Design for new Hero Factory Torsos

[Takanuinuva]

I have an idea for a new HF torso design that would allow waist articulation. It only sacrifices one pin hole from the original torso design. I've made one for the Small torso, Large torso and XL Torso.

[Jetrax99]

It could work, though given how low the crotch area of the torso armor sits, the waist would be rendered a bit useless anyway.

[Dorek]

Waist articulations is overrated, honestly, though this would probably be the best way to go about it.

[The Mugbearer]

Ask Leewan to order some samples. :D Because these are pretty good.

Edited August 20, 2013 by -N13OS-

[MakutaNocturn]

And the torso armor should look like these in Legends of Metru Nui Movie. All Toa Metru had torso armor and crotch armor. That could give them a cool look :D

[WARHEAD]

Waist articulations is overrated, honestly, though this would probably be the best way to go about it.

I dunno, it can add a LOT of character to a dynamic pose, and some poses are completely impossible without it.

I've had an idea similar to this one for a long time, but the problem that keeps coming up is how the premade torso armors would look really weird what with staying static and everything when the waist is turned. Nocturn's idea is good, but it would require both new parts and a redisign of what you have here already to accommodate for more connection points that would be needed to attach the crotch armor

[bacem]

waist articulations! 10 points!

[Leewan]

Ask Leewan to order some samples. :D Because these are pretty good.

Thanks man !

And the torso armor should look like these in Legends of Metru Nui Movie. All Toa Metru had torso armor and crotch armor. That could give them a cool look :D

Agree, waist articulation would need a totally redesigned body, with an armor in two parts : one for the torso, and one for the crotch. Maybe it's time for me to think about new parts ?

[Aanchir]

I really like the idea of a torso with waist articulation. However, I don't feel like these designs are ideal. For starters, the lower body mold seems like it'd be challenging from a production standpoint since it'd require at least a five-piece mold to create the cavities in the sides and top of the ball cup as well as the hip joints. Current Hero Factory torso beams require just a two-piece mold, with one section stamping the front of the piece and another stamping the back. 3-D printing could make it more possible, but I feel like ideally any LEGO part design should be optimized for injection molding so that it can be produced in greater quantities at a moderately reasonable price.

Additionally, the geometries of these parts leave some things to be desired. The cross-shaped upper body elements are irregular in size and shpe. The obvious goal is to make torso beams that are interchangeable with the current varieties, but I can't help but think that if you're going to go to the trouble of making custom torso beams you might as well give them friendlier geometries.

I think an ideal design would be a 9x5, 7x5, or even 5x5 cross-shaped beam for the upper body, a 5x3 T-shaped beam for the lower body, and a three-module or five-module joiner in between. That way the upper body piece is symmetrical along three planes and the lower body piece is symmetrical along two, and both are easy to mold with a simple two-section mold. The center joiner piece, in the meantime, could be an existing 5-module or 3-module double ball cup (obviously moving or removing the center ball joint keeps this from being interchangeable with current torsos, of course, but then again not all current armor styles are even practical once waist articulation is added). Here's a sketch I did in a CAD program to demonstrate the idea:

Hero Factory Part Concepts by Aanchir, on Flickr

There's a new 3M double ball-cup concept here, which can be seen from two different angles on the left and right sides of the drawing. There would be a "stop" for the axle holes in the very center, much like with any Y-joint. This part is the least essential of the three, as I said above, because existing double ball-cups could be used as joiners instead. However, it does add connection points allowing torso shells to be attached to both the front and back of the torso!

[Legofan225]

The torsos look very amazing good work Takanuinuva !!

[Leewan]

Very interesting idea, Aanchir ! But I think the central part would be hard to do design, because there are many different elements (double ball-cup, two ball-joints, two cross-holes). Anyways, that's a great concept. I think the T-shaped part could be replaced by a combination of this and this, which would be an improvement, IMO, since the latter could be replaced with other bones to give the body the size we want (and that would require a lower quantity of new parts, and less specialized parts).

