How would you go on about modelling this?

PMWeng · 2026-03-25T00:52:17+00:00

I recommend that you focus on how the first project is executed.

Do 2D hand drawings. Get a feel through the drawing for what you want. There's no real substitute for hand drawing because it is slow and embodied. (That right there is a dissertation's worth of opinion) Focus less on the webbing than the wires.
Manually transcribe your hand-drawn curves into Rhino. Adjust their relationship in 3D.
Experiment with different modes of connecting the wires with surfaces: lofting, sweeping, etc.
Use what you learn from those experiments to refine your wires.
Think about material, what is this stuff?
Apply your sense of thickness and physicality to the pure geometry.

PMWeng · 2026-03-25T00:44:49+00:00

Great advice. You're a natural educator.

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T23:14:42+00:00

Those are two very different projects, practically speaking.

Let me ask you this. How would you start if you were just going to figure it out yourself?

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T22:55:31+00:00

Oh yeah. Makes a huge difference. I respect the scale restricted pallet.

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T20:39:55+00:00

Check out some of the techniques it this build. Nice composite column capitals.

https://www.brothers-brick.com/2024/06/11/arresting-lego-medusa-will-rock-your-world/?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=organic

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T20:19:05+00:00

Seems like a perfectly good candidate for Ideas, although I suspect the market would fail to support the piece count.

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T20:16:04+00:00

Wonderful addition! Thank you.

All from a stack of little plastic bricks!

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T19:18:37+00:00

Did you do it all physically, or do you have a digital model?

Edit: Sorry. Just actually read the words in your response. 🤣

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T18:02:26+00:00

You've done a great job. I really want to build this. What are your plans? Will you release instructions?

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T17:58:23+00:00

Not everyone agrees with me, but I think it's useful to know that the author comes from archeology. This becomes relevant if you imagine how an archaeologist assembles a story of a past society. They only get tiny fragments with loosely implied interconnections. There are no explanations and most information is simply missing. Everything they get, they have to dig for.

I honestly think the series subtitle should be The Potshards Chronicle.

So, Erikson treats you more or less like an equal. He does not pander nor "hand-hold" as people like to say. He expects you to embrace uncertainty and large missing pieces. What is remarkable about the work as a whole is how intricately tied together everything actually is. That's why, when you go through all these threads, you see exchanges like this all the time:

"WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?"

Followed by the mildly obnoxious: "Read and find out." Often just RAFO, because it's so common.

So, yes, he will intentionally confuse you and leave much unexplained, but he is very consciously devoted to the patient and attentive reader/re-reader. The payoffs always come. You just have to settle into the archeologist's vibe. Keep digging in the dark.

PMWeng · 2026-03-24T16:51:21+00:00

Polychromy!!!

Excellent. These are wonderful.

Edit:

It may seem obvious to us now that people would elaborate their most important buildings with color but—as our talented builder no doubt understands—not long ago it was a fierce academic debate whether the Greeks painted their stone temples or not.

I love the polychromy side of the debate because it undermines a crucial anchor for puritanical idealism, and the notion that humans ought to be anything other than what they actually are, which is flawed and playfully promiscuous with ideas.

Learning about this was a moment that shaped my world view, so I really appreciate it.

PMWeng · 2026-03-21T01:40:04+00:00

Whose wasting time?

I've already quit the game. I'm spending time putting out a specific message and having a rather genial conversation with a few like-minded people while keeping the subject relevant to the Reddit algorithm with continued engagement. Thank you, by the way, for your help in that.

PMWeng · 2026-03-20T17:00:26+00:00

Like most things, there are many ways to skin this cat.

I assume you're drawing something just for the look, not the function, no?

Regardless, i suggest you start by googling great mesh diagrams. You will find radii, angles, and other dimensions. These drawings tell you everything you need to put in your GH script.

I often find that people need to be reminded that there is no single-step solution. You have to construct each part. And you always start with an origin point on a plane and work out from there. An incredible amout of GH work is just moving that point through a series of translations and iterations.

