THE TMP 1701: or, What HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!!

[scifieric]

Originally Posted by Roliba

We'll start with the forward section of the nacclle, where the Bussard (did you catch that Eric?) intakes are.

LOL!

Nice tutorial (they're not as easy to write as you might think, are they?) and I'll be using this when (if) I ever finish my tutorial!

[Alareth]

Ok, maybe I phrased it wrong

Not a Max to Blender dictionary, but a general terms dictionary. As a someone new to 3D modeling in general, a definition of terms like spline cage so I can understand what is being said. I'm still in the "It's mostly Greek to me" stage but I can follow the general concepts. Even if it doesn't directly apply to me I like to understand the thought process and methodology used on the technical side of things.

I do share the sentiment of it's the shapes and how they relate to one another that's important as far as this tutorial goes.

[Roliba]

Moving on to the next stage...

Before I cut out the opening for the Bussard Vents, I need to add a little detail on the top. Why? Because it gets cut with the same knife.



First, I isolate and slice an area on the top of the naccelle (after cleaning out a whole bunch more of useless edges and verts)



Then I extrude the polygons several steps (note: Each succesive extrution was smaller than the less). Then I used a FFD 3 step box to pull in extruded polys into the shape I wanted to (the smaller levels from before give this a smoother curve)



Once I had the shape I wnated, I collapsed the stack (I hate multi level stacks: I prefer to comit myself to an action, and use undo if need be that having a bunch of modeifiers screwing things up when they're not supposed too).

After I had the "ridge" I wanted, I made another small curving cut for more detail behind the little dome thing (you can see it's faint grey wire) on the top of the naccelle, selected the faces and extruded them, pulling them into position using, once again, a FFD box...



... leaving me with the top area (more or less) that I wanted.



Now that I have the top area ready, I created a cutting object (a spline shape converted into a polygon and extruded out).



And made a boolena cut. Next was the typical boolean clean up, as well as making sure all my edges and verts went where I wanted them, not where the program wanted to put them.

[Roliba]

(Again the pesky five image limit is reached )

Make sure that when you make your own cut (however you want to do it) you have the curve at the bottom area and the bottom of the cut out area.



So here it is, the cut out and spindled Bussard-Vent opening.



Now, on to the vent itself...

[Roliba]

For the actual vent I'm going to use a loft object.

First I created the shape I needed...



...and the path it'll follow...



... and loft the works.



One thing I did do was use two shapes, one a slightly modified version of the first. I wanted the outer edge to follow the inward taper of the front of the cut-away section. So I copied the lofted shape onto the bottom of the loft-path and sucked the outer vert in until I had what I was looking for.



So things aren't looking to bad. I could always finish things like the groves in the vents with a material, but this might just be a pain to set the UV maps so we'll model them. First I select the edges (made sure I had enough)...



... and then use edge extrusion on them, giving me this.



Not bad, but I don't like the sharp edges. While the edges are still selected, I applied a chamber once...



...and then twice.



Once this was done, I simply welded all the exess vertices along the conter of chamber group and called it good. Almost...

[Roliba]

If you look carfully, my contours aren't really that good - there's to much of a pronouced change of direction - so I just manually made some adjustments; not many, just enough to soften the change of direction.



In the next step, I attached the two objects together (the naccelle body and the vent) and welded the bottom vertices together so the smoothing flows over the corner, making it one peice, and chamfered the hard edge to soften it.



Then I just added a quicky material, and rendered...



For the next instalment, I'll do the side cooling(?) grill and housing...

[Roliba]

This will be dealing with side of the Naccelle.



This is probably one of the easier sections. The main part is nothing more the a chmber box twisted into shape with some FFD usage.



Then I created another simple shape to use as a boolean cutter...



...cut, (well, what else I'm I going to do with a boolean cutter?) and clean up some edges and rounded the inner edges and the upper corner's sharp edges with a chamber, leaving me with this. Mirror or symmentry for a second on the other side, and voila...

[scifieric]

Outstandingly detailed tutorial Roliba!

Alareth, try this:

Rendering (computer graphics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

It's a good place to start!

[Jedilaw]

Watch out, Eric, he's catching up with you...

Great work, Roliba!

[scifieric]

I thought he had already passed me! LOL!