Wings 3d Newbie Questions

[Madratter]

I have been attempting to use Wings 3d to build a simple foam aircraft. Even doing that I have run into some trouble (I have essentially no 3d modeling experience).

I have attached a screenshot of my admittedly woeful attempts to build a fuselage. Four questions and whatever advice you might care to share:

1) How do you avoid the problem of perspective when lining things up with the 3 view. From the angle I was working, things looked like they matched up nicely. Once you rotate the camera, it is beyond obvious the match is poor at best.

2) I obviously failed to pick the pair of points at times and this resulted in the front of the slab not matching the back. Is there a good way to bring them back into perfect alignment so the points differ only in the correct amount of x (9mm front to back).

3) I have discovered how to free rotate the camera to look at my attempt from any angle. However, I have not discovered how to freely move my viewpoint along an axis. In this case, if I was able to move my viewpoint along the z axis so I am essentially looking directly over the points I want to move, it would really help with the perspective problem. How do you do this?

4) When I use Shift-Tab to get a quick smoothed preview, things are an utter mess. What is going on and should I worry about that?

TIA

 

[jeffpn]

Welcome to Modeling!!

1) Click the box I pointed to or Hit O (not zero) to set up orthographic view. That gives you alignment regardless of viewing angle.

2) Not quite sure of your question, but if you select 2 vertices, it will show you the distance between them, in our case, inches.

3) If you mouse over a vertex, edge, face or object, it will turn green. Hit a to center your view to the moused over object. If you've selected something, it'll be red. Hit Shift-a to center you view on everything selected.

4) Do not hit Shift Tab. (I fell into the same trap). Hit Tab. That will show you a decently rendered image that you can use to gauge what it will look like in RF.

 

[Madratter]

1) Click the box I pointed to or Hit O (not zero) to set up orthographic view. That gives you alignment regardless of viewing angle.

2) Not quite sure of your question, but if you select 2 vertices, it will show you the distance between them, in our case, inches.

3) If you mouse over a vertex, edge, face or object, it will turn green. Hit a to center your view to the moused over object. If you've selected something, it'll be red. Hit Shift-a to center you view on everything selected.

4) Do not hit Shift Tab. (I fell into the same trap). Hit Tab. That will show you a decently rendered image that you can use to gauge what it will look like in RF.

Thanks Jeff. So that is what orthographic view is for!

What I was trying to get at with my 2nd question, is now that I have 2 points that don't line up correctly (I moved the front but failed to have the back point selected, how do I get the back point in the correct position with the front point. The only way I can think of is to just delete both points, add points back in, and realign with the 3 view.

 

[jeffpn]

You can use absolute commands to snap the second vertex to the same location. As the first vertex. Then Move|z or whichever direction you need to move it from there.

 

[Madratter]

You can use absolute commands to snap the second vertex to the same location. As the first vertex. Then Move|z or whichever direction you need to move it from there.

Got it!

 

[flexible]

Loop select the Verts you want to move, as the image hides those the verts behind the image, or select those on the front, then type the letter I, for identical, which selects those on the back as well.

 

[Madratter]

Loop select the Verts you want to move, as the image hides those the verts behind the image, or select those on the front, then type the letter I, for identical, which selects those on the back as well.

Thanks Flexible. The problem was since I wasn't in orthogonal view, I missed the back ones selecting a few times. I have been doing the i for identical on edges, but didn't even think about the fact I could do the same things for vertices.

 

[a4magic]

Since the thread is open, I will take advatage of it for some help.
At school a kid asked me to build a plane model for him to get some renders off of. I am very happy with how the model ended up, except for the cockpit has bloches on it, where the matterial looks diffrent. I have changed it several times but it still won't change to look normal.

p.s. I do have a new computer.

 

[jeffpn]

Put your file in a .zip folder and post it here. I'll look at it. Do you mean the dashed line appearance?

 

[flexible]

You have inter and outer Faces fighting, tell him the fix jeff, then I will know how also.

 

[jeffpn]

I'm not sure what his issue is.

 

[a4magic]

Yeah. That is one of the only things I need to fix or finish, other than the cockpit and wing detail.

 

[jeffpn]

It's a shading error. I can tell you that much. You could flatten|Normal the sides after connecting a couple pairs of verts. Depends on what you want the finished canopy to look like

 

[Madratter]

Latest Progress

Well, I think I got my fuselage corrected to the drawing using the orthographic view. I now have added in the top view for creating the wings. It was something of a struggle getting this (hopefully) right as the image wasn't quite exactly square and I also needed to scale it and move it to get things all lined up with the side view and what I had already done.

My plan is to do the wings, cut it in half, and then duplicate it so the two sides are identical since there is a strong likelyhood I didn't get the drawing perfectly lined up.

Attached is an image of my current progress. The bottom of the fuselage is also done; it just cannot be seen.

Is it better to do the ailerons at the same time as the wings and then cut them out somehow, or is it better to just model them separately from the start?

 

[jeffpn]

Move your 3-view down below your bounding box. That way you can see your whole model. Lately I've been duplicating my 3 view in Wings. That way, in a perfect world, you only have to scale it one. 3 copies facing each way you need it.

This shot is from early in my last build. It has cross sections, so I had several copies. Only my cross sections are in the bounding box. The other 3 are not.

 

[abaser]

Whenever I do wings, Ill model everything at once, then create the geometry for the ailerons/flaps and loop cut them out. Once you cut them out, you must connect the corner verts of the ailerons AND the cutout of the wing (top and bottom) to keep from having hollow parts.

 

[Madratter]

Thanks Jeff. That makes sense. I guess using Orthographic, there is no real point to having the 3 view in the center like I have it. I put it roughly where I wanted the wings to build. But that is kind of silly.

I edited my last post while you were replying to it, so I'm going to repeat the question I added.

Is it better to do the ailerons at the same time as the wings and then cut them out somehow, or is it better to just model them separately from the start?

 

[Madratter]

Whenever I do wings, Ill model everything at once, then create the geometry for the ailerons/flaps and loop cut them out. Once you cut them out, you must connect the corner verts of the ailerons AND the cutout of the wing (top and bottom) to keep from having hollow parts.

Got it Abaser. Thanks!

 

[flexible]

just what you need

https://forums.realflight.com/showthread.php?t=25363

 

[Madratter]

Thanks Flexible. I have actually been going through that thread already, and it has been a tremendous help.

The version of wings I have been using (1.4.1) doesn't match up exactly so there are some things I haven't been able to do. For example, I don't get an option to make my 3 views internal, nor am I smart enough to know what the implications are there.