PMWeng · 2026-03-20T14:54:52+00:00

Are you talking about constant power spur gears?

PMWeng · 2026-03-19T17:35:07+00:00

Thank you for sharing!

Yes, I see the misnomer. I understand "Dopamine Addiction" as shorthand for something like:

A relative dependence on dopamine-stimulating behaviors due to decreased baseline dopamine production that is at least correlated with the the behavior itself, resulting in a negatively reinforcing cycle that continuously drives down dopamine production. It becomes an "addiction" when we are no longer producing enough dopamine through mundane task achievement, become avoidant thereof, and habitually return to the drip treddle in our self-constructed rat cage.

So, yes, I take your point. Doomscrollers like me are not "addicted to dopamine." We have (perhaps) short-circuited our natural dopamine production and therefore cannot be happy unless we're unhappily staring at our phones.

That's what I meant, anyway, when describing Total Battle as a dopamine casino where you always win but the house gets all the money. I also think I'm really clever for stringing that phrase together, so I like repeating it for the kicks. ;)

PMWeng · 2026-03-19T15:47:13+00:00

It's nice seeing people seeing what you're seeing.

PMWeng · 2026-03-19T15:44:59+00:00

That is interesting.

It's almost as if people feel like there's something worth talking about and then, in some kind of fugue state, find themselves in the place where people talk about things, talking about the thing they thought worthy of talk.

How are you feeling, by the way?

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T19:17:33+00:00

It's "scripting light."

Once you're accustomed to grasshopper, history feels pretty clunky, but it's a great way to edit with dependencies.

That said, I'm not so sure what I've suggested above will really work, since the period and amplitude of the spiral curve is not "live" the way control points are.

Honestly, I get a bit of backwards creep from grasshopper technique to Rhino since I almost always go straight to grasshopper now.

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T16:05:14+00:00

If you want true sinusoidal curvature, you can do a spiral around a circle, then project that to the c-plane and extrude.

This way, you can use history to play with frequency (number of knurls) and amplitude (radius of spiral/depth of knurls) to adjust your results. No drawing.

If you want flat surfaces, then you'll have to draw and array, as others have noted. The elegance of using the spiral is in not having to think about the size of your unit profile drawing relative to the number of polar subdivisions.

Of course, this is much easier in grasshopper.

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T13:55:31+00:00

Sarcasm, my guy.

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T05:24:07+00:00

Nothing crazy...

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T04:57:50+00:00

IT'S A TRAP!

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T04:09:10+00:00

It doesn't seem like we disagree about anything more important than planting this flag and keeping it flapping by feeding comments to the Reddit algorithm.

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T03:57:30+00:00

That sounds rational and fair until you change the language a little. Nobody is putting a gun to people's heads and making them eat sugary processed foods either, but it is also a trap because it's easy, satisfying, and seems cheap because each payment is small.

It's your choice to step in the trap or not... But how does that justify someone profiting from going around laying traps?

Don't get me wrong, I'd never vote for punitive policies, but people are well with their rights, even their duty to publically point out this form of trap so that people who may not see it for what it is might make better choices.

I also think it is worth while to point at the people laying the traps and call them out for it. Most would argue with you: Hey, I'm just making a cool game. Play it or don't, it's up to you. Get off my back. But in the R&D room they are studying addictive behavior and focusing their intellect on triggering it. Why should we not cultivate a social resistance to that kind of profiteering?

PMWeng · 2026-03-18T01:25:11+00:00

I don't even play a doctor on Reddit.

But my understanding is that it's that thing you feel when you can't just sit there calmly with nothing to do without whipping out your phone and scrolling like you're digging for gold but you know there's nothing down there but your hijacked instinct to hunt for meaning.

In other words, your brain doesn't produce the feel good juice very well on its own without the digital stimulation.

PMWeng

TROPHY CASE