hi all

im just about to buy this software this will be my first serious project (great software by the way)

how should i approach this

here is the wiki for pics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-117_Nighthawk

thanks in advance

very quietly! MoI will make the base very quickly. I would think about scale at the begining to leave the abilty to model very fine detail elements to the base once I had begun. Think about the HUD and all the electronics in the cockpit alone!

Hi mikey, well vehicles can tend to be complex projects. It's probably a good idea to practice doing some smaller less complex pieces first before jumping into something more complex.

> how should i approach this

Well, it can help if you can find more visual references, especially blueprint style plan drawings which you can then place into a viewport as a visual reference using the View / Image command.

Then you start to draw curves that go along key features, and then start building surfaces between those curves using various commands like Network, Sweep, etc...

- Michael

Hi Mike,

Nice project to start with to sink your teeth into MoI.
When I had a look at the blueprints MoI will have no problem tackling the F117 it looks complex but majority of it is flat 'hard' surfaces, I think if you take a section at a time it's very 'doable' unlike cars and other aeroplanes with curved surfaces they involve more complex surface generation and a lot of practice.

I had a look at the blueprint from Here

Cheers and looking forward to your WIP.

thanks to burrman,michael and danny

The F-117 should be fairly simple since it's made up of straight lines. This site has a hi-res 3-view of it.
http://rc-flyers.com/FreeBee/millionplanes/

You'll need to take the pic into an editing program and crop the top and side views. In the first pic below, note how I cropped each pic starting at the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail. That makes it easier to get them both properly scaled in MoI

Once the pics are loaded in the viewports and scaled to the same size, go to the side view and start drawing lines. Be sure the End Snap is on so that the ends of the lines meet perfectly.(Pic 2)

Then go to the Top view. Select all the lines and click on the Show Control Points in the Edit tab. Turn on the Straight Snap feature to keep things from shifting sideways. Start moving control points until they're properly located in the Top view. When two or more lines meet at a point, drag a box around the point to select all the control points at that spot. If you just click on the point, it may only select one of them.(Pic 3) When you're done it should look like Pic 4.

Start creating surfaces using either the Planar or Network feature.(Pic 5)

Steve S