I’m working on a new project I started yesterday: a musical keyboard. I don’t have a particular model in mind; at this point, I’m just modeling the keys. I’ll probably make some funky design in the end. Here’s where I’m at so far:
Eventually I’ll make the keys shorter(z axis), because now they look like an acoustic piano’s keys. I think I’ll also make them longer(y axis) when I’m done with the black keys.
Anyway, critique and ideas are of course welcome. Fire away!
Looks good. You’ll need a slight bevel around the edges of the white keys(if you look at real keys, there aren’t any sharp corners anywhere), and a large bevel on the black keys when you do them. If you’re going to be animating the keys, you should extend both black and white keys further into the piano, so they they’ll show in the little gap that appears above them when depressed.
That’s a good point you made about the gap above the keys; I hadn’t thought of that. And yeah, the bevel will be very important.
Yeah no problem, here’s a link to see what a the whole key mechanism looks like in a real piano. Don’t know if you’re modeling the inside as well, but it’s still good for reference.
http://www.concertpitchpiano.com/AnimatedGrandAction.html
http://www.concertpitchpiano.com/GrandActionModel.html
Cheers.
Nice work 
only suggestion I have is perhaps a small 1/16 inch bevel around the top edge of the key.
And you just have to do one octave and let the array modifier take care of the rest…
@tmcintosh: thanks for the references of the key mechanism. I’m just modeling the outside, but like you said, it’s a good reference.
@Mmph!: The bevel is, of course, a necessity.
@Orinoco: My plan exactly!
I just did some quick work on the keyboard. I think it looks pretty good, although there may be some stuff I wanna do like make the keys just a touch farther apart and making the white keys shorter. Here’s a view of the whole eight octaves with a quick array modifier. Of course, to make it realistic, I’ll have to go back and edit after I apply the array modifier so there’ll be two white keys without a black key, that kind of stuff. Anyways, here’s a render, without beveling.
