Ugly Storm

technoid

technoid

Well-known member
Pilotk1c ask me if I could create a plane for him called Ugly Storm it's a mid-wing style Stik plane with a DLE-35 on it. I've seen it with both standard and rear exhaust engines so I'm going to use the rear exhaust version because I like the way it looks on the plane. I've also seen the plane with standard and transparent covering so I'll be creating both color schemes for it. Of course that means I need to create all the internal structure which is a lot of work but to create the plane the way I've seen it requires the internal structure. Here's four shots of the plane so you can see where I'm headed. Right now I'm doing some work on the house so it'll be a while before I start working on it but I'll get some time at night after things settle down.

Ugly Storm 30cc 01.jpgUgly Storm 30cc 02.jpgUgly Storm 30cc 03.jpgUgly Storm 30cc 04.jpg
 
Internal structure isn’t bad at all if you do it right. I’ll try to explain as best I can using the wing for example.

First you create edges that you want to define the top and bottom of your wing ribs and sheeting on the original wing.

Second you duplicate the wing and hide the original. I typically scale the new one down vertically just ever so slightly to prevent Z fighting.

Third you delete all unnecessary edges between the ribs only and bridge the resulting faces. This should define the rib sides as well as the sheer web. Now delete the top and bottom faces of the ribs and all faces making up sheeted areas, you won’t need those.

Lastly, unhide the original wing and apply an alpha material to ONLY the faces you want to be transparent. Usually takes me about 10 minutes at most to rib out a wing.

The fuselage is done about the same way except you’ll extrude rather than bridge.

I can show an easy way to model sag between the ribs as well if you’re interested. Ads a nice touch if you’re going that far.
 
abaser said:
Internal structure isn’t bad at all if you do it right. I’ll try to explain as best I can using the wing for example.

First you create edges that you want to define the top and bottom of your wing ribs and sheeting on the original wing.

Second you duplicate the wing and hide the original. I typically scale the new one down vertically just ever so slightly to prevent Z fighting.

Third you delete all unnecessary edges between the ribs only and bridge the resulting faces. This should define the rib sides as well as the sheer web. Now delete the top and bottom faces of the ribs and all faces making up sheeted areas, you won’t need those.

Lastly, unhide the original wing and apply an alpha material to ONLY the faces you want to be transparent. Usually takes me about 10 minutes at most to rib out a wing.

The fuselage is done about the same way except you’ll extrude rather than bridge.

I can show an easy way to model sag between the ribs as well if you’re interested. Ads a nice touch if you’re going that far.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info I remember following how you did the pulled down polys to simulate the covering sag between the ribs. I should have mentioned it but I've done the internal structure several times before but it is a fair amount of extra work no matter how you slice it. Here's a picture of the rib cage I just finished. Ha.. I took a break from the house and did some modeling, but now I need to get going on the house again.

Ugly Storm 01.jpg
 
Boof69 said:
Instead of scaling for the inner wing It's better to use the "Push" modifier.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I actually created a separate part for the rib cage and yes you have to pull it down below the wing to make sure it doesn't poke through. I've been doing it this way for a while and it works okay. Actually I started with a plane I already had and just reshaped it for this plane so the rib cage was already there for the wing, aileron, hstab, and vstab. So I only needed to reshape them and tweak them a little which saved me a lot of work. I will need to create the fuselage structure I haven't done that before but I thought I'd do it for this plane just for the cool factor of seeing it. Besides I can't let you have all the fun. <grin>
 
Oh I know you you know what your doing. I was just saying that the push modifier works better for perfect scaling. I think this thing your doing was one of the most fun details I've ever tried.
 
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Boof69 said:
Oh I know you you know what your doing. I was just saying that the push modifier works better for perfect scaling. I think this thing your doing was the one of the most fun details I've ever tried.
Click to expand...
No sweat your tips are always welcome. Most often I do things the hard way. <grin> But yeah it's fun to see all the structure of a plane that always looks cool.
 
Sometimes it's hard to see the progress but the front and back balsa pieces for the rib cages and the wing spar was flat so I added thickness to them today. I also added the wing tips. I guess now it's time to add the sheeting. This isn't hard to do but it takes a lot of time adding the pieces and tweaking them. But it will be interesting to see what it looks like this my first plane with all the bones normally I just do the rib cages.

Ugly Storm 06.jpg
 
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