The goal of this scene was to make it as accurate as possible. There is probably a simpler way to place pins but this is what I ended up doing.
- I set the scaling in Blender to work in feet, since all of the research I did said that a lane is 60’ long and 42" wide.
- I converted the size of my pin and bowling ball to inches.
- I created a plane that matches the dimensions of a real lane (42"x60’).
- For the placement of the pins, I used this website as a reference.
- The article specifies that each pin must be 12" from their respective neighbors… so this was a new challenge.
i. First of all I wanted to use the array modifier.
ii. The array modifier uses a relative offset, so the width of the pin itself. So I had to convert 12" to pin units.
iii. My pin was 4.665" in (maximum) width, so 12" ended up being 2.572 pins.
iv. I started with the head pin, meaning that the other pins will be 12" away, but at a 30 degree angle. So I had to use some trig.
v. To find the offset directly behind the pin, I used the expressiond*cos(30). For the offset to the left and right of the pin I used the expressiond*sin(30). d in this case is the distance between the two pins, so for me it was 12" or 2.572 pins (because the array modifier uses a relative offset).
vi. So in the end, I put2.572*cos(pi/6)into the x offset field, and2.572*sin(pi/6)for the y offset field.
Here’s a diagram:
Here’s a render:
Here’s a render from the bowler’s perspective:
JK. Good job with the maths and models too 