Hi all,
I'm new to the Modo community but an old fart here at Rendo's Cinema4D community. I've used Modo for 3 weeks and have gone through some tutorials (the digital camera and radio car tutorials and decided to start a project of my own - a Messerschmitt 109:

www.colacola.se

I saw your post in Luxlogy Forums. I love this model.
I like the details U put on it, very nice and well done, specially the mesh, clean and nice. 
U are the reason I started my own airplane project too. I started one, but had to go back and finish up my Armor Cars Project. I was doing a F6F Hellcat. I wanted your opinion on something: If U dont mind me asking.

How did U start your plane? From a cylinder? Did U cut it up once U got the body going or u how U went about it? Just trying to find ways to model my future models.

Thankx

Very nice start! I like the areas around the guns. Keep them coming...

thanks!

Quote -

How did U start your plane? From a cylinder? Did U cut it up once U got the body going or u how U went about it? Just trying to find ways to model my future models.

Thankx

No.. I start with a single polygon (quad). In sub-d mode (or whatever the proper term is when you hit the tab key) I extend edges and make loop cuts until I have the basic shape. Then I mirror copy the object, join all points along the x-axis and freeze the mesh. Once frozen I delete all unnecessary edges and loops and start adding/cutting out details.

www.colacola.se

A little update

www.colacola.se

And here't the mesh so far. All parts are frozen (except the propeller hub) so there will not be any more geometry by subdivision.

www.colacola.se

Added the cockpits interior and a pilot:

www.colacola.se

Wow!  That's some beautiful work.  :)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Leonardo da Vinci

thanks.. here's a small update on the part that connects the wing to the fuselage:

www.colacola.se

Very nice works. I like the details and mesh, very well done.

Cornelp

thanks... here's another update with wheel wells and undercarriage. A couple of more details remain before I can finish off the modelling (propeller) and beginf UV-mapping.

www.colacola.se

Here's a view of the frozen mesh. I'm wondering if I'm going to UV-map this model using BodyPaint3 or Modo. I'm already quite familiar with BodyPaint3 so its "user unfriendlyness" isn't a problem any more..

Anybody with experience from both uv-mapping in bodypaint and modo?

www.colacola.se

..and now with a propeller:

www.colacola.se

Thanks for the wires. 
BTW, why do you have so many edge loops in the area where the wings are connected to the body the body?

..haven't cleaned up that area yet. It's possible that I can delet those loops without affecting the smoothness.

www.colacola.se

Now I've done UV-mapping. Trying to keep the squares as square as possible and  the same size to avoid distortion. The relax tool is incredible!

www.colacola.se

Hi,

I stumbled across this post and I am amazed by how neat and slick you doing this project. You're not limited by the tools you use, only by your imagination. That's a characteristic of a true artist.

Do you plan on rendering the plane in Modo? Are the materials relatively easy to set up?

After seeing these pictures I feel like redoing my old Focke Wulf :-)

/Patrick

www.patrickeischen.com

"Someday, you'll be cool!"

Thanks Patrick!

Yes I'm going to make the final render using Modo too. Modos shader tree is still a mystery to me but I've at least figured out how to apply a color and bump map so that I can check while I'm painting the texute..

www.colacola.se

I've started painting the textures - a bump, specular and color map. The bump and color maps work as I intended but I'm having problems with the spec map.

I would like the higlights to be toned down in the dark areas od the spec map and bright in the white areas. I've put a layer mask set to specular ammount into the matieral where the specularity is defined but this doesn't appear to work. Modo also crashes frequently when moving layers around in the shader tree.

Any tips on how to apply a spec map?

www.colacola.se

Here's a texturing update. I figured out how the shader tree works and have applied the spec map in this render. I'm now having problems with the propellers motion blur. I've created morph maps and morph objects and enabled motion blur but I can't figure out how to generate the motion blur in the render...

www.colacola.se

You need to have some motion to cause blur - otherwise it wouldn't know which direction to blur in. Make sure the prop is a separate part, make sure the pivot is in the right place (ie on the axis) and then apply a simple two step rotation, with the start angle in on frame and the end angle in another fame somewhat later. Then move to the middle of the range and render that - you should get blur.

Beautiful work, perfect once you get the propeller motion blur!

thanks. It was simplier than I thought - all the talk about morph maps that I have read was just confusing and irrelevant for this purpose.  I key framed the prop and rendered a frame in the middle and set the AA samples to 32 to get a smooth blur.

www.colacola.se

Quote - thanks. It was simplier than I thought - all the talk about morph maps that I have read was just confusing and irrelevant for this purpose.  I key framed the prop and rendered a frame in the middle and set the AA samples to 32 to get a smooth blur.

Updated pic? :)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1604970

Sure... now in the gallery!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1604970

www.colacola.se

Really great work and it is clear you have a lot of experience on this. Your site is great as well with lots of very useful tutorials Just a question, on something very fundamental that I probably don't understand: How you get such a perfect combination of, on the one hand very straight lines that the define the cockpit and other 'hard edged' corners, and on the other hand perfect smooth surfaces that define the wings and fuselage Would be great if you could answer this one. Would also really welcome if you did an airplane tutorial on your site using modo, but that's maybe to ask for considering your new job and all Currently I am following your p 47 tutorial and it is moving along except for the issue described above. Derk

Quote - How you get such a perfect combination of, on the one hand very straight lines that the define the cockpit and other 'hard edged' corners, and on the other hand perfect smooth surfaces that define the wings and fuselage Would be great if you could answer this one. Would also really welcome if you did an airplane tutorial on your site using modo,

You can make an edge more or less sharp by tighteing or loosing up the surrounding loops. You can then fine tune the sharpness by selecting the edge and adjust its subdivision weight (select the subdivision weight map and play around with the weight tool).

The other way is not to used Sub-D at all. The cockpit is modelled without any subdivision. I just point-by point modelled it and then bevelled the edges to make them less sharp. Bevelling sometimes creates a lot of n-gons. These can be split up into quads using the different slice tools.

I'm not quite ready to write a Modo-tutorial bacause this was my first Modo model. I have to do a couple of more first :)

www.colacola.se

thanks a lot for your response I will start playing around with that Derk