Howdy, all. I had an idea for a modeling project, and thought this might be a good place to discuss it. I've been thinking about modeling a Posable Jigsaw Puzzle. I want to create the model so that it can be used as a posable prop in Poser. I'm picturing a simple puzzle, like you might find in a little kids room. It could be fun to animate a kid working on a puzzle. Ideally, the model should be built and UVmapped in a way that would make it easy for the user to change the picture. I think I've worked out an approach to take (using the Vertex modeller in Carrara), but thought it could make an interesting discussion for this forum.

In case anyone is interested, here are the results of my first attempt. First, the assembled puzzle.

And here it is, with the pieces scrambled a bit.

now make it with 5000 pieces ;) BT

LOL@brycetech you know those things made us eat on the coffee table for weeks!

heh... a virtual jigsaw puzzle could actually replace that. My father and I used to get the big ones (10000+ pieces) and spend a frickin' week putting it together...only to tear it apart when done. this could actually be a fun thing to make and have online for a game...if you could figure out how to move pieces freely. :) BT

but then what about all that fun trying to force those ones that almost look like they can fit. Ahhh memories, actually I might do a new one soon, I'll wait until we move into our new house and dedicate a room to it ;) a virtual puzzle could be fun too though. I am sure there is a way to do it with flash or java or one of those type of programs. You would need a way to zoom in on a part of the puzzle and then cycle through possible pieces.

heh this would be a fun project. I have seen screen savers that break up into puzzles, disassemble and reassemble to a different picture. If a person actually sat down and made a model like twillis has the idea for, you could have a lot of fun making a flash version. ya'd have to have bins to separate the pieces into (we used to pile up similar colors, edge pieces, etc) the work from that. Oh and of course zoom in/out. and for fun...a virtual hammer to try to make that a piece fit..heh using twillis' idea, you could then make multiple puzzles by just swapping the image on the overall obj map model, rotating/resizing. Itd be a bit of work tho...a 100 piece puzzle would be all I'd even try to make this way. for one that big, youd have to have a HUGE resolution image to work with. But, this is an interesting idea.

Attached Link: http://www.jigzone.com

Actually, my current jigsaw puzzle kick is due to online jigsaws I've been playing with. The above link has a zillion, all sorts of cuts. I also like the jigsaw puzzles at http://www.ucomics/games/. Some of the ones there have extra features, like all the pieces are black-and-white until you connect them to another piece, or the colors reverse.

To keep this on topic, here are the steps I took to model this in Carrara. First, I made a 12 x 12 grid.

Then, I added vertices, and pushed and pulled them to make a puzzle shape.

Then, I selected each piece and did a "Detach Polygon".

Then, I selected everything, and added thickness. Then, I gave each piece a name (A1, A2, .. D3). Then I selected all of the top faces and gave them a separte name, to make the UV mapping easier. Then it was just a matter of using UV mapper to make a decent texture map. I selected the "top" group, and made that part really big (I should have made it a 4:3 ratio, so that copy and pasting other pictures would be made easier; I'll have to redo this bit). The rest I just shoved down to the bottom, although I suppose I could have been really fancy, and made it a reversible puzzle. This could all then be used to make a poseable prop. Maybe a 24-piece puzzle would be enough to for a kid's toy. More pieces than that, I would probably cheat, and only have a few loose pieces, with the rest of the puzzle assembled (using a bump map to suggest the separate pieces). This technique could be used for other stuff to. I have a rotating billboard that I'm working on, for example.

Hmm. There's a Photoshop plugin that adds a puzzle piece outline on top of an image - forgot the name. But you could apply the filter to a blank (white) square, export the resulting image and make a 3d extrusion out of it. It's the Supermesh function in Raydream, I assume it's still around in Carrerra. Then export the whole thing to obj, after grouping, etc. Might be faster?

Hmm. I dunno if it's in Carrara. I'll have to try and experiment with it. Neat idea, thanks.