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.

[Serling]

Taking a break from head modeling and returned to this project. It's the best I've done so far (not great, but at least I feel like I'm learning this stuff!)

Anyway, I used an 8 sided ball stretched to length and cut in half along the X for the top half and created the intakes separately then welded them in. Took about 4 hours to get this far but it's the farthest I've ever gotten on one of these.

One of the things that I couldn't get was the seamless, curved edge where wings meet fuselage. Booleans don't seem to create new edges to bevel. Anyone have ideas for that?

Thanks again for all the input. It's taking a long time for this old dog to learn new tricks, but I'm working on it!

[kevman3d]

You could check this one out - Its not a "step by step" tutorial, but a nice overview of the steps that someone goes through to build an airplane...

http://www.k4.dion.ne.jp/~suppon/tips.htm

Just recently went through it to do something different (since I tend to only model my own way - Its nice to pick up ideas from someone else).

[Serling]

Nice tutorial! Thanks for posting the link!

Here are 4 more images from different views.

Notice the area where the wings join the fuselage. Need to figure out how to round those edges.

[kevman3d]

Usually I grow the wings from the fuselage itself (as its part of the aircraft's "skin" per'se which makes sense to include from the original box model).

For the approach you've used to model separate wings, I'd probably somehow break them apart and combine them into the fuselage - But that usually rolls back to the whole "growing" approach (just extra steps to re-connect the geometry effectively).

The canopy and nose I'd break apart here as pieces. They don't need to be extended out from the fuselage. They're hard parts of a machine, so it makes sense to keep them in pieces.

Definitely look at some of the ideas presented in that tutorial for some ideas. At this stage of modeling, you can probably afford to rethink and sculpt things while you put the skills into practise... Its always tricky for people - The whole "How should I start building this?" stage... :-)

Look forward to the next update...

[Serling]

Latest on reworking the model, dividing it into components. This is the canopy: an 8-sided ball stretched into shape then cut in half along the x-axis deleting the lower polys.

Surfacing provided so I can get a feel for it.

Will post more as time permits.

[Serling]

Tax refund came today: I am now the proud new owner of an nVidia Quadro FX 1800 graphics card and 2 20" widescreen monitors (to go with the new Quad Core system.)

Unbelievably fast renders now.

[Serling]

Latest rework on fuselage blending the wings into it.

[Serling]

Latest effort...getting there!