bottpower

Computer generated images or CGI according to wikipedia: “is the application of the field of computer graphics (or more specifically, 3D computer graphics) to special effects in films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media.” It allows for the creation of realistic images and animations which are so realistic they fool the eye and the mind.  Modern hardware is already so advanced that with a “simple” home-PC extraordinary images can be created. The images are so convincing that it is difficult to see is it  a real photo or digitally created? Below are two CGI images made by the German company Recom 

These images are a mixture of a real surrounding, photographed by a photographer both with a normal camera and a sphere cam which makes a 360 degrees image of the surrounding. This is later mapped onto the 3D computermodel. The advantage is that you can choose which car, rims, colour, etc you want to have without transporting this to the set. I work with the programm RTT Deltagen which is a realtime renderer meaning you work with the object and see directly what happens when you change the material, colour, etc. I also work a lot with photoshop which can be used to generate 2D CG images. For raptors&rockets I made digital images of how a future model could look like. These were published in magazines worldwide including Motorrad, Motociclismo but I stopped doing this work because Tor Sagen of R&R hasn’t paid anything for the work I did untill this day. Some images I made are shown below and for me it was important to try and implement the design trademarks of the brands and not “steal” an exhaust, fairing, etc. from another OEM like a lot of Photoshop “artists” do.

The nice thing about these CGI images is you can think of anything you want like this: the Yamaha YZF-R250. Basically a Yamaha YZF-R125 with the new 250 single in it. 30hp and 10kg’s less then the R125 (which weighs 126.5 kg’s) could make for a nice low-budget trackbike. What about it Yamaha?

Tags: motorcycle design, CGI, rendering

In the photo you can see the size differences between the original Honda CBR 954 chassis and the new trellis built for the Bott 1000 Morlaco. One of our objectives in the design stage was to achieve a smaller and narrower bike than the original one, mainly in the area that the rider embraces with his knees. In this way we could improve the ergonomy, making a bike more comfortable to ride, and also making possible to use a narrower bodywork, improving aerodynamics.

The chassis that appears in the photo is the first prototype we built, it was bronze welded by Tony Foale, a man with a vast experience, who has built hundreds of bikes. Later we built a second prototype, this one was TIG welded by myself.

Tags: chassis, morlaco, trellis, welding, construction, motorbike

In the photo you can see the fueltank model mounted on the bike. One advantage about building the fueltank using composites is that it is possible to create more complex shapes than using aluminium, for example (building an aluminium fueltank with this shape would be very complex). This allows to take more profit of the avaliable room, in this way it is possible to maximize the fueltank capacity.

English is not my native language, so please let me know if you find any mistake. Thank you.

Tags: fueltank, construction, composites, model, morlaco

My good friend Jose Garcia is a true rendering artist, normally I give him the 3D models and he generates images as nice as this one, which I add to the bottpower flickr gallery. I must give him new virtual parts, because in the real motorbike, some things changed regarding what you can see in the image.
I like a lot the front mudguard designed by Hugo van Waaijen. It reminds me a F1 nose.

English is not my native language, so please let me know if you find any mistake. Thank you.

Tags: morlaco, 3D, model, render, comic, motorbike, design

For the fueltank construction, I thought about 3 possibilities: steel, aluminum and composites (carbon fiber, fiberglass, kevlar). Taking into account my limited means and knowledge I choosed the last option. The technical FIM rules explain in a quite precise way (in this document) the requirements that a composite fueltank must fulfill in order to be homologated for racing. These requirements are based on the rules for road legal vehicles, so it is clear that this is the way to follow (at least in an orientative way), not only for racing, but to fabricate something safe. If finally I find difficult to achieve these requirements, I will build or order an aluminum fueltank. The bike has an outer carcass that covers the real fueltank, so the external look (finish) is not so important.
Having the fueltank in the computer model, the first step is to build a real model, I mean, some kind of “sculpture” with the same shape and dimensions of the fueltank I want to build. It is possible to use a lof of materials, in this case I used some wood.

After that, I fill it with poliurethane foam.

Finally I applied polyester filler to achieve (after a lot of sandpaper) some “good” surfaces.

In the next photo you can see the fueltank model already finished, with it’s final shape and surfaces. In the bottom area there is a big dent, I made it to provide some room for the electrical wiring (you can see it in black colour in the previous photo). It is very important to take into account this kind of details, and think everything twice before starting building.

To build this kind of things by hand requires a lot of hours of work. It would be great to find some technical sponsor that would allow me to use a rapid prototyping machine (stereolithography or similar), in order to do this kind of work faster and in a more accurate way. I must look for it. 

English is not my native language, so please let me know if you find any mistake. Thank you. 

Tags: fueltank, composites, model, construction, motorbike, morlaco

Besides the Morlaco race bike, I wanted to develop a street variant which was more or less a concept bike. The idea for this Morlaco variant was a bike which communicated with the rider. How?, I hear you ask. I’m always fascinated by technique which is shown to the world like for instance this Suzuki GSX R4 conceptcar from 2001 where the shocks are shown as a styling element.

A motorcycle normally shows a lot of technical details and the idea I had was “why not show the shocks to the rider when he is riding the bike so he visually sees what the suspension is doing” This was the base for the Morlaco concept bike. David developed a chassis for this concept where we used the double link front suspension from the race bike but probably with a CNC milled front fork (from forged aluminium or if possible magnesium) and the famous trellis frame. The first design sketch looked like this

The twin shock concept looked like this:

I must say that this project was largely driven from the aesthetic/design point of view. David, as an engineer, had a lot of doubts about the stress loads the upper frame would indure from the shock movement. Some more sketches to “search” for the design are shown below:

We started to built the prototype but time was getting short and we focused on the race bike to get it done and we put this project on a hold, altough I still like the twin shock concept a lot and I think it could work on a bike like a Yamaha MT01 where two visible Fournales shocks could give such a bike an interesting technical element, not seen on any bike before…

Tags: bottpower, morlaco, motorcycle design, styling, concept, twin shock

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