A test run of a stratocaster guitar. Some minor errors. I don't own any guitar of my own, all the work came from observing google images. Lessons learned: don't use the explode option in Rhino. There were bits all over the Bryce editor. A real pain putting it all back together. And next time it'll be exported in sections. If anyone actually knows how these really look like, where did I go wrong? Or does it look okay?

I have a custom built guitar that is based on the strat and I played with many musos that had one. We need to see another view to be able to tell.

Of course, if that's a wings model you could be in even more trouble

I had a strat copy back in the day (the ...ahem...70s..;). Traded it in for a Pro Aria II..but I've always been more of a rhythm than lead, anyway...;) lookin' good so far..

Nope, not Wings. Solidworks for the modeling. An ordeal to get it into Bryce. Oh, but Bryce for the texturing ;-)

I'll get another render off of the top view asap.

Hot off the press!  And I hope it uploads without me having to resize the thing. No smoothing.

OK, well I think the bridge design needs to be looked at again and the grain of the wood/body should be at 90degrees to what it is atm. Both the bridge and the plug socket need to be chrome.

Have you thought about adding a whammy bar? Most strats hve these although some players prefer not to attach them. I can't see any strap hangers - the little buttons that you fit the guitar strap to?

Finally, strats have the top edge of the body - about where your elbow would be sloping backwards towards your body, so you would need to blend that part a bit.

Good effort so far. There's a pretty good one on my website btw........
Hope this helps.

To The Bryster:

Excellent help! Thanks!

I'll be re-working the bridge a bit. So far it is in the brush pewter mat, but i'll try it with chrome. I suppose the light gleaming off of it makes it look like a flat tin.

If I am not mistaking the terminology of the guitar parts, the "pick guard" on mine doesn't have any screws connecting it to the body. In the image you've supplied, and in many I find in google, there are many screws around the pick guard. I haven't found a good photo of those. Are they actually screws or something else? If they are screws, are they flat heads? philips?

I think I need to also slope the point where the neck meets the headstock. In some early strats I saw it was an abrupt change from the neck to the headstock. I see others with a nice slope to it, making it look naturally fused.

About where the top part of the body sloping backwards a bit, looking at other google images I think I have that, but don't think it came out good in the render. I'll generate another. I can always post here an angle you need to see better if you want.

Here's the latest change. Also is the image I was using as a guide. Still need to do the button things for the strap.  There's also a small stand the thing is now resting on.

It's looking good to me.  The bridge definitely needs to be crome (I've don't think I've ever seen a strat without a crome bridge).  The join between the headstock and neck is sloped on my Squire strat (hey, it's made by Fender... back off).  The screws are simply cross head screws.

Hope that helps.

It is chrome now. I don't know how to make it more chromey than it is, unless I make it a mirror and change the blue diffuse and specularity to white. I wonder if I'm confusing "bridge" for something else. Here is a graphic I found off of google with terminology, useful to me since I never even touched a guitar before.

Graphic "borrowed" from The Guitar Doctor: http://www.guitardoctor.com/guitar_parts_translations.html

Oh, the headstock part, I think I will leave as is. I've seen many where the neck meets the headstock and it is sloped. But not all. The image I started to use as my guide you can see the shadow doesn't indicate a sloped area. Some do, some don't, I guess it depends on the model. I'll include another image from the Fender people themselves at http://www.fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0141102344  This one is listed as the classic '50's stratocaster. I wish there was a way to rotate and view their images but it's only the front view. Click on the image and a larger one pops up.

Well, this is the last message from me for tonight.. going to sleep. 2:15 am ... gosh.....

Great job so far. The  next natural step must be to model a Hendrix-robot-clone

Measurments 25 and 1/2 inches from the nut to the bridge. If you have a photo you can work the rest out. Have a chinese strat copy now but had a strat + for a while. (they had noiseless lace sensor pickups) Could probably make one hat is much more efficiant in Wings. But solid works will do a nice job.

The white piece you call the 'pick-guard' is what we'd call the scratch-plate. It is held on by small dome-head screws in ALL CASES but they can be slot-heads or cross-heads -about 3-4mm in diameter.  You really need to boolean-out recesses for these screws to make it look right.

The BRIDGE is the lump at the end of the strings on the body - lol
It can have many parts, including 'micro-tuners' (as we used to call em) or saddles as they are on your graphic. Beneath the bridge would be the springs for the tremelo arm system or Whammy -bar, but it doesn't look like you are going to show the back of the instrument so that doesn't matter here. 

I don't see any position dots on the neck of your model. Checkout guitar websites to see different designs. Fender usually have just plain round ones but others like Gibson have parallelogram shapes. These are invariabley made of 'mother-of-pearl', also some guitars have corresponding dots on the top edge of the neck so that they could be seen more easily by the user.

You will also need to show a recess for  the TRUSS ROD.
Love to see a hi-rez render!

These are great points. The measurement of the screws and their characteristics will help a lot. Boolean them into the plate, no problem. The position dots on the neck, I'll put them in.

Today I plan to just experiment with importing/exporting sections of the strat into/from Rhino -> Bryce but will try other file formats than .3DS in the hopes to prevent model explosion when it gets into Bryce. The rear of this model, for example, imported into Bryce with a hole along the area of the body that slopes in (where the player's elbow would be). I figured Rhino couldn't handle it or something.

