@brummer I measured the corner radii of the Dyna Comp we have in the office and adjusted the model to suit. Though the model was from the Hammond website and was very accurate, those radii were slightly off. (6mm corner and 2mm top instead of 5mm corner and 3mm top)
Maybe it looks better to you now
Before
interesting… for me, that little change really pulls this out of the “uncanny valley” - much more convincing as a 3D model. nice work.
… not that i’m voting for 3D models, mind you… lol.
…instead of the foot-knob. This has been better before. You should change the light settings.
I’m not sure I understand. We’re talking about the footswitch? what about it?
Yes for sure. This was just a drop in lighting scene. It doesn’t show of the texture of the top surface very well. Ideally when everything is set up in blender, we have a universal lighting environment and camera set up so that every model is rendered in the same lighting so the GUIs look like they exist in the same room
In the quest to find balance between real and “web UI” I would drop the hexagonal, as that is purely a physical method to attach it. Why not go for circles instead, won’t that be neater?
ah I get you. You’re right! I actually don’t know what changed. The lighting should have stayed the same. Anyway, the lighting should be improved.
I’m also thinking that it might make more sense to use the LED ring footswitch style instead of having the separate LED. I think that will make things a bit clearer and simpler and means there are fewer elements needed. A footswitch on it’s own makes it imposible to distinguish it’s position and an LED on it’s own has to be visually linked to what it indicates. Combining them makes a lot of sense I think and these switches exsist in the real world on other pedals
There are also circular knurled nuts on real world devices. I just thought the hexagonal nut might act like a cue that shows better that this round thing is a switch
another option:
lighting up the circle is also something you wouldn’t do in physical but would make sense in digital
ring led switches or any kind of on/off switch or pushbutton would work better in a gui. The metal thingie after all is useful only if you have a real pedal on the flor and you have to stomp it.
I decided to try a little personal project to try making some 3D models to use to make realistic Amp GUIs.
These are just tests!
I think this will give you an idea of what I would push for when going down the realistic looking, bitmap based route rather than the simple flat vector route. (though I think flat vector style is still valid when appropriate especially when it’s not an emulation or if it’s just a utility)
The idea here is that the colours, forms and materials make the amp easily recognisable as it’s real world counterpart though the proportions and types of controls are tailored towards on screen use with a higher control density. I would say that it is materialistically skeumorphic but not proportionally skeumorphic.
Here are a couple of examples of some amps inspired by real world amps with a made up replacement brand name. (All physics-based renderings)
Front on orthogonal views (no perspective) which I believe is important to keep consistent across all GUIs so you don’t have mismatched perspectives
And the beauty of 3D modelling them is that you can make some cool marketing images that make them feel more tangible as products by showing them in a 3D space
Interested to here what you guys think
This is my domain! I love it!
I’m going to steal some ideas here for the Vox assets I’m “working on”
I’ve to say these look absolutely sweet and spot on. I really like the realistic look for plugins based in the real world.
also great shot - and If you want to go crazy with promotions: 3D print this and put a dwarf inside.
I really would like to see these types of renders for the non guitar stuff - like OBXD or the NoiseMaker.
A question on the technical side, maybe also for @Kim: are there ways to design these parametric?
Like say have a variable for the number of top row knobs and for the bottom row.
I’m trying specifically to get away from real-world controls which look the way they do because it is practical for manufacturing. Fortunately, a 3D model does not have to conform to those constraints so I can head more in the direction of modern UI controls, rendered in a way that makes them look like they could exist in the real world. These are much more practical to read and interact with especially on a touch display and I don’t feel that they have such an impact that you can’t recognise the amp anymore
I might experiment with that too thanks for the suggestion. Just a heads up, this is a personal project right now
These ones are actually already parametric. I designed them in parametric CAD software and use a plugin to update the models in my rendering software. It makes it very easy to make variations and adjust global parameters that update the whole model. Actually these 2 amps are configurations of the same parametric assembly
I’m working on a GUI for a Vintage Top Boosted VOX AC30 model. Here is a rough SVG (for some reason, the font isn’t showing up properly). I wanted to get some initial feedback on the layout and overall visual approach. I’d like to make it feel slightly more 3D and I haven’t figured out what I want to do with the knobs yet, but I like the knobs @James poasted above.
Here’s a PNG:
If this inspires any of you more design-savvy types, feel free to riff on it. You should be able to grab the SVG from this post.
I use the authority vested in me to revive this thread, As the marketing aspect of plug-ins is, in my perception, still a valid and actual topic.
This thread has a lot of value and I like how we challenged each other here!
I rephrase;
How can I help to provide some basic art for plugins that are currently “interfaceless”?
@Kim are you still in the game?
Re-Reading this thread confirmed that you are a guy with friends drive and passion; what if we team up and we offer interfaces?
this is a great idea. I’ve been working together with @madmaxwell on his neural modeler. This will be the ui which uses css + svg only.
and just to showcase what’s possible with that approach.
PS: if you like the Mutant you are going to be blown away by the sounds of the neural modeler. 
On the subject of plugins needing interfaces: I think we have a thread where plugins in beta that needed some interfaces. Did the centaur and obxd for this.
Hi @LievenDV
At the moment, of course, I’m not doing anything on such things, but in principle, of course, I’m still at it, if it is desired.