Edited August 20, 2013 by Leewan

[Infernum]

Hmm, interesting ideas here! I'm all for waist articulation, so I would love it if TLG picked up on this! I'm sure TLG would think up a good armoring solution.

[Kalhiki]

I think the hardest part would be designing a crotch piece that also allows armor attachment. In a body with waist articulation, two pieces of armor would be almost necessary. Aanchir's seems like the most logical choice, but I believe Takanuinuva's would be more welcome. Only one joint for the waist seems like all we need. But maybe that's just me.

Kalhiki

[Aanchir]

Very interesting idea, Aanchir ! But I think the central part would be hard to do design, because there are many different elements (double ball-cup, two ball-joints, two cross-holes). Anyways, that's a great concept. I think the T-shaped part could be replaced by a combination of this and this, which would be an improvement, IMO, since the latter could be replaced with other bones to give the body the size we want (and that would require a lower quantity of new parts, and less specialized parts).

Oddly enough, the cross holes actually make it more practical from a production standpoint than if they were absent. If you try to mold a part with a large solid chunk of plastic, it might not cool properly, and that could cause deformities. This is probably the reason there are three holes in the ball joints of every part in the new building system (which I replicated here). An axle hole is more effective than three holes in either side of these ball joints because they can be formed by the same sections of the mold as the ones that form the holes in the sides of a typical ball cup. If you had three holes on two sides of these ball joints, the mold would need six sections, not four.

Overall, it may look complicated, but this piece should be even simpler from a production standpoint than a 5M double ball cup (Toa Metru thigh beam) from the BIONICLE theme, which actually DID require a six-section mold, and which had even more connection points to deal with.

I think the hardest part would be designing a crotch piece that also allows armor attachment. In a body with waist articulation, two pieces of armor would be almost necessary. Aanchir's seems like the most logical choice, but I believe Takanuinuva's would be more welcome. Only one joint for the waist seems like all we need. But maybe that's just me.

Kalhiki

Yeah, a separate part to cover the crotch would not necessarily be essential for MOCs, but if you're going to add waist articulation to sets you might as well include an armor solution that is optimized for waist articulation. An effective piece for the task IMO would be a part shaped like two Vs, one in front of the other, with a line connecting the bottom of the two Vs, and a ball snap mounted on that line. Approximate size would be 3x3x3 modules — in other words, only slightly bigger than if you attached a 3M shell to the crotch of an existing torso beam, except symmetrical across the vertical axis and narrower in the space between the legs to allow for greater poseability.

Currently, the only part with a ball snap that would be symmetrical across the vertical axis in this way is XT4's head piece, incidentally, though it protrudes so far below the hip joint that I've never found a practical way to use it for a codpiece in MOCs. I'm not sure what type of mold it takes to produce a ball snap, to be perfectly honest, but with an ideal design such a piece should not be any more complicated to produce than a 3M shell. And in fact it could be used as a shell on arms and legs just as easily as on the torso of a figure.

I might try to sketch up an example of this piece on Graphite, though it needs more curves since it's going to be visible from the exterior of the model from all angles, so it will probably take me a lot longer.

The two joints for the waist in my example is not due to necessity but practicality. With just one joint in the waist, the upper and lower body sections will be somewhat awkward shapes, and as I mentioned in my previous post, incorporating a ball cup into either of those sections complicates production a great deal. I figure you might as well make the body symmetrical along as many axes as possible, thereby improving the versatility of the molds. And if you want to keep the proportions between the neck and the shoulders the same as with current torso beams, that requires a joiner piece in between. The joiner doesn't have to be a new piece, but the new piece I drew has more versatility than existing ones.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Aanchir

[Leewan]

Oddly enough, the cross holes actually make it more practical from a production standpoint than if they were absent.

I see, it's like the holes in technic beams.

An axle hole is more effective than three holes in either side of these ball joints because they can be formed by the same sections of the mold as the ones that form the holes in the sides of a typical ball cup. If you had three holes on two sides of these ball joints, the mold would need six sections, not four.

