Zoom! Jedi Starfighter
 

Right, this tutorial looks cool. Learning some polygon modelling techniques and most of all - texturising! (Can you tell I know nothing about it? :p )

Ok, so I've blocked out the basic shape of the cockpit and wing. From the pictures, you can see I've gone from a bit of a plain-yet-messy mesh to a nice clean one with three edges per corner so that when I come to smooth it will have nice sharp corners.

Next up is extruding the wing and putting in the flappy bits (yes that is a technical term).

Before split-fast
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...odder/WIP1.jpg
After split polygon treatment
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...odder/WIP2.jpg

Nice start Zoom!:beer: Can't wait to see the finnished product!

Cheers THX!

I've only done a bit more so far; I've extruded it:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...odder/WIP3.jpg

Here's a pic of it converted to SubDs.

It doesn't look right to me; too many dark areas. I'm totally new to SubDs so is this correct, and if not can anyone help?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...odder/WIP4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...odder/WIP5.jpg

I reccomend sticking with poly's, Sub-D's can be very fustrating to work with, especially on a project like yours.

Just curious, does the Star fighter tut require you to convert to Sub-D?

if i were you i would make the entire thing in polygons, model only the half and use a mirrored smooth proxy so that you can see the end result better.
If you are making some gamemodel i would use an instance (duplicate==> optionbox).

good luck
;)

Have you hit 3 after you convert to Sub-d by chance?

THX: Yep, Kurt converts to subDs quite early in the project. I don't really have a clue about them; all I know is I prefer working with polygons! I'm going to go with it though, and perhaps model it again in polygons to see which I work best with

mastone: thanks for the tip! I'll probably duplicate it near the end as I have some image planes for reference

Kurt: I can't believe I missed that! I've hit 3 and it looks right now :) Just out a subD-newbish curiosity, what are the advantages of SubDs?

Thanks for the help guys :)

Well, they are more of an alternative to Nurbs surfaces as oppsed to polygons. Here are a few text book reasons.

#1. They can exist on arbitrary topology, such as polygons surfaces, bypassing the difficulity of creating a form in four-sided patches ( Nurbs ).

#2. They are smooth and continuous, like Nurbs surfaces. They do not have the problem of creating a faceted look, as polygons do.

#3. They allow a hierarchy of as many as 13 levels of detail, which allows isolated areas of highly detailed modeling and allows binding at base levels.

Hope that makes sence to you.

Cheers that does make sense. I guess I'll go with the subDs for the tutorial and see if I like them or not :)

If you're planning to improve yourself as an artist then you should really throw yourself at stuff you aren't comfortable with. At first in Escape, nurbs seemed like the enemy- so hard to work out at times with curves and tangency and birails and all the rest of it. Now I know how powerful they are, and have a bit more practice with it, they are an option for future projects :)

Keep at it mate