I’m new to blender and I’m working on trying to model some space craft but the problem I keep running into is that in the process of trying to keep my meshes clean I end up comprimsing what I’m trying to accomplish and I can’t finish any model I start. My question is this: Is it common modeling progress not to worry about the intersection of meshes as in the spaceship tutorial here on Elysiun? In that tutorial the “wings” are connected to the “body” of the ship with rectangular prisms, and these prisms simply “stick into” the wings and body to give the appearance that they’re actually attached. Is this common practice? I’m always trying to figure out a way to add detail to my meshes, and I guess I’m getting frustrated by the fact that I can’t get them to remain clean. Should I bother?
good question! i dont know the answer, but i think its something to do with the scanline render. i also have a fairly good inclination that im waaaaaaaaaay off target. am waiting for the good answer 
Mmmm…
It depends,
personally I try to model seams between meshes accurately and with nice bevels, but this requires lots of planning and (maybe) experience.
On the other hand if you model opaque objects you can safely make intersection as you like.
Stefano
As Stefano mentioned, it takes planning to get seamless extensions. I always try to hand draw a model beofre I start so I can anticipate issues like these. Of course, there may be times when you WANT the seams to be seen.
I’m not very experienced with 3d modelling, but I think it depends on your spaceship’s final objective… It’s a blender game? It’s a geme spaceship at all? or it’s only a blender model?
At now I’m trying to make models for a future Nebula Device game (If my friends don’t give-up) and I’m getting some problems with exportation of my meshs… Exporting models to dxf in blender, for example may get you crazy! If you export more than one mesh at a time, most fo the mesh faces get distorted and you will see some strange results! At other hand, export some meshs, one for each file is very time and patiency expensive. Think that as many meshs you own, as many work you will get to link everithing toghether, animate, etc in other 3d programs… I think who you need to plan what you will do with your model before made it (you will blow-up it in several pieces in some explosion? you want to use some of your model’s pieces in another model? etc.) Since you can join the objects in future, remove faces and make new ones to get one single mesh, I think you don’t need to worry about this now. try to model as you dream, after this, try to modify your model, but get ride of complexity…
Only if you want to export your models to other file formats, or if you have specifc use for your model you will need a single piece mesh…
Well I hope to just make a cool space render of some kind, or perhaps an animation of the craft landing in a hanger or on a landing pad. This is really my first attempt at a serious model. I want it to be significantly detailed, and as photorealistic as possible. Basically this is going to be either a) A juggernaut of a cargo craft or b) An armored transport. I don’t have any renders just yet because there’s no faces on my mesh. Its literally just a wireframe. But I CAN post a pic of that if anyone is interested. Thanks for the tips! Keep em coming!
go on then, show us the wire!
It won’t make any sense to post screens…I can’t think of a way to make it look like something other than to export an animation of some kind, and since my mesh doesn’t have faces I can’t render it as wireframe…oddly enough… oh well…
Should I try to avoid triangles in my mesh? I was reading something about it and it seemed to suggest that you should stick to using Quads…am I right there? My whole mesh is currently triangle-less. Adding them would simplify things greatly in terms of adding detail…but will it mess things up?
If you use a subsurf mesh, then try to avoid tris, if you don’t use subsurf, it doesn’t matter. And you can always change tri to quad with Alt-J (Quad -> tri: Ctrl-T)
:o :o :o Is there a modeling technique i missed (of course there are a lot).
If you really plan to make a very detailed model out of a meshes without faces, I’d expect more trouble in creating these faces for render than to keep your mesh clean.
Is there a modeling technique i missed (of course there are a lot).
If you really plan to make a very detailed model out of a meshes without faces, I’d expect more trouble in creating these faces for render than to keep your mesh clean.
I expected a response like this 
I’m not planning on leaving the mesh without faces I just plan to add them later lol. The reason for this is that often I subdivide my model over and over again manually, and if there are faces already they tend to divide up into triangles more often than not which really irritates me. So I’m going to go back and fill all of the faces later. Sure it’ll be painstaking but oh well. Shift + F a few times on coplanar sections should get the job done correct?
Hm, maybe, but I think clever subdivison and [alt]+[J] should be more easy. But what do I know.
Best wishes.
What exactly is Alt + J?