Thanks for the link. It will help me.
I’m glad that others are being inspired to model ships. I was inspired by @philosopher, who is doing the same. I’m not competitive, but I think we can learn from each other this way. Make sure you post your WIP in this forum so I’ll see it!
You chose one hell of a ship to model. It has infinite greebles all over the place.
Some fellow Blenderites (Blenderists?) have asked me to show how I modelled the hull of my ship, so here’s a few pics with explanations. I don’t know how well I can show this, but I’ll try…
I start with the blueprint image showing the side view of the ship (what you see in the first image in this thread). I take a cube and scale it to the length of the ship from where the bow starts to the stern, and height-wise I scale it from the bottom of the keel to where the upper main deck flooring is. I will use the vertical center of the ship to delineate where to measure all my horizontal loop-cuts from, so that’s where I scale the upper bounds of the cube to:
Next, I make vertical loop cuts along the length of the ship where I’ll need to form the various sections of the upper part of the ship (marked with red lines). Once they’re in place, I add more loop cuts where I think I’ll need them to help give the ship some shape, but I don’t want to add too many:
After that I make horizontal loop cuts to mark out the most significant features along the ship’s side. In this case, it’s the lines of cannon ports and the wood trimming. To help me remember which loop cut is the one I will use to measure from, I give it a temporary crease so it’s highlighted:
I know! I didn’t really realixe what i took on until after I started. I don’t really plan on doing all of the fancy ornamentation, but maybe I can texture them on there.
I know! I didn’t really realixe what i took on until after I started. I don’t really plan on doing all of the fancy ornamentation, but maybe I can texture them on there.
I’m having a hard time posting…
just one note here
you should be following the pre defined cross sections on the blueprint
but you are building from another mesh then trying to re adjust it
don’t know but look to me like a lot more work then following the blueprint lines!
here is example for skinning a boat
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Tutorials/Modeling/Surfaces/Skinning
seen many other boats done before and don’t remember anyone doing it this way!
mind you it is same problem with other shapes like air planes too!
but if you happy with it don’t worry LOL
happy bl
^ That NURBS technique looks like it might be worth playing around with. The example given is as rough as guts, but the basic idea sounds useful.
if you do let us know can give some basic tips to do and not to do !
happy cl
Once I have the horizontal loop cuts made, I start pulling their vertices in place on the z axis, making sure they follow the corresponding lines of the blueprint. I start at the point where I’ve used the crease and work from there in both directions. With the lines for the wood trim, I save time and assure uniform spacing by moving them together (2 lines each). When I’m done II have something like this:
At this point, it’s a good idea to smooth out the vertices so that there are no wavy lines. I turn the view so I can look down the length in order to spot any wavy lines. It’s better to do this now than to try to fix little imperfections later.
Once that’s done. I switch to top view and pull in the blueprint for the main upper deck, which will give me the basic shape of the ship at it’s mid=point. I move the vertices into place and when I’m finished I have this:
Now I go back to side view and start defining the bow and stern areas some more: I adjust the current lines along the horizontal axis to get some basic definition in these areas. At the stern, I make sure the horizontal loop cuts reach to the back end of the ship (minus the prop and the part of the stern that the prop is attached to), keeping the curve of the lines smooth when I do. Once this is done, I add a few more loop cuts at the bow where it will need to be rounded out later on. I also add more loops to the stern area where the hull will eventually be pulled in towards the prop. I leave the very first section of the bow more or less alone, since it will be dealt with seaparetly. What i have when I’m done looks like this:
In my case, I find it far more problematic trying to adjust the background pictures to get all the cross-sections precisely where they should be and at the right size. The blueprints are not very good and don’t line up properly (I know this from 4 previous attempts).
seen many other boats done before and don’t remember anyone doing it this way!
Well now you have seen this way!
Not sure what you’re referring to as an example, but that might be just the thing for doing the ribbing. I could form the curves to match the diagrams and then put them in place. It beats trying to line up the background images. I’ll try it.
I just realized that using curves will be problematic since I’ll still have to mess with lining up the background images to mirror them (if that’s even possible with curves). I had no problem manually shaping the hull the last time. It’s good practice anyway.
