Modelling a thrust vectoring jet engine tutorial

[halfgaar]

I wrote a tutorial for a thrust vectoring jet engine (a jet engine which can direct it's exhaust). Some previews:



Animated demonstration (xvid avi).

[Ikaros]

Very nice. The animated demonstration looks impressive. Thanks for the tutorial

[halfgaar]

Thanks May it help those in need

[Mykre]

Looks good, well done.

[scrag_10]

Out of my talent area, so I won't try it. But it is nice to know how blender features can be used, even if you don't know enough to use them.

[FreakyDude]

nice trick, I'l remember this one for some future project, off course I'd rather use an armature than so many empties, but that's just me...

[halfgaar]

Perhaps an armature would have been better, but I don't know them very well .

I need to redo the particle system BTW, because it doesn't work on this version of Blender. I can't figure out what's wrong. When I open a file made by an older blender, I can't get any particle system to work, not even new ones.

[cacysunlee]

great tutorial and thanks for sharing the files !

[BlendRoid]

Very cool! I'm more interested in the thrust effect than the engine.

[jsalit]

Is there a way of doing this with just particles? Or do you have to follow all the steps and make all the empties, ect...

[halfgaar]

Depends on what you want. If you don't want the thrust vectoring, you don't need the empties. If you do, it's necessary. That, or some kind of armature setup.

There may be other ways to control the flow of particles, but this way give a very good interaction with the thrust nozzle.

Please note that I'm running into some problems with the new blender version. I haven't been able to look at it for some time, but I hope to fix it soon.

[jsalit]

I am interested in getting this effect. Is it possible to get this effect without having to do all the modeling? I just want the particles.

[halfgaar]

Just limit yourself to the sections about the particle setup and deflectors.

[jsalit]

Sorry about the two posts, i forgot i already posted when i was making the second one^^.

[Keith M]

Hey, I'm looking at the textures as being REALLY good, yet simple...the key to good CG textures. Now, please enlighten me on how you get the "chipped" spots in the paint, (where the metal pokes through) to be extra shiny...like where the paint is chipped, you can definately see extra sparkly-ness.

[halfgaar]

I'll just give you the short answer.

[Krista'a]

Thanks a ton for this, mate! Looks interesting, and you can definately bet you'll have at least one n00b trying it!

(Me!)
EDIT: I'm kind of confused about your reply to the member who asked about the painchipping. Do you just photoshop the render, or do you photoshop the texture itself, and then work from that new texture?

[halfgaar]

I'm sorry for the late reply. I have problems with e-mail notifications.

The texture tutorial I linked to, explains how to make the textures, which can then be used in blender. I used The Gimp for it.

Basically, the most important trick is using a photo of a sufficiently random surface, which you then fill with bucket-fill using a certain threshold level, so that it only fills up part of the image. You can then use the filled layer in several ways, a few of which are explained in the article.

[Krista'a]

cool, thanks, one last thing, then I'll let you go. After you dup-vert the... umm... things... lol, how do you get rid of the one in the center?

[halfgaar]

The dupliverted nozzle blades are only temporary objects. Once you've decided on how big they will be and how many of them you will use, you can delete them. Well, that is, after you've modeled the real replacement blade.