Ok, this is my first 3D model. Let that be a warning to you now :D. This is a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, albeit, a poor one. Here is what I have accomplished thus far.
I’m now trying to work on the propellers. I am stuck here though. I don’t know how I can make these. Any ideas? Also, if there is something that you think should be changed, then please speak. But keep in mind this is a rough model.
Nothing wrong with it. Kind of soapbox derby-style right now, but you gotta start somewhere.
Propellers are surprisingly easy to make. I made a table fan that may still be in Modron’s model repository. An easy – but vertices-expensive – way to do it is to take a UV Sphere primitive and stretch and flatten it. Then take a lattice and just expand it enough to cover it. Then select the topmost corner vertices of the lattice and rotate them. With that basic blade, then you just duplivert it with a triangle, square or however many props you want. Propellers, turbines, windmills, no problem. Look at my avatar.
Once you comprehend the basic way to do it, you can switch to a less vertex rich mesh as your base. Parent it to an empty and give the empty an IPO, and you have a machine!
Hope this helps.
Thanks trog. I’m glad to hear that it is ok. I noticed one small problem though. See the plane’s left elevator (the right tail)? Now look at the other one. The normals seem to be screwed up on the front edge. Sort of like the problem I had when I duplicated one side using a negative scale. But this time, Ctrl+N doesn’t fix it.
About the propellers. Any tutorials on how to use latice? I’ve heard of it, but don’t know what it is or how to use it.
Edit: BTW, this is probably a very poorly done mesh, mainly because everything except the wheels were made from one cube. I just cut, extruded, and scales everything to get this. The wheels were just cylinders. The wheels look very unrealistic right now. How do I make good wheels, that look like they are could actually spin?
wow, thats not bad for your first model, (as compaired to mine which a very creative and openminded person might have been able to call…abstract art…maby)
good job. Welcome to Elysiun and Blender.
Hehe, thanks corn-dog. I’m glad you liked it. I found out that you can have a background picture, so I found some pics of a cessna 172, and modeled it off of that. It turned out pretty well. I may use that for all of my models.
Direct from the official Pilot’s Information Manual. Resized and rotated for convenient Blendering. (I’m modeling a Skyhawk as well. I hope these are useful to you.)
Hehe, those are the exact same pics I’m using. Except for the top view. I can’t figure out how to make the top view aligned correctly.
Here’s where you need to go to start learning everything:
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Manual
and here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
Have fun!
Well, I didn’t find anything on using lattice, but I think I made an okay prop. Here is my latest pic. Not much changed. I turned on SubSurf and made the prop. I also tried indenting the wheel a bit.
Hey thanks crouch. Anyone have suggestions as to what I should work on next?
I would sugest you start looking at the finer deitails of theses airplanes (eg look at pictures and see where the panneling,doors, windows, and even the rivits/bolts) then model these things into it, if you want a good looking model you need LOTS of deitail (this is ofcourse only one way to make a model look…good…and is subject to the viewers opinion of “good”)
and then after that you need to start getting into texturing. (this model will be a great one for learning UV mapping on, it has few curves that would throw off the unwrap)
keep going, it just keeps getting better (as all things do in blender)