As for Wings, I'm sure it has power, and it seems very simple/quick to model something. But for me, I use Solidworks. It's UI seems natural, it's extremely quick to make stuff, modify stuff, and engine a business with it. For me, it is the best tool to make a real-world model, especially if I want that model to be physically manufactured, be it a car, an Orange County Chopper, or a Stratocaster guitar. :-) Solidworks is cool.

Anyway, off to experiment with file conversion and will modify the model. Thanks everyone for the measurements and pointers. I'll get them in ASAP.

mine had the plastic plate held down by conical head (top was flat) wood screws. Had the micro-tuners, and a whammy bar (how hard could that be to make?...;) Everything else looks as I remembered it. Don't fotget the peg nuts (you know, the things that you put the strap on), and you're almost there.

Umm.. what is the Truss Rod all about?

The Truss Rod is a metal rod that holds the neck of the guitar in tension to prevent is warping out of true. At the end of the finger board is the NUT - the plastic piece that keeps the strings seperate - just beyond this should be an access hole for the Allen-key/hexagonal wrench that is used to adjust the truss-rod.

On many guitars this hole is covered by a piece of plastic held in place by 3 screws. However, on the Strat it is usually open - as I recall - or plugged with a small cap. A hole is better IMO.

BTW - there is a plate on the back of the body to allow access to the bridge tensioning springs - the power behind the whammy bar.

Pictures courtesy of the Fender Guitar Website - sue me! I'm helping you guys advertise.

This is cool. Excellent close ups. Thanks!

That looks like a built in Roland GK2 pickup.  Wikkid.

I'm just disappointed that I didn't get in before Bryster explained what a truss rod was :(

http://www.fender.com/vgstrat/home.html

If you want to know about this particular axe, checkout the link. This thing is so kool I might just get one when they make 'em left-hand!

You get a regular American Fender Strat, but it has a roland setup that is awesome. It has 37 setups! From Strat, tele, acoustic, 12 strings and alternate tunings WITHOUT touching the machine-heads. All this with just a regular 1/4" jack plug. If you love Strats you'll love this!

The more I research and learn about these guitars, the more I'm liking them.

So can you hook up to a synth with it you need that to do dive bombs with a pipe organ. Or is it just a small on board synth with a few options. You don't want to become a guitar player they are weird.
Keyboard player to guitar player: That sounds awful!!!Stop it!

Guitar Player: I know cool huh?

Guitar players have an affinity for awful sounds. Ooooh listen to this it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. My advice listen to Third Stone from the Sun. call me in the morning.

Dann-O: No, it doesn't need a synth. The electronics are only for emulating regular types of guitar or tuning to another key without touching the tuning pegs/machine heads.

Need to get rid of that cover ther eover the strings. Soem guitars have them but guitar players always take them off so they can do some palm muting.

Hey the roland strat thing there making it sound like different guitars is not something I want then you have no reason to buy more guitars. Off the shelf I like Telecasters more than strats they got more bite to them. I guess I was pretty much a tele guy or Rickenbackers. Or arch top jazz boxes.

D@M: Looking good. But I don't like the bridge, but Hey! It's your axe! Wack it up to high rez and turn up the volume to 11......let's see this sucker play!

Hehe, thanks :-)   What I really must do is redo that pick guard (scratch guard) and the body mesh. Want each one as their own single object. After Rhino converts these, they are a bunch of arcs. Not really practical for giving the model away. I really want to see what you and others would do with the whole model when it's done. I don't have an idea for a scene other than on a stand, but I'm sure any one who posted in this thread could come up with a fantastic Bryce scene. We need a Bryce Band. ;-)

A whamy bar... I'm leaning to do it. Should I do it in Solidworks or Bryce? It's actually easier to model some things in Bryce. Mostly because I have to go through hoops to get a Solidworks model into Bryce that it sometimes easier to just continue in Bryce.

Anyway, today I really must think about a programming issue at work, so will not upload anything today other than the strap button things. There are different styles I noticed. And I assume they should be threaded. I could do the threading, but that does increase polygon count. The strat model itself, due to all them arcs coming from the Rhino process, is a lot of polygons.... you don't want to copy/paste another without waiting like, 10 minutes. Anyway, here's an HDRI of the buttons.

Strap buttons................you have the shape more or less right, but the shaft at the end is wrong.
The bit you see on the guitar is the whole thing, but it is drilled out to allow for a screw that secures it to the guitar body.

Next time I shall rely on good photos of strap buttons. Doing some now. Will post soon.

And I think I will work on the mechanics inside the bridge. You guys are some tough customers ;-)

So here's a new image. I would like to shift gears to look at the bridge and start thinking how i'll do that.

D@M: Very nice, but you need six! :lol:

The springs in the bridge area... what kinds are they? Compression or expansion springs? Believe it or not but I do need to know since I'm itching to model them.

I think expansion. They  expand when you pull them out. However the ones on the wammy bar in the  back are the opposite.

Okay, cool! Thanks!

Here's some simple springs.

The ones for the bridge don't have hooks on them. The ones fitted into the back of the body for the whammy bar do have hooks............