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Camera Pods and fuselage details advice?

Melo965

Melo965

Messages
105
Country
us-washington
Hi Everyone,

Asking for some advice on how to build details into my fuselage model. For camera pods and other small details, is it best to build the different shapes from small primitive pieces and then combine them together? Or is getting the overall shape of the part built first, and then push verticies around for the finer details?

Stuck a bit on a part, and asking for your design process input.

As an example I am trying to add the details of a camera pod to the underside of the nose of my aircraft.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

camera pod.jpg
 
Hello Melo

It's really up to you; however, I must say that I am with you regarding to getting the overall shape of the part builted first, and then push vertices around for the finer details.

Before to begin, I recommend that you prepare the overall shapes first and be happy with it. In this case, perhaps will be something similar of what
you are looking for. I took those polygons and detached them as a clone. The reason for me to doing so, is to have the originial topology and shape
intact just in case I don't like the result. As you will see in a few moments, I will delete this polygons and attached the desired result to the fuselage,
weld some vertices and make the shape as one again.
Building_details_01.jpg


Then, I performed a boolean operation to take care of the necesary topology to conform the landing light hole. Those polygons were the base to
achieve this:
Building_details_02.jpg


Once I am satisfied, I deleted the four original polygons and attached this shape to the main fuselage. This part depends on the result you are
looking for. To be more clear, I could have the original fuselage intact and leave this part as a separate element. This is the perfect example on
how many designers built all posible variants in their models. Once you have the general parts made, you can desing all those lovely details and
make the desicion if you want to build several different models OR... you might want to design a gauge with conditional display options, where
the happy final user may decide which items need to be shown when she/he fly the aircraft. It is really up to you! Ok, lets continue with this.

In my case, I attached it to the fuselage to obtain one single object. This is not the case for the next part! Again, I took several polygons and detached them as a clone. And as you mentioned before, I extruded polygons and pushed some vertices to get what I wanted.
Building_details_03.jpg


I will show you another image where you can see more details:
Building_details_04.jpg


From this, I get the final result as a separate part or element if you want:
Building_details_05.jpg


Now, we have the fuselage and this part as two different entities!
Building_details_06.jpg


That was my take on how to build this things! I really hope that this make sense to you as well.

Happy modeling my friend
All the best,
Sergio.
 
Last edited:
Hello Melo

I don't want to hijack your post, but this is related. See the overall fuselage shape I showed you before without details:
Fusuelage_01.jpg


Now, all details I have so far alone. As you can see, these details have both of your original ideas melted; some were designed from scratch
and as the first example, from a former piece. For sure, this objects will give you some ideas.
Fusuelage_02.jpg


The whole thing:
Fuselage_03.jpg

Sergio.
 
Hi Sergio,

Thanks a lot! Your first post gave me some good ideas how to proceed. Your second post showed me that I still have a long way to go. :)

I will give it another try and hopefully be more successful.
 
antaris said:
Hello Melo

It's really up to you; however, I must say that I am with you regarding to getting the overall shape of the part builted first, and then push vertices around for the finer details.

Before to begin, I recommend that you prepare the overall shapes first and be happy with it. In this case, perhaps will be something similar of what
you are looking for. I took those polygons and detached them as a clone. The reason for me to doing so, is to have the originial topology and shape
intact just in case I don't like the result. As you will see in a few moments, I will delete this polygons and attached the desired result to the fuselage,
weld some vertices and make the shape as one again.
View attachment 36304

Then, I performed a boolean operation to take care of the necesary topology to conform the landing light hole. Those polygons were the base to
achieve this:
View attachment 36305

Once I am satisfied, I deleted the four original polygons and attached this shape to the main fuselage. This part depends on the result you are
looking for. To be more clear, I could have the original fuselage intact and leave this part as a separate element. This is the perfect example on
how many designers built all posible variants in their models. Once you have the general parts made, you can desing all those lovely details and
make the desicion if you want to build several different models OR... you might want to design a gauge with conditional display options, where
the happy final user may decide which items need to be shown when she/he fly the aircraft. It is really up to you! Ok, lets continue with this.

In my case, I attached it to the fuselage to obtain one single object. This is not the case for the next part! Again, I took several polygons and detached them as a clone. And as you mentioned before, I extruded polygons and pushed some vertices to get what I wanted.
View attachment 36307

I will show you another image where you can see more details:
View attachment 36309

From this, I get the final result as a separate part or element if you want:
View attachment 36310

Now, we have the fuselage and this part as two different entities!
View attachment 36311

That was my take on how to build this things! I really hope that this make sense to you as well.

Happy modeling my friend
All the best,
Sergio.
Click to expand...
Hi Sergio,

I am finally getting to the point where I can take your advice in this post. I will try both options, saving frequently as I go. I am still on the building major parts portion of my aircraft build, but will utilize your excellent advice soon. I am also very impressed with all the work you are doing on your helicopter.

I don't use Gmax anymore. Took a tutorial course on youtube and learned how to use Blender. Now I am happily building an aircraft for FSX. Just yesterday I downloaded the BlendertoFSX toolset and upgraded my Blender from 2.93 to 3.34 since it is supported now.
 
Hi Sergio,

Thanks again for your advice. Success! My aircraft is progressing well now. Currently working on the nose gear.
 

Attachments

  • nose camera bay lower left view.PNG
    nose camera bay lower left view.PNG
    90.8 KB · Views: 71
Hi Melo

Looking good already; keep working on it and in no time, you'll have exactly what you need. Keep it up man.
Sergio.
 
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