Eric2575

Wait till you try and model them into the sphere

I already knew you were a Master Modeler, but the speed at which you turn out these pieces is what sets you apart from the crowd. My hat off to you Al. Eric

Roger: I looked for my three toed tutorial and found it, but it's long and boring since it's one of my first tutorials ever from a long time ago. I'll remake it and post it on Youtube soon. It will help you not only with the foot, but with overall modeling and smooth skin. I had a recent hard drive crash on me, so I have to reinstall my screen cap software among other things. It looks like you've been pretty patient about finishing this model anyway Eric

I'm working on my own anatomical figure and this will help me with proportional references. Thank you.

This was the case with the Millennium Falcon. The scales were so far off that no one has been able to make it fit into a model. In the ship everyone runs around upright with no problem in corridors that circumnavigate the ship, yet the ship is saucer shaped and not very thick. This does not leave any headroom at all among many other inconsistencies. The final design of the ship was a last minute decision which contributed to the scale problems. Maybe there will come a time when ships and such are first designed on a computer to scale before being used in a film? Similar problems with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea's Nautilus. Like Al said, that's Hollywood for now.

There is a scene where one of the astronauts is jogging inside what looks like a sphere. Is this supposed to be the inside of the command module sphere? If so, I can't think of a way to make it fit - that scene looks much bigger than what the sphere could hold.

I'll be watching Good splining. Eric

If you can find it, could you post the bump decal you used for the carpet? I'm always interested in bump maps.

I enjoyed that, good job!

Apart from the excellent modeling - he's kinda scary!! Wouldn't want to be a pedestrian in his way

That's much better, but you can still take out two of the front bunch of three splines in the door. If they are part of the window post, make the window post a separate entity in the model. In a real bug, they are a separate entity also. Don't be afraid to have many separate entities in a model. If the real thing is made up of several parts, model them that way. In the beginning I thought I had to make everything out of one single mesh. That's not the correct way to model. Doing really great. Eric

Looking at your spline layout, you can really reduce the number of splines in the hood and door panel without reducing detail. Make a copy of one door and play around with removing splines to see what you get. If you mess up, just delete it. If you like the new version better, delete the old version. I do that a lot when I model, always make a copy of something you intend on playing around with.

The hood problem looks like too much reflectivity in the color material. You also still have some peaked splines and or discontinuous splines - see the crease in the roof and door panel.

Lay out your model without bias tweaking first. Best to even turn off the bias handles. The tweaking comes later. If you bias tweak as you model, you're really opening a can of worms and you may also find that much of the bias tweaking was unnecessary. I started modeling with bias tweaking as I went and ended up setting many of the bias points back to zero once the modeling was done. Eric One more thing, I know it's tempting, but stay away from modeling or decaling your model until it's all done. This will keep you focused and less likely to rush the job.

Nice to see something from you again Rodger. That's eye candy to me

That looks like a really nice start.

Al: I just opened your project file and had to tell you that I am blown away! Your Discovery is a masterpiece! What fantastic work and in such a short period of time. This model puts a lot of the stuff you see on the Sci Fi channel to shame. I love it. Respectfully Eric Camden p.s. I'll send you the EVA Sunday night.

I got production serial #0000001. Woo hoo! What a gift! Thank you.

Marcos: my sincerest apologies. I don't know what I was thinking - quite a bit of stress lately - I know your name is Marcos off course Eric

With those tight pants, are you sure he's interested in Cindy?

Found it: http://xtaz.com.br/index.php?option=com_co...3&Itemid=68 Check it out, it will help you. Eric

I just took a closer look at your splines in the pic. If you think and model with the flow of the metal, everything will get easier. Right now you are thinking flat, in a 2D way. Your splines are going straight up and down, straight right to left. You need to visualize in your head what the piece you are working on really looks like. It certainly isn't flat, it curves and flows in different directions. Try and arrange your splines to follow the flow of the curves. Every once in a while, turn your model slightly and look at it from a bird's eye view. If it is totally flat, you need to change it. The metal curves into the window openings. The door panels also curve from top to bottom and from right to left. the top of the roof might look like it is on the same plane looking sideways, but you are really laying down the center of the roof section. I don't know if you can still find them, but Xtaz, aka Carlos once started some tutorials on car modeling. He is a very good mechanical modeler and his tutorials are very good. Try and search for them on the forum. He still stops in once in a while, so maybe he can give you a link to them. Keep it up. You are doing great.

Just leave as is, the real ones aren't welded together either Try and post the model as a zip file again. I still want to check it out in AM.

I am going to call you DaVinchi from now on. I love the things you come up with.

Since a car is made up of many panels, it is often easier to model the panels detached from each other instead of trying to force the mesh in all sorts of different directions. A good example would be the bug's fenders. You have a lot of three point patches (bad) going on around the fenders and in the areas that connect them. If you separate the fenders from the main body, you can eliminate many of those problem areas. I don't mean create a separate model for each, but simply model them apart from the body mesh. Just like having a sphere and a box in the same modeling window. They are not separate models, but they are separate from each other in the modeling window. I do the same thing for the windows of the car. Right now you are trying to fit the mesh to the car frame and the window. If you separate the windows from the body, the window mesh will be easier to construct and will have fewer splines. You are doing a great job and these tips are only meant to give you some extra tools for your modeling journey.