"Ron" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

> Each time I sit down to work on it a feel very overwhelmed and dont know where
> to start/continue from.

Start with the simplest things possible.
Use simple place-holder shapes like boxes or cylinders as pieces, and then
improve them bit by bit.

The board should be straightforward - and you can even just use _checker_ as a
pigment pattern.   Then a box as a border.

Learn what you can get away with and "fake" to save you a lot of unnecessary and
wasted time and effort - and therefore frustration.
Post your W(orks)I(n)P(rogress) with the current code, and you can get
constructive criticism.

Your simpler pieces can be done with CSG - but probably more easily with a SOR
or lathe.

Rule #1 is that everything happens in relation to the origin <0, 0, 0>.
Define your shapes at the origin, and then translate them to where you need them
to be.

Start parameterizing your shapes as early as possible to make "tweaking" it
later on much easier.  For instance if you were going to build up from the
bottom, instead of defining one section from y=0 to y=4 and then next from y=4
to y=6, make the first section go from 0 to a variable named TOF ("Top Of
First") and then the second go from y=TOF to y=TOF+HOS ("Height Of Second").
Or something like that.

Then when you change one thing that all the others rest on, they all move to
compensate and you don't have to sift through the code and change it all by hand
every time you make any change.

I like to use a drawing program that displays coordinates so that I can trace
over a picture of something I'm modeling, and use those as points on my spline /
SOR / lathe / prism....

So make a checkerboard and put some spheres or something on it, light it, give
it a background or a sky_sphere, and start playing with pigments, textures,
finishes, etc.

Put in plenty of comments so that you can easily see what you've done 6 mo
later... and WE can easily and quickly understand what you are doing or trying
to do, and help you out without trying to unravel the mystery.

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