This post is for my own reference so that when I forget how I did this....

Attachment 1 shows the curves I've chosen for networking (I will use less stations tonight, this was just a test). Attachment 2 shows the result. I'm pretty pleased and will do this properly when I get home.

Thanks Jean-Paul and everyone who responded to my hull lofting thread. I think I get this now :)

Better network with fewer stations selected. This shows you don't need as many as you think!

Hi Mark,

This is promising. Indeed, the fewer stations the better. But why don't you generate the entire hull in one go? With half hulls, there is always the risk of no continuity after you mirror the other half. They will join, but possibly with a kink somewhere.

Keep up the good work!

Jean-Paul

Hi Jean-Paul,

I must have been reading your mind. That is what I did in the end after studying your hull some more. There are some wobbles at the bow which I'm already regretting not fixing. With practice I'll get better at this I think but even so, I'm reasonably pleased with this result. It is good enough for the purpose this model will be put to. I used a square "keel" for this one as you mentioned in your thread. By pulling a control point horizontally I was also able to get a shape very close in the rudder area to the profile view in the plan I have. I have not had to use a single trim in that area.

Some progress on brave little Yarra.

One thing I will do better next hull is to look out for tell tale visual "streaks" in the hull surface. These are sort of long divots in the surface (you can see them near the bow). I'm not sure what causes them, perhaps not regular enough curves on my stations?

Michael, I read somewhere that Rhino has a "rebuild surface" command. Would that help this situation now that I have gone too far to start again? Is such a thing planned for MoI? I'm guessing it works like rebuild curve but for surfaces?

Mark,

What you see as irregular surfaces might just be an artifact of MoI's render engine, which is great for what it does, but occasionally cannot represent properly some surfaces. You would need to check your geometry with dedicated analysis tools that are not in Moi's current version, but can be found in Rhino among others: Environment Map and Zebra are the two I use all the time to spot kinks and other nasty problems with continuity, fairness and the like.

Do you have access to Rhino? I think that even the demo version will enable you to use these tools. All you need to do is copy your hull and paste it into Rhino. You will not be able to the the reverse, though, unless you have a registered copy of Rhino.

There might be freeware/shareware software that has similar tools.

Anyhow, kudos on your progress with Yarra. You are a quick builder.

Jean-Paul

Hi Everyone,

I've finished Yarra after 10 days of after hours and weekend work. Modeling to a deadline is hard :(

I may add the 3-pounders before I call it completely done. I need to texture this one too. I'm rubbish at texturing. If anyone knows of a good tutorial for the artsy stuff needed to create decent textures I'd appreciate the link.

Impressive work there.

AS for texturing, i myself search the web but in the end i try to apply what i found and go with it and ask around if it look good.

I found that: http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2209

I know that you can surf the web for any input for texturing (shaders) and following any instructions or advices given.

Nice job Mark.

That's looking fantastic Mark!

- Michael

Great work as usual, Mark !
Looking forward to the rendered model.

Wow, so detailed. Looks great.

Thanks everyone. Your comments are greatly appreciated.

Cold, I wish I had bought 3D Coat when it was 3D Brush and was cheaper. I can't really afford it at the moment. That is the way I would choose to texture if I could.

I've been messing with some texturing and it is going to take me way longer to learn to do it well, than I have time available for this project. So, I'm going to cheat by projecting some trims in MoI to separate the dazzle colours and then plain colour them or perhaps use a simple texture for the sections. I did that for the hull red & plimsol line and it works OK. I pre-warned my customer not to expect too much in the way of textures from me!

Hi Mark,

Do you think 3D Paint is too high in price too?

At least the customer knows, but one part that i love to play and fiddle with shaders. but this is something i didn't really did for a year. Been taking care of my girlfriend and my 1 year old son.

Hi Cold,

Actually, I think 3D-Coat's pricing is probably fair now where as previously it was a bit of a bargain. Fortunately I haven't made that mistake with MoI!

A quick test render attached to show how the sliced up hull worked for applying the dazzle pattern.

Cool sea view :)

Very cool start, like the style of the shader.

Hi Guys,

Final update for Yarra before I move on to HSK Kormoran.

Cold, I've made the water texture more subtle in the attached render and gave it a little green tint. I like it when these things come out looking like paint (actually, that's my excuse for why *none* of my renders look anything like photo real!)

Hi Mark,

Speaking of Kormoran, I had a go at the hull this weekend. I found the rudder area a bit tricky to be generated in one go with the hull, but it is not that hard to add it later.

There are not many good photos of the ship's superstructure on the web, though. Do you have better sources?

Jean-Paul

Hi Jean-Paul,

Looking very nice. I hope you will continue with it to completion. Would be fun to see two versions of the same model being built side by side.

There doesn't seem to be much available on the web for Kormoran. Like you, I have only been able to find profile views for the ship. I have a reasonable profile drawing from Tom Frame's book "Loss and Controversy". There seem to be very few photos which isn't surprising I suppose given the nature of the fighting these ships undertook.

One thing I find useful with obscure ships is to refer to photos of scale model kits and builds. These two might be useful as reference for the superstructure:

http://www.modellversium.de/galerie/5-schiffe-militaer/1998-hilfskreuzer-kormoran-nnt-modell+buch.html
http://www.steelnavy.com/NNTKormoran.htm

There are plans for "Pinguin" at the Dreadnought Project. A similar ship at first glance but with different stern. The plans at the link are definitely worth a look. Lots of good potential 3D projects in there:

http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/plans/