Continued from Part 3:
Okay, that was the easy part.
Now we get into the secondary hull. This is going to be somewhat more challenging, in that there are several parts of this component that require Boolean subtraction, but making the actual shape of the hull is pretty simple. First, though, you should keep this in mind: When resizing a circle, make sure all parameters (X, Y and Z) are resized at the same time, otherwise you’ll wind up with an ellipse and you’ll have to start over.
Now that that’s said, let’s start on the secondary hull. It’s basically a cylinder that’s somewhat tapered near the aft end, so that’s what we’re going to start with. You’ll need to create a cylinder that is 44.75 inches long and 13.4 inches in diameter. Align it along the X axis (or create it and rotate it 90 degrees along the X axis), so that it lies on its side.
Place it so its forward (or far left, in this case) end is 4.25 inches to the right of the X-Y origin (X=4.25). Give it about eight height segments, and at least 36 segments around the circumference (more will make it smoother). And make it editable. Here’s how it should look now:
There’s our cylinder, but now we need to “shape” it to look like the secondary hull. Here’s where you need another path. Either lift the path from Alan Sinclair’s DWG files (converted to AI) or draw it using your favorite vector drawing program and Sinclair’s or Casimiro’s JPG blueprints. Remember to draw the path as a vector-based file (EPS) as opposed to a raster-based picture file (BMP, GIF, JPG, etc.) Alternatively, you could use a properly-shaped plane with the GIF of the secondary hull outline textured onto it, and it would probably work, but possibly not as well. There are nearly as many methods out there as there are 3D modelers, so find your own method. Here’s mine.
Import the path into C4D. Again, you’ll find it’s about 400 times bigger than it needs to be. Resize the path to be 44.75 inches long (X) and 13.4 inches tall (Y). Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about the Z axis yet. Center the path (X, Y, Z should be 0), then move the path’s axis to the far left edge of the path, then move the path to where it is overlapped by the cylinder. Here’s basically what it will look like:
(I turned off the cylinder for clarity.)
If you haven’t already made your cylinder editable, do so now. You’ll need to be able to move points around to get your cylinder close to the shape of the secondary hull. Here’s what your cylinder will look like once you enable the points for editing:
Here’s where things get interesting. You now need to lasso each “circle” of dots and scale them to match the outline. Use a lasso or rectangular marquee tool rather than a direct selection tool, and (at least in C4D) make sure you turn OFF “Only Select Visible Elements.” This way you will select all the points, not just the ones facing you. Here’s what that looks like:
Now use your scale tool to scale that “circle” to match the outline. There are no reliable cross-section measurements available for the secondary hull, so you’ll have to do the best you can by eyeballing it. You can probably get pretty close, though. Note, too, that you may have to move some of the dots further forward, backward, up, or down, depending on which part of the outline you’re trying to match. The most critical parts are in the front, because after the widest part of the outline it all pretty much slopes evenly toward the back. In fact, if it turns out you have too many points, you may be able to delete some (hopefully without deleting sections of the cylinder; if you do that you’ll have to start over. Remember, CTRL-Z is your friend.
) At any rate, once you’ve done all your manipulation, this is what you should be left with:
That was easy, wasn’t it?
Next: Cutting and Chopping