Adding Our Sub-Components

So... we have our enhanced shape for our outer shell of the clock... but we are missing the buttons and sliders!

Step 3: Adding Our Sub-Components
Snooze/Light Button

The original plan for it is to use the Mesh > Create Polygon Tool, then trace out the outline of the Snooze/Light button, and at the end extrude the face so that it is not as thin as a paper and has actually some depth.

(click picture to see the enlarged version)

There is a problem with this approach as I discover later. The polygon is not made up of quads or triangle, but rather, is made up of one n-sided polygon! While this may seems minor, later I decided to bent the button to match to the shape of the clock.

But the bending is difficult to do because the polygons would then became deformed and the shape screws up.

The solution was to redo the button, but this time, instead of using the Create Polygon Tool, I would just use a  rectangular block with several subdivisions, and move the vertices around to make the same shape out. Now this time it is made up of several quads, instead of being made up of only one polygon.

The left side is the new one that is made up of several quads instead of just one piece of polygon on the right side. The right side is the old one that was originally made using Create Polygon Tool.

Now when we bend the button... it bends properly and smoothly without any screwed up shapes.

Hr/Min Button
The Hr/Min button was simply created with a sphere.

(click picture to see the enlarged version)

Sliders
The sliders were simply created with cylinders.

(click picture to see the enlarged version)

Earlier on in the plan, I have stated that I planned to create the slider by making two sphere along with the cylinder and Boolean Union them. However, there might be some issues in terms of topology with that method, and because I would like to use bump mapping instead to show that little detail on our slider, the spheres were omitted and only the cylinder was used.

With the sub-components created as specified in the plans, we finally have our complete shape of the clock. What is left to be done is in Step 4 and Step 5, which is to smooth the object and also create some textures (and bump maps) for the clock.

(click picture to see the enlarged version)