Congratulations to Ridvan Polat for winning the first 3DEXCITE Donut Day Master Challenge! You’ve truly raised the bar with your exceptional utilization of the Commercial Innovation tools in the 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio. A big thank you to all our active champions as well. 3D storytelling plays a crucial role in bringing ideas, designs, and magic to life. Ridvan pulled out all the stops with his first foray into the Works portfolio commercial tools: xStudio, and xHighlight. Take a minute to get to know Ridvan in this quick Q&A about his experience and his approach.
Donut Master: Ridvan! What was your thought process behind this project?
Thank you so much. As you know, this contest was special for SOLIDWORKS Champions. I thought I should make a special Donut for champions in a special contest for champions. With this thought, I came up with the following slogan: Every Champion is a Star and every champion deserves to eat a special Donut. To support this slogan, I designed a Donut in the shape of a Star.
After many attempts I finally finished the design. The question was how to present it to people. It was very easy to create a realistic image of my model in xStudio with its user-friendly interface. But my goal was to provide the link between real and virtual with the realistic image. Also I’ve designed the mold for donut to produce an eatable one in real life. For this, I needed to create an ambiance in xStudio that would support the realistic look & feel.
My Star Donut Model had whipped cream filling inside. The brand names, SW and 3DEXCITE, were written on it with whipped cream. I decided that there should be an environment using whipped cream, so I searched for a high-resolution background. I finally found two related background images and used them as the environment with the ‘Create Ambience’ feature in xStudio.
In this image, I highlighted the step of creating the SW, and 3DEXCITE logos written on the model with the whipped cream bag.
In this image, I emphasized the step of creating the whipped cream between the bottom base and the top base.
What do you think of the 3D Render Role?
Imagine there is a rendering program that you can access from a web browser and you can render your realistic images on the cloud without using any hardware. Now, wouldn’t it be surprising if I told you that this is not a dream and that you can do it with the xStudio application inside the 3D Render Role?
What surprised you most in this journey?
The fact that everything, and I mean everything, is done through a web browser has been the most amazing experience. I’ve been using xApps for a long time to create content on PC or tablet, but mostly every project I’ve done has been a combination of Cloud and Desktop apps for collaboration. In this project, everything was in the cloud. I did my design with xShape, realistic rendering and GLB file for AR with xStudio.
You can experience the AR of my Donut model with the QR code below.
What secret sauce could you share with other SOLIDWORKS users and content creators?
What makes our work unique is the story. And most importantly, your belief in that story. Without a story, something will always be missing.
I want to quote here, “There is no such thing as a secret recipe. The important thing is to believe that what you do is special.” (Kung Fu Panda) 😊
What future awesome content are you planning to share with your followers?
Every month I produce new content with my partner Hanen Bdioui. Most of our content is for makers and collaborators. But after the Donut contest, we had a great connection with xStudio. My partner and I designed a special cake for each other for our birthdays. We used xStudio to get realistic images of these cakes. In the coming months, we will not only show our followers the final result. We will also show how we did it.
Below you can see the cake I designed for Hanen Bdioui’s birthday and the realistic image I achieved using xStudio.
Do you use this workflow in other concept presentations?
Yes, absolutely. In all my projects, I first define a theme. I create a design to support this theme. When the design and theme come together, the only thing left is to turn it into a story.
How long have you been using xStudio?
I started with xStudio about 9 months ago. I made my first content with an Air Engine assembly. I created this content to emphasize the importance of using cloud applications on the go. Apart from these projects, me and my team used xStudio and xHighlight applications in many other projects. You can learn the details from the post I shared in the 3DEXCITE User Community.
What advice do you have for others just getting started in 3D Render?
The xStudio application included in the role has an easy-to-use interface. The first thing you need to do is to complete the training on the EduSpace site. Then you can enjoy rendering in the cloud.
How easy was it for you to transition from working on traditional desktop applications to a tablet and cloud application?
I have been a SOLIDWORKS user since 2010. I am also a SOLIDWORKS champion. I had the opportunity to meet 3DEXPERIENCE Cloud products in the company where I did my internship (TEKYAZ). The first application I experienced was xShape. After this wonderful experience, my admiration for these applications grew and I started to produce content in this field. But I had a dream. I wanted to test these applications on a tablet so I bought a tablet with Android operating system with my first salary. After my first tablet experience, I could not give up the tablet. The pleasure of designing your dreams with a pen in your hand is very different. I highly recommend you to experience this. Of course, it is not easy for someone who is used to a mouse to get used to a tablet immediately. But in order to overcome this difficulty, many of the applications in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform have a special tool to support touch screens. This makes your familiarization process much faster.
What other integrated applications did you use and how was the integration experience?
I can say that I have experienced almost all of the Cloud applications on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
For example, I designed an RC Car with the xDesign application. With the xShape application, I designed the outer shell of a real hobby car. In addition to xStudio, I also had the opportunity to experience the xHighlight application.
Integration is very important today. Why? Whether you are a school team or a company. At the end of the day, you have to use different applications together for your project. But the most important question is: Is there integration between these applications? If the answer is yes, this is a big advantage and saves you time. But if the answer is no, you are likely to encounter many errors during your project.
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform includes many roles and applications. All these applications work in an integrated way and this is very important. For example, in the Donut Master Challenge, I was very impressed to see that when I wanted to make a change to my Donut design in xShape, my render in xStudio was automatically updated with that change.
We at 3DEXCITE look forward to working with Ridvan and the SOLIDWORKS Champions in future challenges to reveal the powerful commercial innovation tools we are releasing in the .Works cloud portfolio.
Exceptional people skills combined with over 40 years of 2D and 3D visual communication experience. My passion is making creative visual content and have a desire to learn additional products to get the job done.