Dropship update 4/24 Nacelles
I liked the shape of from the previous post, but . . . I decided that I didn't like having fixed port nacelles. So . . . I tried to use the separate command, but since I'd modelled this as sub-D to poly, Maya wouldn't let me detach the polys. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but as a newbie, I don't know how. Anyway. I'm tenacious if nothing else, so . . . I used the duplicate command to duplicate the right half of the ship and then I deleted all the polys that weren't part of the nacelle (mainly the fusilage).
1. With the shell of the Nacelle, I used the Poly Append tool to close the object.
2. I created a smooth proxy of the nacelle so I could work on the low poly version.
3. I used the handly vertex pulling to give the Nacelle a more interesting shape (mainly a huge exhaust port in the rear and a smaller air intake in front, with the exhaust port being round and the intake being rectangular).
4. Shaping was done by simply using the cut faces tool to make additional edges near to parts of the model I wanted to be squared off.
5. The vent was the easiest part of all. Not sure why vents ever gave me problems in Max. I simply created a grid that was 30 X 3 SDs. Selected the verticies on the middle two edges and used the scale tool to pull them in opposite directions to make a frame. Then I just extruded every other middle face (first a little, then a lot), selected the vertices on the new geometry and used the move tool to pull them downward so they looked like vents. I did not smooth this because I wanted a more squared off look.
6. I scaled the vent and moved it into the position of the air intake, scaled it to fit, selected the nacelle and the vent and combined them.
Here's what I have.
