what it looked like in the rendered view. The lighting was a little dull, so I continued to try bring up the strength of the lighting. I realized that it wasn't looking the way I wanted, so I decided to grab of the faces of the lettering and turn them into an emission texture.
This image shows how I want the key to look at the top of the keyboard, rather than the bottom of the keyboard. Some of the letters, like "f" and "k" weren't even combines properly. The other keys don't show the lighting that well, and look very dull to the ones that are at the top of the keyboard.
Evaluating
When using the bool tools, it worked for the most part. It would sometimes not combine them correctly using the union modifier. It would still cut off some of the transparency for the top part of lettering. I would then have to go into the knife tool and cut a line on the top of the key cap. Merge the two vertices from the knife tool and the original vertices of the letters. Go inside of the key and convert those faces to the transparent texture. Then the all of the key caps were completed. Continuing from this, I couldn't find a way for the lighting to go through the key cap like I wanted to. It would be too weak to easily see the lettering from the key. Even though I brought the strength of the light in the switch as high as I thought it would really make a difference. So now, I am in the progress of the grabbing all of the faces of the letters on the key cap and turning them into emission textures.
Integrating
I learned that there is hopefully a much faster way to go about this. I know that this is my first time making the keyboard, and there were many steps that I could probably of taken to make the process faster. It was also moving to the new interface of Blender 2.8 that made the process a little slower. Next time when going into something that involves lighting, I will do some more research to see if their were something that I could have done instead of an emission light. Everything that I have done this marking period, seemed to very repetitive and tedious work, which was really hard to have a steady work flow. It also had some bugs when going through it, which also slowed down the progress.