Overall, it may look complicated, but this piece should be even simpler from a production standpoint than a 5M double ball cup (Toa Metru thigh beam) from the BIONICLE theme, which actually DID require a six-section mold, and which had even more connection points to deal with.

Alright, thanks for those explanations ! But if you replace the axle hole with the three round holes (like this), you would still need a four-sections mold, since these holes are in the same direction as the axle hole, right ?

[Front]

The three round holes should be in the other direction, though would be seen in the left view of Anchir's drawing of his 3M C-Beam version.

When I designed the 3M C-Beam, it was originally applied cross holes in each side. Because of the deformations the ball cups sees when you put a ball inside, the cross hole dimensions change too much, not securing a proper function of a shaft in the cross hole. The cross hole function could be satisfied with a normal cross axle, but not when inserting a shaft.

Did you know that the function of the 3M C-beam, the friction, is higher with two balls inserted than just one ? The cups are so close together that they actually have an effect on each other. And certainly on a cross hole in between as explained above.

Adding two balls between the cups in the 3M C-beam is properly never going to work. The ball cup geometry get altered so much, that it may be hard to secure the function of the cup, and more so the strength. The balls simply stiffen the cup deflection too much.

Erland

Part Design

Edited August 21, 2013 by Front

[Aanchir]

The three round holes should be in the other direction, though would be seen in the left view of Anchir's drawing of his 3M C-Beam version.

When I designed the 3M C-Beam, it was originally applied cross holes in each side. Because of the deformations the ball cups sees when you put a ball inside, the cross hole dimensions change too much, not securing a proper function of a shaft in the cross hole. The cross hole function could be satisfied with a normal cross axle, but not when inserting a shaft.

Did you know that the function of the 3M C-beam, the friction, is higher with two balls inserted than just one ? The cups are so close together that they actually have an effect on each other. And certainly on a cross hole in between as explained above.

Adding two balls between the cups in the 3M C-beam is properly never going to work. The ball cup geometry get altered so much, that it may be hard to secure the function of the cup, and more so the strength. The balls simply stiffen the cup deflection too much.

Erland

Part Design

Ah, fascinating insight! I wish I had as much expertise on this matter as you do. But I guess that probably takes many years of education and experience!

I didn't realize the 3M C-beam created so much friction from the ball cups being in close proximity. I guess that answers my question about why there are just the two connection points and nothing in between. It's kind of a shame, but it's still a very useful piece.

Welp, I suppose between you engineers and the part designers, if there is a way to effectively make a torso with waist articulation you'll reach that destination on your own. Glad I didn't put that sketch on Cuusoo like some people suggested... sure, it'd never reach 10,000 supporters, but even so it'd be a shame getting my hopes up for something that wouldn't actually work legally in a physical model!

[Leewan]

So finally I wasn't totally wrong when I said it would be hard to design.

This is really interesting, Front, thanks for all those informations !

[Leewan]

(Sorry for the DP)

Here's my idea (which looks like Aanchir's idea, I know) :

This part is made to work with this and this, that way :

It has the same dimensions as a normal large torso. The central balljoint, though, is one module lower. This kind of torso is conceived to work with a two-parts armor : one on the middle top balljoints, like Drilldozer or Hulk's armor (but this body would need a smaller version), and one on the central balljoint (a 4M ou 5M armor would be ideal). But I still need to find an idea to make a two-parts armor that would allow to choose between the 7M and the 9M width.

[Chro]

That design looks quite nice, Leewan.

waist articulations! 10 points!

XD

[MakutaDreadscythe]

Perhaps going on the idea of having separate armour for the waist and upper torso, have the wait armour on the midsection and use the ball with two pinholes for the upper armour to give more depth (the ones used on Stormer XL and Furno XL).

[Leewan]

Good idea ! That could work with both Aanchir's and my design. I don't know why I haven't thought of it.

But there would be a huge gap around the neck. :/ This is still a great idea, thanks,MakutaDreadscythe.