New take on Hellcat V

[NightBall06]

Well… it’s a Start… is it not?
Had to start on my own, since that friend of mine got caught by Corona 😓. - He’s fine so far ..
So here are my first own steps in Blender 😬
Question to all of you: How do I make the model “rounder”

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Well… it’s a Start… ain’t it?
Had to start on my own since that friend of mine got caught by Corona 😓. - He’s fine so far ..
So here are my first own steps in Blender 😬
Question to all of you: How to I now make the model “rounder”

Subsurface modifier will add geometry and smooth the edges, you will have to mark sharp or bevel the edges that you want to retain a sharp edge.

You can also bevel edges ro achieve similar results. Play around a bit.

 

[NightBall06]

Subsurface modifier will add geometry and smooth the edges, you will have to mark sharp or bevel the edges that you want to retain a sharp edge.

You can also bevel edges ro achieve similar results. Play around a bit.

Thanks for your quick answer
I do have so many questions :-D ...
First of - Your suggestion: Is that a 1+2 solution or rather a "A or B"? ... Because I was trying Beveling the edges. Worked fine, but didn't looked like I imagined it...
Second question: Beveling the edges - Do I do this before or after I created all parts?
Third: How do I create spline curves? meaning lines with an arc? Especially at the nose I'd like to do it...
Fourth: Is there a way to subtract parts of a body if it collides with another? - For example my wings right now are partially inside the main body ...

Thank you very much in advance.

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Thanks for your quick answer
I do have so many questions :-D ...
First of - Your suggestion: Is that a 1+2 solution or rather a "A or B"? ... Because I was trying Beveling the edges. Worked fine, but didn't looked like I imagined it...
Second question: Beveling the edges - Do I do this before or after I created all parts?
Third: How do I create spline curves? meaning lines with an arc? Especially at the nose I'd like to do it...
Fourth: Is there a way to subtract parts of a body if it collides with another? - For example my wings right now are partially inside the main body ...

Thank you very much in advance.

Hmmm ok well let's take these in sequence:

1. Subsurf will bend your corners but more than you may like, in that case you can use bevel to force the angles back to what you're looking for. For example, you can take a cube, apply subsurf and after two iterations you'll have a UV sphere. *you have to play with it, it's kinda hard to explain. So short answer: you'll need both, especially for hard surface modelling like a fighter. also - DO NOT APPLY the subsurf until you are happy with the results and or are finished monkeying around. Once you do, the mod will add all that extra geometry so making adjustments after the fact are onerous. If you're PC can handle it, model it with the modifier on until the end.

2. As a general rule, I tend to join my meshes before beveling, but sometimes it causes some issues at the joins (especially if you have doubled verticies at that point) always remove doubles after any join/merge. sometime, wonky results are unavoidable and you'll have to go play around with some vertex manipulation to straighten the edges. But that's up to you, dealer's choice as it were.

3. How to create curves? Add->curve->spline. You can also convert the curve to a mesh when you're happy with it.

4. Yes! Your friend is the Boolean modifier! You can use the union function to merge meshes and delete the overlapping geometry. If you get funkiness, change the solver from exact to fast.

Hope this helps.

 

[NightBall06]

Hmmm ok well let's take these in sequence:

1. Subsurf will bend your corners but more than you may like, in that case you can use bevel to force the angles back to what you're looking for. For example, you can take a cube, apply subsurf and after two iterations you'll have a UV sphere. *you have to play with it, it's kinda hard to explain. So short answer: you'll need both, especially for hard surface modelling like a fighter. also - DO NOT APPLY the subsurf until you are happy with the results and or are finished monkeying around. Once you do, the mod will add all that extra geometry so making adjustments after the fact are onerous. If you're PC can handle it, model it with the modifier on until the end.

2. As a general rule, I tend to join my meshes before beveling, but sometimes it causes some issues at the joins (especially if you have doubled verticies at that point) always remove doubles after any join/merge. sometime, wonky results are unavoidable and you'll have to go play around with some vertex manipulation to straighten the edges. But that's up to you, dealer's choice as it were.

