Modeling a P-51 Mustang

[SplineGod]

Ultimately in LW all of us are polygonal modelers since thats all that LW can render
I like splines as a quick way to layout the form and flow of polys
that requires alot less effort in many cases then tweaking a lot of geometry by hand.

[DrStrik9]

I never could seem to get into spline patching personally. But I've learned many uses for splines as "background guides" and even sets of points, for doing "polygonal" modeling in the foreground layers. In many situations, spline are very elegant.

[Serling]

Well, got back to the model after a long, tough week at work, and here is the latest. Not only is it the farthest I've ever gotten on this thing, but - so far - it's the best looking iteration I've done (IMHO). I got a bargain book at Border's a couple of weeks ago called "Aircraft Anatomy of WWII" and spent a couple of hours going over the specs and drawings, then started thinking about a plan of attack for this attempt (remember, I'm still basically teaching myself this stuff).

I decided to try a sub-patched box-modeling approach, making cuts only where and as needed. Yeah, Larry, you're right: lots of pulling and pushing points and polys around this way, but I still haven't gotten my head around spline modeling yet (even though I keep trying). I did get some excellent plug-ins from TrueArt: Swift Edge Loop and Easy Spline (like that a lot for my attempts at spline modeling). Swift Edge Loop is great for making and moving...(do I have to say it?) edge loops really fast!

Anyway, here is a series of views of the new model. Will post more later as time permits.

[Serling]

Rounded the front of the engine housing off a bit to accept nose cone. Flattened fuselage in front of cockpit for better visibility. Trying to match the reference images exactly is difficult, at best. They're disproportionate across all three view ports, so I'm finding I have to tweak the model a bit to make it look better.

[Serling]

Just for fun, decided to try and model a plane with no reference images. This one came straight off the top of my head.

[Riff_Masteroff]

Just to be informative: Lightwave 5.6 included a high resolution mustang with its content CD. Out of curiosity I opened the scene file in 9.6, doubled the default resolution and rendered the attached image in 25 seconds.

Amazing that old stuff can still be good stuff. At the time that I bought into LW 5.6 I was probably using an intel 486 DX2 processor on MS Windows 3.1. My computer, at that time would just about croak loading this scene with model. Rendertime, long ago, of this same image might take days.

Edit: Whoops, I just noticed Biliousfrog mentioned this very same model on post #2 of this thread!

[Riff_Masteroff]

I now noticed that there is some added detail. On the provided 60 frame animation, the prop spins of course and the landing gear goes down. But the plane doesn't move. I wish I had time to study this abit more: would be nice to re-animate it, relight it and maybe add some more detail. Or change the paint job. Would be decent work for Jovian's Testor Color swatches. Or check out just how real-to-life the model is dimensionally.

No time to do so, and it is not something that has synergy with my current pursuits.