Full Version: A thanks note for the developers

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Thank you DANTAS,

So... there is just THE guy?? Damn... could have sworn there was a sizeable team involved...! So that you know how new this is to me... :)

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Wow Very good, design.

I like it alot, welcome to Moi 3D and the best is Micheal.

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Hi jpargana, it's a beautiful looking result, you're really off to a great start with MoI!

I'm really glad that you like using MoI, thanks very much for the kind words!

- Michael

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Great job Jpargana! It looks really nice!

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What an absolutely fabulous model - I am mightily impressed !

I cannot believe you did such a complicated model within the trial period.

Can you give us a few tips on how you created the wingtips ?

I find great difficulty with my own aircraft wingtips - so any advice would be most welcome.

You are certainly off to a flying start ! (pun fully intended)


Aeromod

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Hi Aeromod,

Many thanks for your kind words. Yes, it was a little bit difficult to present that model in 30 days... it is not quite finished, and I had to press myself on the last weekend... but hell, was it worth it !! :)

As for the wingtips: tried several things to make them realistic (according to the blueprints I had), until I gave up and just used a simple blend between edges. If you looked at the wing from it's side, you would have four edges: front-top, front-bottom, back-top and back-bottom. Just used blend between the two front edges, and then again between the back ones. (Fortunately, the surfaces came out nice, so that the program was able to create a solid afterwards. And of course, it did not quite match the blueprint in the end, but hey, it was either that or nothing :( (At least, for the little experience I have with the program, and with this all 'new' Nurbs modeling)
Anyway, that was not the only point I had to make a compromise... the model may look realistic, but in fact, it isn't, if you look at the blueprints. (Take the front of the engines, for intance... they were modeled a little different, and the black paint was not quite like that in reality. But hey, again, a little compromise :) )
By the way, speaking of paint: there is not a single texture: ALL of the details, how small they may be, were cut directly into the model, by projecting curves and creating new faces with a different material! Now, this is REALLY cool from a 'poly' perpective! I would not be able to do that in Blender! And as many know, is IS quite difficult sometimes to get the textures right, fixing seams, distortions and so on... with MoI, it was a breeze to paint. To a guy with a poly background, I was quite impressive to be able to do this, and save a lot of headaches!


Thanks for your time.

Cheers,

Joao

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Well, I guess you all knew a wallpaper was coming...! :)

I was already rendering the model in Vue, anyway, so I just added the atmosphere and tweaked the sunlight... not much to do here, just thought I might as well put the model to good use ;)

Best Regards,

Joao

Image Attachments:
T-37C Asas de Portugal.jpg 

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That is slick, Jpargana!

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Hi jpargana

that is some nice model you created! Maybe you could sharde some short notes on how your approach was. Is the body element a Network object? The vertical tail a loft object? Have you had a hard time filleting those parts?

Cheers,
Rogurt

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Hi Rogurt,

I first tried Network to create the engines and the wings. The results were not good, leaving some artifacts on the wing tips, for instance... so, as far as I can remember, I relied heavily on the 2-rail sweep, with scaling rail, which worked like a charm! So:

Fuselage: 2-Rail sweep, followed by Blend to close the holes in the tail and in the nose tip;
Engines: also 2-rail at first for the general shape, later added boolean difference / trim with some helper objects to get the shape right at both the intake and the exhaust;
Wings and horizontal stabilizers: 2-Rail sweep, with two separate faces at first (top and bottom), later closed by Planar in the inner end, and by Blend at the tips, to give them a round surface;
Vertical stabilizer: this was a tricky one. First tried one single 2-Rail, but later made a couple 2-rails (top and bottom), joined somewhere at the center with Blend. That was the best way to get the most accurate shape.
Canopy: this is were I stood for the Network, (But a 'polar' network instead of a 'grid' one) to create the base shape. The 'equator' lines where created by trimming the fuselage with a helper line, drawn on a side view.
As for the control surfaces, they were simply 'cut' from the main parts, with boolean-difference with trim lines (making sure the main parts were already 'Solids' before boolean). Then, a tittle Move and Scale to create a little gap between them... the only reason I did it whis way was because of...

...Fillets... well, I have to admit that while MoI is awsome, fillets remain THE sole weakness of the program, IMHO. There are not that many fillets in the model, but the ones I did, were not easy: For instance, first attempt on the engines was with a network... the surface seemed 'tense' at both ends, and the cropped intake would not fillet. That's when I tried the Sweep; the surface seemed more regular then, and I had no trouble filleting afterwards. Of course, it problably was just ME: I'm NOT what you would call a 'MoI expert'... ;)

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Joao

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