If you look around for drawings and models of this particular ship, you’ll see that the hulls are all varied in their shape, since they’re based on 16th century information that isn’t always accurate.
Someone asked me to show my technique, so that’s what I’m doing.
see post 7 here for background image set up
and not saying it is simple to do but it is easier and faster when set up properly
but need a bit of practice to get used to it agreed on that
and this is like any other methods/technics in blender need to learn and practice
but even with nurbs there are certain shapes that you cannot make in one skinning.
Ex: when hull are curving almost at 90 degrees that is very difficult in any case
and still need to find the worst cross section to get maximum number of points needed.
then the skinning should go well.
happy bl
That’s not the same ship at all, so that blueprint won’t work.
and not saying it is simple to do but it is easier and faster when set up properly
but need a bit of practice to get used to it agreed on that
and this is like any other methods/technics in blender need to learn and practice
but even with nurbs there are certain shapes that you cannot make in one skinning.
Ex: when hull are curving almost at 90 degrees that is very difficult in any case
and still need to find the worst cross section to get maximum number of points needed.
then the skinning should go well.
i wasn’t planning on doing this more than once, so I didn’t want to bother with pulling the blueprints into a draw program to set them all up properly.
I assumed the curves would be used to form the ribs and then placed in cross-wise to use for forming the hull mesh somehow. I’ve never skinned anything before (besides my knee).
To continue…
I made a mistake when I started doing the top view… I forgot to first form the keel . So I add a loop cut now at the keel line. But I also have to re-straighten the bottom two edges before I can move them in to form the keel. I can do that by selecting them and typing sx0 and hitting Enter. Nice trick to know! Now I can just slide them in almost to the center line to form the keel. Done.
Okay, so now I deal with the bow area, which I’ve found to be a problem if I’m not careful to keep the mesh as neat as possible. Here’s a close-up of how I form the mesh where the keel curves into the bowsprit:
With that done, I can now start forming the prop area in the stern. I go to side view to check where the top of the prop starts and then select all the end vertices at or below that level (minus the ones that help form the keel) and move them in towards the center until they;re almost even with the keel, but not quite.
The ship is starting to take on some shape now. It’s becoming “ship-shape”!
Now I add 4 more horizontal loops around the hull. If I had done this earlier, it would have meant a lot more work moving vertices.
To help me form the hull, I do it by eye and use a combination of images (incl. the blueprints) to get an idea of its basic shape. I’ve already formed the contours for the main deck, which sits on one of the lines I’ve created, so I crease that line to highlight it and only deal with vertices below it.
Here are a few of my best images of what the hull should look like:
Not the best to go by on their own, but they show the basic shape I’m looking for. Note the variations in the top two images.
It’s a bit hard to describe without downloading the picture and adding arrows to it, but the curve of the keel in side view, where the planking attaches to the keel, continues higher than you have it. It’s a continuous curve right up to just below the second row of cannon ports. IOW, about 8 or 9 slices higher than you’ve taken it.
The first anchor has a rope looping down below it. The forward side of that loop closely approximates the shape of the keel rabbet (“rabbet” being the groove in the keel that the planking sits in).
Edit: Your last three attachments seem to be borked.
Note that I’ve left the final section of mesh untouched so far (except for the bottom of the bowsprit). That will allow me to do the front area of the hull.
I find the stern area to be the easiest to deal with next, and by doing it first, I can more easily work on the shape of the rest of the hull. I go to back view first and start working on the vertices closest to where the prop is (or will be), moving them inwards so that they curve nicely to form a concave dip where the hull reaches the rear end. My lines begin to look like this:
This should only take about 2 minutes to do.
Next I switch to bottom view and start working the lines outward at the middle area of the hull, giving it a little bit of fatness, but not too much. As I get to either end, I begin to relax on how much I move them so that they fend up forming a nice smooth curve and they almost come to a point. The back area should be a little fatter and flatter on the bottom than the front, but not too much.
I check my progress constantly by looking at the hull from various angles. The upper part of the bulge in the hull shouldn’t quite reach the line I creased earlier on to mark off where the main deck is (just below bottom cannon ports). It should be very gradual when it reaches to this point.
