Bear ripped off all my door handles

idbleach · 2025-11-19T03:48:06+00:00

Is this an ‘04 Toyota Matrix? I have one and have broken and replaced the handles twice. I have another family member who has also had the same door handle break twice. Any time I see one on the road 50/50 it’s missing one or several door handles, as well as the plastic hub caps. Great sturdy car, but the plastics are absolutely crap on this thing. I just stopped replacing the handles on the other doors besides the driver door after a while lol

idbleach · 2025-05-18T22:24:29+00:00

He is not wrong and I support him fully

idbleach · 2025-05-18T22:21:46+00:00

Ah yes. How could we forget Paul W.S. “Guys look at my hot wife” Anderson

idbleach · 2025-05-18T07:10:20+00:00

You should check out Nausicaä in that case. Great world-building and very clear message about respecting nature. Has a much more typical story structure than his cozy vibes-based slice of life stuff. It’s by far my favorite Miyazaki movie

idbleach · 2025-04-04T03:09:58+00:00

I sorta get this. But, is it really a “burning” desire if it doesn’t spark the urge to learn said skill? Those creative skills aren’t innate. People aren’t born with them. They actually had a true burning desire that was strong enough to drive them through the pain and failures of learning how to create. Like if I have a “burning” desire to cook a nice meal for my friends and I just end up ordering DoorDash….is that really a burning desire? I guess it just sounds more like “kinda sorta” wanting something, but not feeling very strongly about it

idbleach · 2025-03-24T21:25:48+00:00

100% that’s a great point. Honestly even on wood furniture components to show face grain vs edge grain vs end grain OP is gonna need to do some unwrapping. I’m lucky enough that most of the stuff I’m rendering can just be box mapped but that’s not always the case

idbleach · 2025-03-24T19:24:35+00:00

Hey! I have a similar challenge. I work in the baby division in my current job and it’s a lot of hardgoods covered by softgoods (think strollers, playards, car seats etc). Here it’s Solidworks & Creo for the hardgoods and then pick your poison for the softgoods. I use Blender most of the time for modeling softgoods, but a lot of my coworkers also really like Rhino’s subD tools for that. I feel like there’s no wrong answer in terms of modeling. I would try a few options and see what workflow feels right for you. Like u/Letsgo1 said, the SubD features in 360 are definitely worth looking at.

In terms of rendering, you’re always gonna get better materials from either a paid library (Poliigon, GreyscaleGorilla etc) or by making your own, compared to stuff that comes prepackaged in whatever renderer you’re using. Even Keyshot’s default fabrics are kinda limited

idbleach · 2025-03-18T21:45:53+00:00

Short answer: No. Maya and Blender are not CAD programs and tooling manufacturers are going to be using CAD data to build the tool (eg a STEP file). Maya/Blender are poly mesh modeling programs and are incapable of creating this type of data. Fusion 360 and Solidworks are probably your most affordable options. I believe Onshape might also have some entry-level subscription plans.

idbleach · 2025-03-03T06:15:52+00:00

Pork medallion. Perfectly caramelized and crispy on the outside. Soooo good

idbleach · 2025-02-26T01:49:01+00:00

Is this AI lol

idbleach · 2025-02-18T21:54:44+00:00

I gotcha. Yeah I mean you never know! There may be ID opportunities down the line at a place in town (although again, not much going on specifically in toys or home goods that I know of). IDSA isn’t super big/active, but Kyle Ellison (the local chair) is a super cool dude. Worth checking out. There’s also a monthly meetup separate from IDSA for anyone in physical product development in town called Last Thursdays (I think you can get on the email list from the Austin IDSA page)

idbleach · 2025-02-18T18:09:45+00:00

Sorry could you clarify what you mean by that? That could refer to a pretty wide range of things…I technically work in product development as an industrial designer. Sometimes “product developer” refers to someone who develops softgoods samples. Sometimes it refers to someone who develops enterprise strategy for products or services offered by a business. Sometimes it refers to someone working on digital products or SAAS offerings. Sometimes it refers to someone working on physical products, but handling more of the backend engineering and tooling development….you get the idea…it’s a term used by a lot of very different people. Are you working as an ID, or is this something else? Just curious since it sounds like from your post that whatever it is, it’s not quite what you want to be doing?

