Hello:

This ship is almost finished. Only left the masts and the flags, and some rigs. I have some screenshots from this project because I wanted to make a small tutorial, and also I have been doing a step by step in the foro3d, the biggest forum for spanish language users, for spread MoI3D :)

First, I draw the curves of the profile, and then I add a curve from the bow and the stern, both of them perpendicular to the others one, and sharing the final point with the next curve from the profile. (Image 2)

Also, in this case, I have made extra curves in the back area, close to the stern, for help to the transition between the stern area to the rest of the hull. These are only curves duplicated very close to the original curves(Image 1. Red mark)

Also, I draw the curves of the profile a bit longer than the originals, for let a properly trim of the resulting surface in the upper area of it.
Then, I use Construct-->Loft and I often the surface of the hull.
After that, I draw the curve of the profile of the upper area, and I trim the surface using those curve.

Adding the tubes for the helix and axis. I draw two circles, and extrude them. Then, I separate the surfaces of the volume, and I cut and fillet them.
Then I draw the surfaces of the projecting areas and other details
Then I draw all the circles of the portholes, and I open them on the surface of the hull with Edit-->Trim
Finally I apply Construct-->Shell for give a thickness to the hull



Note: Talking with Michael about dudes and previous problems, he said that is better to give a thickness to the hull, and after that open all the holes and cutting all the shapes I need. In this case, would be with booleans options. ;-)

Finally, I apply symmetry, and I draw the deck

I feel humbled. Awesome work David. Do you plan to create a webpage for this model? If you do then I'd like to link to it when I re-do my page (or to here and the Spanish forum if not). Really fabulous work and such a smooth hull!

I tried lofting my hulls but just couldn't get it to work. Regular loft matched my curves well but I got ripples in the surface, probably because my curves weren't accurate enough. Loose loft created a beautiful smooth hull but didn't match my curves closely enough. Your loft seems to be accurate with your curves. Did you loose loft? I'm impressed.

The shots of the near complete model and the render on the Spanish forum are excellent.

Hello Mark:

Very thank you for your comments!
I have been very busy in these days, and I haven´t could to reply before.
Yes, I did loose loft. It´s help me to get a smooth surface, loosing precision but.... :-)
Well, I upload some images about the parts of the superstructure.

And the final result:

Hi David, wow that has really come together.

I hadn't seen anything you posted before other than the hull, I didn't realize you had so much stuff on other parts.

What are you planning on rendering it in?

- Michael

Hello Michael:

Actually, I posted all the steps in the spanish forum I linked in the first message.
When I was drawing it, I only posted my doubts about the hull in this forum. My idea was to show the power of MoI3D between the spanish language users, because it is the biggest forum for us (Spain and South America). After that I would like to write a small tutorial and hold it in the tutorial section.
I don´t know if there are a increase of spanish people asking about MoI since that :-D

I have any renders after I exported it to Blender and rendered it in Luxblender, but they are awful and then there are in other computer. Anyway I´ll post any images....but maybe the best idea is to give the model to Mark Brown for get a wonder like that O:-)

Well, this image is very far from the idea I would like to create.
I don't like the sea and the light is not very good too, but it's the first time I don't hate the result.
I have to finish any material and textures. I would like to render the smoke too.

MoI, of course :-) -->Blender 2.49-->LuxRender 0.6.1

Hi David, the model there is looking really great!

And actually the lighting I don't think is bad, it actually seems to match the cloudy sky background you've got.

A tuneup on the sea though would make it look a lot nicer - it's maybe not even too far off, just maybe use 10 times more polygons so that it doesn't have such an angled appearance?

- Michael

Thank you Michael.
Definitively I must to smooth those crests. But my main frustration is that I can't to create a motion effect on the sea.
The true is that the ship looks stopped and the sea looks without motion but crested...not natural.
I'll post more advances with the materials and textures finished. I must add the flags too :-)

Hi David, have you seen the Blender ocean tutorial here:
http://www.cogfilms.com/tutorials.html

Seems like Vue would be good for this though:
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/

- Michael

Thanks Michael:

The thing is that I knew both of them options you suggest. I like very much the results in Vue, but I don´t know how it works, and if is dificult to manage it.
It can be a good options because -if I´m not wrong- it´s free for personal use.
About Blender, I only use it like a "container" for 3D model exported and the render engine (I have used Luxrender and Yafray), and I started a time ago to learn those tuto and I couldn´t understand a lot of things. But I think that it is a good chance for learn a bit of Blender.

Hi David, sorry for taking a while to check in.

I agree with Michael, I like the render. Actually, I think your render is pretty much on a par with my stuff. It is all just tweaking from here and there really is only so far you can go without assistance from the software.

I took a look at Vue following Michael's post. I last looked at it at version 6 and thought the interface was OK, not great but OK (MoI has the only interface I've tried that I think is genuinely great though). Performance was OK but my computer back then wasn't much chop. "Pioneer" appears to be the free version (600mb download!) and they have lots of upgrade packages from there. Not sure what Pioneer's water capabilities are but I know that higher up the scale it will do displacement. The PLE version saves to a different format I believe and anything created in there will be stuck in there so Pioneer is probably a better bet for testing purposes. I like Eon's pricing structure too, seems to be something for everyone price wise. I really am pretty tempted by the $800 "Complete" package and should be able to afford it after June (and perhaps a license for Rhino). I did flirt with the idea of buying Max but having played with the trial and at the ridiculous price, I can't bring myself to feed the Autodesk machine. For the price of Max I could buy 3 copies of Vue Complete and 3 copies of Rhino! Even then I reckon I'd still need to buy plugins.

I quite like this Vue render...

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/Pictures/Shadow/Technical/1240050691.jpg

These are pretty fantastic too...

http://dreahorvath.darkfolio.com/