02–25–25
A This week was heavily based on 3D working and website building.
I’ve wanted to find a tacoma model online for the longest time so people can finally see the full context of what my product is in a single image instead of it requiring an explanation along with the mockup of just the shelves. BUT most Tacoma models out there are sitting right around 100 bucks which is so steep for just a model that I’m not even sure will work with what I wanna do. So after some extra searching around I found this free model, which of course, needed some TLC to really get up to par with being a useful for presenting. I had to mess with so many different layers and shapes on top of shapes causing awful topology glitching and having to replace all the materials, as well as the wheels and tires, to get the most realistic look. Despite how it looked when I got it, I managed to totally turn it around into something that is now super useful. The scale was already great so my camper system fit into the bed quite nicely with only some minor adjustment to be had.
Once I had the truck I figured I might as well work on creating a scene to go along with it so I found this free desert sand dune model, added a quick material and threw that in. Next I found another free HDRI of a desert scene and that went in pretty easy as well and after some small adjustments, they fit together quite well for being totally free.
I then exported several frames of different varations and put them into the website with a fade transition so now it displays a few of the variations you could do right there on the front page. After that I went and grabbed a few more renders to replace the stock photos I had in there previously to continue building a look and feel that’ll be closer to the final design
I’ve got a meeting tomorrow with the UX/Customer Survey expert at DECKED where I’ll hopefully get a good insight into the demographic of their customers, what the market currently looks like, and what the customers themselves are saying about their products
While my dad and I were discussing the design I also had an epiphany that I could add a standardized bolt in spacing to my baseplates (think pegboard or molle panels). I could have a specific spacing on my baseplates that I can then manufactur endless accesories for. Furthermore, with this standardized fitment my accessories could then be adapted to fit on any platform from trucks, to SUV’s, to vans, and anything else you can think of. So now I can take any vehicle, make a custom fit baseplate, then add in my stanardized fitment spacing and fit any of my accessories onto that platform!