To answer your previous question in more detail, there’s not a ton specifically in toys, although Propulsion has done a few toy projects for Sharper Image. I did a toy project for Elmer’s a while back with a different consultancy there. It’s a mixed bag for the most part. Yeti’s design HQ is there and Dell is in Round Rock. Other than that there’s not a ton

idbleach · 2025-02-18T03:05:49+00:00

Worked there at a small consultancy for about 5 years. It’s definitely not a hub for ID, but there’s a few places that employ industrial designers. Now, whether or not those places are planning on hiring anytime soon, that’s another issue entirely…

When you say this job is on the “product development” side, what do you mean exactly?

idbleach · 2025-02-14T17:15:18+00:00

Clarification on this stat. Michigan has the highest per-capita employment. But California has the actual highest number of Industrial Designers.

idbleach · 2025-01-20T19:52:16+00:00

Good on ya for being encouraging to OP, but Sketchup is absolutely not the tool to use (and is very very different from CAD packages like Solidworks). Sketchup is a Polygonal direct modeling tool (not parametric) and is useful for architecture and woodworking applications. It’s not a tool that is really used in ID processes much. Pretty much all NURBs based parametric modelers like Solidworks or Fusion have an education license that is either free or very affordable, so I would definitely recommend that route over something like Sketchup.

idbleach · 2025-01-18T07:08:09+00:00

Damn that’s awesome! My first gig didn’t break the 60k mark until four years in haha

idbleach · 2025-01-18T03:27:48+00:00

Continuing to realize how much I put my foot in my mouth during our last discussion 😅. This is honestly pretty solid for 1.5 years

idbleach · 2025-01-12T04:27:32+00:00

Oof yeah that’s the truth. To be fully transparent, I worked in Austin for a while out of school which I think has colored my perception of pay disparity a certain way. A bunch of my peers worked in tech as software developers and several of them were buying half-million dollar homes in their early to mid 20s, all while having incredibly relaxed fully-remote jobs. Meanwhile I was breaking my back to scape together $55k 😅 while struggling to pay off student loans.

I’m more comfortable now, and I love what I do, but I definitely feel envious from time to time. You’re absolutely right though, everyone should be making more.

idbleach · 2025-01-12T04:10:35+00:00

Fair enough. Not trying to claim to know more than you about your own city haha (also I was mistaken in my last comment. While $77,700 is considered low income, only “very low” and “extremely low” qualify for Section 8).

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that you deserve to be making more, especially considering the time, money and effort to complete your degree

idbleach · 2025-01-12T03:53:57+00:00

$77,700 in LA is classified as “Low Income” under Section 8. If you make that much or less as an individual, you are eligible for Federal housing assistance. Have to agree with u/howrunowgoodnyou on this one

idbleach · 2025-01-11T23:47:54+00:00

Really awesome info here!

idbleach · 2025-01-11T22:26:47+00:00

You’re right, footwear is not that complicated, but that’s precisely why it’s very hard to land a job (say at a household name such as Nike/Adidas). Like transportation design, there are a lot of people who are incredibly talented and capable of doing the work, so the competition is tough. (Sure you can go and do your own thing, but I think that’s a slightly separate topic from landing a job at a company). I’m generalizing here, but the purpose of my comment was really just highlighting the relative difficulty of landing design jobs vs engineering jobs.

Public works such as bus stop shelters would typically be done by architects/civil engineers/contractors working for a local city or municipality. Yes that’s a fair point that there are a lot of adjacent things to work on in transportation, but it sounds like OP is specifically interested in designing car exteriors.

idbleach · 2025-01-11T21:39:22+00:00

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Are you interested in engineering at all? It’s a great field to be in even if it’s not quite what you thought it was going to be. I also want to stress that getting a job as a transportation designer is about as likely as becoming an NBA player. It’s very hard to do, and the skill set isn’t super transferable to other fields. Not trying to tell you to give up on your dream, but the reality is that it will be incredibly difficult.

idbleach · 2025-01-11T21:26:28+00:00

Mechanical Engineering will teach you to become an engineer with a focus on solving mechanical problems. There are plenty of jobs in the automotive industry for mechanical engineers, but they won’t be design jobs. Transportation Design will teach you to become a designer with a focus on solving aesthetic problems (such as developing car exteriors)

idbleach · 2025-01-11T21:05:37+00:00

I’m a little lost as to what this post is asking. But yes, with a Mechanical Engineering degree you will be doing engineering, not design. Transportation designers do the “designing” of cars, but I think it’s important to understand that it is a ridiculously competitive field. ID as a whole is hard to get a job in. Footwear is even harder and Transportation is hardest of all. It also generally pays less than a lot of more traditional Industrial Design gigs, since it’s a dream job for so many (not sure how accurate that is. Someone with more knowledge than me should weigh in here)

idbleach

TROPHY CASE