Thank you for taking the time Michael! I really appreciate the help and advise.

I've attached the last version i have w/out the projected curves for the windows.

~ Noob

you can have measures inside Free DesignSparks ;)
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6186.1

Hi Noob - so one thing that would probably help with manipulating shapes would be to use fewer curves, right now your current setup is rather dense with cross sections and the more sections you put in the more constrained the shape will be and it becomes easy to have bumps and undulations in the shape.

Another thing that can help is to use the "Loft style = Loose" option which will tend to make a more relaxed surface. With that option the surface will only be guided through the cross sections and not go exactly through them, so your cross sections need to be a little larger than the final shape for that mode. You can also include a point object (draw it in under Draw curve > More > pt) at the front and back to make your loft closed, that works best with Loft style = Loose as well.

For your trimming, one complication is that one of the internal edges of your loft just barely skims right along the same bottom line of your trimming curves. You can still trim with that, but it's possible the Trim command may get confused in the step where it asks you to pick which pieces to discard, you may have to just push "Done" there and then select the faces after that and use delete if you want to get rid of them.

You may possibly want to run the Rebuild command on your loft cross sections before lofting them to make those curves to be just one single smooth curve rather than a segmented curve. Info on Rebuild here: http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/moi_command_reference10.htm#rebuild


.... After a bit more investigation it looks like there is some bad shaping near the back of the shape where the surface is kind of strained and probably zig-zags back and forth over itself, creating a self-intersection. Self-intersections in a surface will cause problems with intersection and cutting operations so that's probably what is really messing up the Trim in your case here. Here's a screenshot:






Maybe try running the Rebuild command on your cross-sections to eliminate the segmentation in them and make them made up of just one smooth curve segment, that will avoid the compression that is happening currently since one of the segments in the end section is very small I guess.

Hope this helps!

- Michael

If you reduce the amount of fuselage cross sections used you can get a reasonable result with network-normal or lighter.

The trick with network is to use as few cross section curves as you can to define the shape and let the perimeter curves do most of the work.

You will need to experiment with amount of curves and their placement to get something that is good enough for your purposes.

Hi Noob:take a look at this,maybe can help you even if speaker's language is not clear :)

https://vimeo.com/65707052

Excellent! Can I put your tuto videos on my site ?
By Mauro ;)

Yes of course...sorry for language,i tried to do my best :)
This is the link to the gallery:
http://moi3d.com/gallery/viewitem.php?id=614

Spiegazioni sono perfetti !
Done! ;)
http://moiscript.weebly.com/avion.html

Thanks for all the help!!!

The P-38 Lightning videos are going to help out a LOT!!! GRAZIE MILLE MAURO!!!

i will post the progress...and/or other problems/mistakes i make :) ...since everyone is so helpful here (which is very refreshing)...reminds me of the zbrushcentral forums.

thanks again...michael, frenchy (big fan), kevjon (thanks!), and mauro!

eventually i'm hoping to change my username here :)...you gotta start somewhere right?

~ Noob

Ok, so its been a few days and i've run into some issues with this fuselage. i ended up cleaning up the points on the rails and profiles to make the geometry lighter...and i'm pretty happy with the results....except for the part on the top of the nose. i've re-made this quite a few times and tried to refine the profiles and i'm not really sure why it seems to be bulging when it should be a linear arc towards the point of the nose and roof.

is there a way to fix this after the surface has been generated? (within MOI) or some other technique to generate the fuselage w/out the bumps?

i really didn't notice it until i started to try to cut things out of the fuselage...so i started over...from the base network and the bulge is there as well..so i don't think it was the cuts.

thanks for all the help!

-noob

here are some screenshots and keyshot renders to show what i'm talking about (different iterations)

I opened up the file in Rhino (mac) just to see. (i don't really know how to use rhino.). ignore the wing :)

it looks like the geometry is bunching up in those areas. any ideas?

Hi Noob,

> is there a way to fix this after the surface has been generated? (within MOI) or some
> other technique to generate the fuselage w/out the bumps?

It's very difficult to give any good advice just looking at screenshots, it's a lot better to post a 3DM model file with the actual geometry in it.

It tends to be difficult to alter things like this after the surface has been generated, usually it's better to address such things early on in the surface creation process.

For a more relaxed surface you might try using Loft with the Loft style = "Loose" option, that tends to make a relaxed surface.

The other thing that would help is to avoid having profile curves that have harsh transitions in them like totally straight line segments switching into suddenly curved portions. Later on when things try to fit a smooth surface to something like that it will have difficulty making a smooth transition from totally flat to suddenly curved. If your profiles were made up of more gradually changing curves rather than lines and arcs that would probably help too.

- Michael

Hey everyone,

I wanted to post some keyshot renders of my progress on the v-twin plane...there are a lot of errors in this that i need to fix, but this is what i have so far.

Michael, I decided to just go with what i started because I didn't have enough time to figure out a better way to do the fuselage...or at least a better way to get some cleaner geometry. I really appreciate the help and advice! Gotta lot to learn definitely.

-noob

Hi noob, it's coming along well!

- Michael