modelling an aeroplane
 

hi im just starting my first animation project at university and i am modelling a military plane, does anyone have any tips on how to model this. I have basic knowledge of working with nurbs but i think that using a polygon cylinder would be the best way to model it??
any help would be apretiated!
thanks
acute

Try the Spitfire tutorial on this very site. It's an excellent series, showing how to build one of the all time classic fighters.

yeh if you got 30 qid going spare and decent internet connection, unfortunatly i have neither i am a student without a penny to my name!

Same here. Third year student at the University of Teesside.

Essentially, what the tutorial does is starts with NURBS, and roughs out the basic shape of the plane, creating the wings using two EP curves, and then lofting them. Each part is then converted into polys for adding more detail, before converting to SubD to tweak the shape further.

Kurt, who did the tutorial, can probably offer more advice, but I strongly recommend that you save up for the video. It's well worth it.

Hold on, your doing this for a project at Uni?? Have you asked your lecturers or fellow students for advice? I don't know what course your doing, but if its to do with animation/3D graphics/Maya, I'm sure that there will be someone with the knowledge. If you don't want to pay for the tutorial, you could try out Kurts free cartoon dog tut (you shouldn't find it a problem if you are already familiar with NURBs), and some of the other free tutorials that are here. A lot of the techniques are easily transferable to other projects :D

Good luck

LisaG :p

you would think so woudnt you the lecturers here are not very good and poor at interacting with students, when it comes to doing your own thing they act like a dictator and dont give you any freedom u do what they say basically. i have tried the cartoon dog brilliant tutorial! found it very helpful. how do you convert nurbs to polys where is the 'button' to convert it?

To convert nurbs to polys, go to modify -> convert -> nurbs to polys (option box) , and make sure that control points is selected.

;)

hello again!
so iv started modelling the main body of the plane i now want to add the wings what would be the best way to do this? use the split polygon tool to cut the edges then extrude the faces or build them as a seperate part?? attatched is my progress so far thanks for the help!!

What Kurt does, and what I've also started doing, as I've tried both methods, is to draw a curve using the EP curve tool (located in Create>EP Curve Tool).

Draw the front of the wing from the top view, and then draw the back of the wing, again from the top view. DO NOT connect them.

Now select each curve in turn, and use Edit Curve>Rebuild Curve.

Now, select both curves at the same time, and use Surfaces>Loft. This will give you a NURBS surface of the wing. You can now delete the curves.

Insert an isoparm down the middle of the wing, running from the fuselage to the wingtip. Shape your wing using the CVs, and then convert it to polygons, deleting the original NURBS object.

To get a thickness, select the polygons that make up the wing, and use Edit Polygons>Extrude Face. Centre the manipulator, and then extrude it to the desired height.

wow massive help thanks very much jus one problem i had was there are no faces on the underside of the wing how would you add them?

Is this before or after you have extruded? I noticed that on Maya 5, I needed to activate an option in the Channel Box, called 'Keep Faces Together'. It defaulted to off, and it needs to be on.

What you need to do is select the faces of the wing object that you have got from converting the NURBS object, and select the Extrude Face tool. A number of options should appear in the Channel Box. Scroll down until you find Keep Faces Together. Where is says Off, change that to a 1, and it will change to read On. Then just extrude as normal to add the thickness.

If this is before you have extruded, it is because the polygon object that you have created is flat, therefore it doesn't have a bottom. Extruding the faces adds the bottom faces, and moves the top faces up (or the other way round).

Hope this helps.

do you know of any good online tutorials for attatching components are there any really fundamental tutorials online??

wey hey iv made the wings and attempted to stitch them but hpw come when i smooth the poly it goes from the first picture to the second tis a really ugly mesh? what hav i done wrong i need to know i have a mad lust for maya knowledge

The first thing you need to do is get rid of those triangles. Right click over the geometry and select Edge. Select the edges that make up the longest side of the triangle (the diagonal ones), and hit Backspace on your keyboard to delete them.

Now, right click again over the geometry, and select Vertex. Drag a selection around the wing area, and again hit Backspace. This will delete any extra vertices that are left over after you have deleted the edges.

Also, I wouldn't use a Poly Smooth unless it was on my final model. You are much better off using Subdivision Surfaces. To do this, select the object, and go to Modify>Convert>Polygons to Subdiv.
When you do this, you will need to convert back to polys to add more geometry. Go to Modify>Convert>Subdiv to Polygons>Option Box. In the option box, make sure that Vertices is selected. This will give you your original geometry back.

thanks for your help with this model kennez you are really teching me alot, do say if i am bugging and i should just go find all this stuff out somewhere else but i think its easier to learn from other people. my modelling skills have definatly improved from your help. as for the subd conversion i am unfamiliar with sub d and i dont even understand what it is yet so ill prolly leave it as a poly for now i jus smooth it then undo. the only thing is that it is obvious where the two polys have joined is there a way of making it look not so obvious?? its nearly done btw jus got the jet, the tail and the cockpit to make then on to texturing :confused: btw it is a model of the plane in lichtensteins painting 'wham' we are doing a joint project showing some of his work i might post the whole thing wen its finnished depending on the standard.
thanks again.