3. How to create curves? Add->curve->spline. You can also convert the curve to a mesh when you're happy with it.

4. Yes! Your friend is the Boolean modifier! You can use the union function to merge meshes and delete the overlapping geometry. If you get funkiness, change the solver from exact to fast.

Hope this helps.

Thank you very much. It's quite some help. Will try it...
But I have to admit subsurf is - for the moment at least - a bit too confusing. So I decided to slowly continue creating my parts and then later on try subsurf. Speaking of: Here are the next parts: The intakes ...
Here I was wondering... did you, or Klavs model every single fin inside?

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Yep, but you can use the array modifier to make it easier

 

[NightBall06]

Some more progress ...

 

[NightBall06]

Yep, but you can use the array modifier to make it easier

Now I finally know what that is 😂 and the Boolean Modifier. Thanks 👍🏻

 

[NightBall06]

Got some more Update-Pictures. - And more questions:
1) why does the Bolean modifyer not work properly on the intakes?
2) how do I create "Platings" on round corners - normally I insert it a little from the corner and then extrude... on straight faces it's no problem (like on the wing upperside) - Klavs somehow did it on his Hellcat model ...
3) Also. Is there a way to create the "Platings" a bit faster ... or do I really have to all one by one?
4) Can anyone give me a hint or help on how to create the Cockpit? oO

5) What is your opinion so far...
Thanks, NightBall

 

[NightBall06]

A REQUEST - One last try @ChrisReid and @all...

Hey guys,
I know I haven't been around for some time - but I do have a request:
Who of you would be so gracious to create a 3D model out of my Hellcat sketches?

I know I have been asking this before - but to be blunt: I am not getting any further
AND: Due to my job and my family I neither have the time, nor the will or patience to spend any more time on learning how to create a 3D Model by myself.

So what I am asking is: Is there anyone at this base who could and would do it for me, plz?
Even if it costs something ... as long as it doesn't ruin me, I guess I am ok with it. (but plz give me an offer first)
My "friend" from Volkswagen left me high and dry by ghosting me ... So ...
I really would like to finish this - and all I need is a 3D Modell with which I can later do a 3D-Print-Modell...
Hope you can understand.

Thank you guys in advance..

 

[DefianceIndustries]

A REQUEST - One last try @ChrisReid and @all...

Hey guys,
I know I haven't been around for some time - but I do have a request:
Who of you would be so gracious to create a 3D model out of my Hellcat sketches?

I know I have been asking this before - but to be blunt: I am not getting any further
AND: Due to my job and my family I neither have the time, nor the will or patience to spend any more time on learning how to create a 3D Model by myself.

So what I am asking is: Is there anyone at this base who could and would do it for me, plz?
Even if it costs something ... as long as it doesn't ruin me, I guess I am ok with it. (but plz give me an offer first)
My "friend" from Volkswagen left me high and dry by ghosting me ... So ...
I really would like to finish this part of my life - and all I need is a 3D Modell with which I can later do a 3D-Print-Modell...
Hope you can understand.

Thank you guys in advance..

I'd consider doing it but I'm booked right now, sorry!

 

[ChrisReid]

I think one of the challenges is that most people with the skill the make a 3D model want to make their own interpretation of things. In exactly the same way you wanted to make a 2D interpretation of the Hellcat, another artist will want to make their 3D interpretation of the ship before they'd build a recreation of someone else's model. It's actually more work and less fun to try to create an accurate representation of someone else's design than to bring their own design to life. A few people like Defiance are talented enough to pull it off... but then they usually have plenty of their own projects in the backlog.

 

[NightBall06]

@DefianceIndustries Thanks for the offer - but to be honest, I think, I don’t need it anymore. I got myself some help…from a freelancer forum and I guess I can show some results soon…
For me, to make it on my own - there are far too many questions and stopping points - and like I said: Due to my job and my family I sadly neither have the time, nor the patience to spend any more time on it.

 

[NightBall06]

@DefianceIndustries @Klavs81 Hey there. I have a question for you: Since you've already successfully created 3D-models - Which texture maps did you use? PBR workflow? (= ambient occlusion, color(albedo), rougness, metalness and normal texture maps) or what else?

