My first experience using Fusion was difficult, but perhaps not for typical reasons. I honestly enjoyed troubleshooting, thinking of creative ways to replicate real-world shapes and objects in the program, and the overall creation process. However, my program crashed about three times, and I had to restart from scratch each time. This taught me a few lessons: first, I should really make sure I save my file throughout, even if I’m not done. Second, I was able to rebuild quicker and quicker each time, so in some ways, the crashes were secret blessings allowing me to streamline my process.
In terms of my process, I found a lot of online resources that helped me throughout. I couldn’t figure out how to make a five-point star, and in fact, I was getting quite frustrated at the fact that there was not a tool that could automatically create common shapes such as stars. I researched the best method and found that one way to do it was to build a diamond shape, then use the circular pattern tool to replicate it five times in a circle, as informed by this YouTube Short. My tip for other beginners is to find similar videos for specific issues you’re having, as well as just trying what you can. You can always press Ctrl+Z if it doesn’t work out how you want!
I had to leave out some details because I couldn’t fathom making them, such as the small sphere next to the keyring, which is really more of a clasp mechanism. This was too complicated for my beginner knowledge, but using a sphere in its place was a worthy compromise.
I can picture this technology and process being useful when modelling important humanist artifacts or objects, as it forces a person to be extremely detail-oriented. Each angle, texture, shape, and color must be analyzed to accurately represent something as a 3D model. Additionally, 3D modelling can expand accessibility to artifacts or art, as someone may not be able to visit a museum or archive in which the artifact is held, or perhaps the object is too fragile to be in public view. However, having an accurate 3D model of the object makes it so that anyone can access, analyze, and generally perceive the object. This demonstrates large positive implications for humanities scholarship and engagement.
Hi Mallory, the star keychain you created is super impressive! I’m also surprised that Fusion360 doesn’t have a 5-point star shape readily available to use, but I’m glad you managed to find a video that explained how to create one using diamond shapes. I also had to use a lot of online resources to help me with the modeling. I liked your point about 3D modeling forcing people to be extremely detail-oriented. It’s easy to miss a lot of small details when simply observing an object or creating a 2D image of one.
Your star keychain is very cool. I also used a star in my design and was really surprised that Fusion 360 didn’t have a star shape available to use in sketch mode. I think that we found the same YouTube tutorial for creating a five-point star by making a diamond and using the circular pattern to duplicate it around a midpoint. I really like your idea that 3D modelling can expand accessibility to artifacts or art for people who may not be able to visit, or to objects that is not available to the public.