Catalina plane modeling kicking off ...

Kicking off on Catalina plane modeling for Escape from Mill Station game project’s
first teaser trailer …

Game built in Unreal 4 with modeling and animation in Blender.
Here: http://worldofclouds.com/escapefrommillstation.html






Mirrored and joined / applied. Got the edge flow nicely spaced I think. Should texture really well.

there was a few models which one are you doing ?

happy bl

Looks like a PBY-5, judging by the blueprint.

If i can give you some advice, model the base mesh of the plane before cutting holes for the cockpit, wheels etc. That way you can subdivide it once you are happy with the shape and get some clean cutouts with enough geometry (can also use the base mesh as a shrink wrap target to avoid distortion if you can get it clean enough)

Hi thanks for the advice. Its actually all one model just different stages and angles, to answer the first question.
Yeah I am actually being a tiny bit “sloppy” with modeling the exact detail of a specific model of Catalina plane. I know
there are a few with subtle differences. I am doing this in a great hurry for a trailer in which the exact model plane is
not really that important. Its also a temp model so the final one will be rigged and the game character will also be able to enter
it so the mesh structure will be double sided walls, etc. Shrink wrap target sounds interesting I didn’t know about that I will look
into that.
Thanks for the comments.

see this tut

happy bl

O.k. thanks looks great will check it out. I did notice if I just smooth the faces it gets pretty ugly. So this will probably take care of that.


Door and windows in. Sharpened edges and flattened faces here and there. Also subdivided faces here and there to help with edge meetups.

did the American version for it
see post 127 but no high res

but there was also the UK version

have fun

happy cl

Winging it :slight_smile:




Yeah you know I actually made a mistake on my poster design by having the UK logo on the wing.
Its supposed to be a star logo for US :slight_smile:




Tail coming along.

Nope that tail isn’t working. Trying new method. I think this is much better …


Yup this is much better …




Completed tail section pending more detail …



I am considering rigging the model too.

Coming along well . Not the easiest airframe to model given all the cut outs and verticals to be got round .

Thanks yes its a tricky one. The blueprints I have for the plane not only not line up in different views but they are not very accurate to the actual model Catalina either. The drafts person just improvised where they didn’t know it seems.
So the model will be about 90 percent accurate but not 100 percent. :slight_smile:
But yeah I thought I’ll post these so everyone can see the little steps and U-turns involved :slight_smile:

I subdivided polygons in such a way to get each one as close to a square as possible. The reason is if you have long rectangular polygons then when you triangulate them for export and import in Unreal 4 you see the lines that form triangles. It looks bad and the light reflects off it really badly. A trick I learned :slight_smile:


The blue edges mean that they are sharp edges and the red lines are seams for UV unwrapping.

I also keep a narrow row of flat faces in between the smoothed faces and the sharp edges to prevent “bulging”.

Engine time!