AND - does anyone now what of these is needed to implement a model into Wing Commander Saga?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

 

[NightBall06]

If you manage to get a textured version out, it's definitely going into the Homeworld Remastered mod, probably in the DLC that'll cover the Nephilim War ships (if you'll be OK with it, of course).

Hello there @L.I.F. - what happened to your Homeward Remastered mod - and this Nephilim DLC? Is ist out?... Because I guess pretty soon I could give you a textured 3D-model...

 

[L.I.F.]

Hello there @L.I.F. - what happened to your Homeward Remastered mod - and this Nephilim DLC? Is ist out?... Because I guess pretty soon I could give you a textured 3D-model...

Oi. For the Prophecy-era ships, I'd need DefianceIndustries' assets, and at the moment, he's really busy working on the WC4 Remake project, which is pretty higher profile than Fleet Commander. Also, Homeworld 3 is a few months away from release and I will have to focus my efforts then on learning how to mod it in an attempt to port the mod to an entirely different engine.

 

[Star Rider]

Oi. For the Prophecy-era ships, I'd need DefianceIndustries' assets, and at the moment, he's really busy working on the WC4 Remake project, which is pretty higher profile than Fleet Commander. Also, Homeworld 3 is a few months away from release and I will have to focus my efforts then on learning how to mod it in an attempt to port the mod to an entirely different engine.

Happy to hear that it's just a case of the Mod being on pause. I was just thinking about it the other day while I was playing the Homeworld 2 campaign.

 

[L.I.F.]

Happy to hear that it's just a case of the Mod being on pause. I was just thinking about it the other day while I was playing the Homeworld 2 campaign.

Simply put, I've done for FC what I intended to achieve in terms of gameplay mechanics and UI when I took over the project after czacen vanished (I wasn't the one who started the thing, and czacen did a tremendous job for many foundations like most visual effects, faction structure, all the units from WC4 proper using the original game's textures and meshes, etc. that I built on afterwards) and now any addition would be more a matter of quantitative add-ons (new factions) rather than qualitative ones (then-new mechanics like ammunition and fuel management, campaign missions, etc.), especially as I'm already pushing the engine quite a bit in terms of functionalities - not as much as some teams like FE, but still more than most total conversions. And as indicated, FC obviously is a secondary project compared to WC4R for the community's asset development (always was, actually, 90 % of the assets used were developed for other projects and used with permission rather than made specifically for the mod like the ones DI made to fill in the Black Lance and Border Worlds rosters).

Also, don't expect quick release of a "Flag Commander 2" mod early after HW3 release, this is a new engine (Homeworld Remastered was pretty much the same thing as Homeworld 2 with some additional features) and I'll have to learn how to tinker with it in the first place, plus experiment with the rest of the modding community to see what's possible, but I'll try to post the results of my experimentations and updates on the mod's thread once I start having things. And of course, any help would be appreciated then. :-P

 

[DefianceIndustries]

@DefianceIndustries @Klavs81 Hey there. I have a question for you: Since you've already successfully created 3D-models - Which texture maps did you use? PBR workflow? (= ambient occlusion, color(albedo), rougness, metalness and normal texture maps) or what else?

AND - does anyone now what of these is needed to implement a model into Wing Commander Saga?
.
Thank you very much in advance for your help.

For wc4 remaster currently we're using old-school color/specular/normal mapping. We intend to add a pbr workflow, but to keep with the 90s vibe we've found that there's no school like the old school. For Saga I believe its the same, but I'm no expert in FS2 modding. I think they added a pbr workflow to it, but I'm not sure Saga has implemented it.

To be fair, certain meshes for the remaster are initially textured in a pbr flow, then baked to a standard color map.

 

[L.I.F.]

@DefianceIndustries @Klavs81 Hey there. I have a question for you: Since you've already successfully created 3D-models - Which texture maps did you use? PBR workflow? (= ambient occlusion, color(albedo), rougness, metalness and normal texture maps) or what else?

AND - does anyone now what of these is needed to implement a model into Wing Commander Saga?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

To add to the advice of DI, it's probably obvious but I feel the need to ask it nonetheless, but do you have the POF constructor suite? It's the tool I used to extract the models from WCS and that can encode in it all the useful info like the nodes for guns, hardpoints, etc.