F4U corsair

Artwork Finished Projects
#1

Howdy all,

After doing many organic models, I decided to try my hand at hard surface modelling. Being an airplane enthusieist I picked on of my favourite airplanes, the F4U corsair. Everything is made using Blender and gimp for some of the texturing. The renders are composited using blender’s compositer. The sky in the background is the photo but the ocean is made in blender using the ocean simulater. Everthing is rendered in cycles. If you have any questions or want more pictures just tell me.
Hope you enjoy the pictures.

F4-U_render2.jpg1936×1296 1.36 MB

F4-U_render3.jpg1936×1296 337 KB

F4-U_render4.jpg1936×1296 1.38 MB

#2

As for the first model, the result is quite good! You have reproduced the proper proportions of this airplane, obtained proper motion blur of the propeller blades. The radial engine seems quite convincing.
Good lighting setup and environment setting.
For the further improvement, I can see some errors in the shape:

  • the horizontal tailplane in your model seems to have constant thickness. The thickness of the Corsair tailplane was decreasing toward the tip (like the wing) - that’s why its tips in this model are too thick;
  • something wrong at the wing joints: in the middle picture the joint of the left wing differs in shape from the right wing, in the bottom picture the light reflections reveal a strange shape of the upper wing surface in this area (problems in shaping the mesh around the air inlets?)
    I would also suggest improve the transparent plexiglass of the canopy. Check if other users - tommy1441, clockmender or pzzs7f - left in their threads tips about setting of such a material.
#3

This is a great subject because of the unique proportions of the Corsair. I really like the background rendering - agree that the canopy could use some improvement to showcase that it is a transparent material. Great work so far!

#4

Thanks for the feedback, I will search through some of the other user’s threads and mabye I will find something. For the canopy I am currently using a mix of glass, transparent, and glossy.
I will try and tweak the tail wing.
For the main wing, I agree it looks oddly not symetric, which is wierd because I used a mirror modfier, maybe it is an optical illusion or I messed it up some way.
I think around the air inlets I should maybe add some more thickness?
I am glad you liked the engine, it was really fun to make.
Just out of curosity, for my model the main panels and their creases are worked into the topology, is this the correct approch or would it be better to just use simpiler topology and just sculpt the panelling in?

#5

I suggest to create the panels and rivets using the textures: bump texture, reflectivity texture. The ultimate effects are the same as the “hard” modeling in the mesh (Cycles has quite good bump maps processor), but the amount of your work decreases by the magnitude. In practice such textures often allows you to recreate small details which otherwise would be too complex.

In fact, if you would like to learn more about the complete process, maybe you will find this book useful?

#6

So for my Airplane, the panel’s are worked into the topology, like I said before, and the rivets and the small panels are put in using bump textures, so I guess it is a hybrid. I will try the texture work flow next time I try to make a model.
Here is a new render with a different shader for the canopy, what do you think?

F4-U_render5.jpg1936×1296 845 KB

#7

OK, the canopy is transparent now. As I wrote, the overall effect is quite good, as for the first model.
I am waiting for the next one :).

[SUB]Final thoughts: I do not know how detailed models you want to create. If you wish to make them on a high-accuracy level, in addition to the scale plans use as much photo references as you can. On the photos you can notice that, for example, in WWII aircrafts the panel sheet metal overlapped each other - so their seams are not “clefts”, as modeled by the less experienced artists. (Such a overlapping effect you can obtain on the bump textures using gradients).[/SUB]

#8

Thanks for all your help Witold.

I had no idea that the panels’ seams were overlapping for WWII aircraft, that is a cool detail that would definitaly be easier to do with bump textures than with modelling.