Building a Spitfire, any advice?

[lythronax]

Hi again! Took a wee break over the weekend for my birthday, and last night I made some changes.

Update #9 - Pointy!

Between the last update and tonight I have tested a hollow exhaust stub, re-countoured the wing fillet, and made more alterations to the engine cowling. Tonight however I built the late "Mk XII" rudder, which can be used for a variety of other variants I may model in the future :

Additionally, I cloned the fuselage and recontoured the cowling to produce the later "ballooned" cowling of the late IXs and all XVIs:

Will keep you posted for what I do this week. Take care!

 

[lythronax]

New, more accurate enclosure is up next...

 

[lythronax]

Update - Less cramped...

A new, more accurate windscreen has been made, along with a Malcolm-type ballooned canopy as opposed to the previous flat type (inaccurate after all) that I had went with. Behind the scenes, the wing fillets have had some final adjustments and are now looking better than ever. I've figured out edge extrusion (my new favourite toy) and the two fillets now make one smooth connected piece.

​

Next up is the undercarriage; maybe I'll also remodel the wings to bring them up to standard. Will keep you posted!

 

[hairyspin]

Before going much further, it'd be a jolly good idea to try an export to the sim. The modeller's maxim is export early, export often, check your work in the sim as you go!

 

[lythronax]

Before going much further, it'd be a jolly good idea to try an export to the sim. The modeller's maxim is export early, export often, check your work in the sim as you go!

I'd like to try, but the link for the SDK is broken on my end.

 

[hairyspin]

I'd like to try, but the link for the SDK is broken on my end.

If you're following a link to Microsoft for the CFS3 SDKs (the old CFS3 Insider site), you should know MS pulled the plug on that years ago. So, we uploaded all of them to the library here at SOH and you'll find a sticky thread on the CFS3 forum with links included. The necessary downloads to patch CFS3 up to 3.1a are also there.

CFS3 patches and SDKs

 

[lythronax]

Been modelling on and off since my last post but since learning new techniques I'm not exactly pleased with the old model!

So I'm starting afresh - this time a Mk XII.

 

[lythronax]

Here's what I've been up to the past week or so:

Started an early Merlin fuselage, not sure whether to start with the Mk I, II or VB or jump straight to the Vc from which Mks VII, VIII, XII and IX can be more easily built. I do want to try the early external armoured glass as I've never seen it modelled completely accurately...



The initial construction started about a week or so but everything thence has been done over the past 9 or so hours!

The tail unit was constructed initially without a fin, which was modelled separately and stitched onto the mesh.



Soon after I made the rudder hinge fairing by removing polys and applying a shell modifier.



Next was the exhaust shroud. As I'm not planning to model an actual underlying engine quite yet this will serve to fill any gaps when the exhaust manifolds are attached. I made some dummy exhausts without reference and I was very happy with how the simply geometry underneath smoothed out almost perfectly with just one iteration of Turbosmooth





I'll be sure to keep you all posted. Should I go with a Vb and early windscreen before I tackle the later marks?

 

[lythronax]

Small Update: Rudder completed! Plus I''ve revised the exhaust so that they are now more accurate in shape and placement.




Edit:

I have also begun building the wing root fillet, which is actually an extremely complex shape:

 

[lythronax]

This morning I've constructed the horizontal stabiliser! In involved cutting a hole in the tail section corresponding to the gap in the skinning for the stabiliser, then building the structure using splines shaped to drawings of the ribs. After CrossSection then Surface modifiers, and converting the mesh to Poly, most of the work was already done. All that was left was shaping the outer curved section and bridging the gaps in the mesh. Finally, the flange/fairing for the elevator hinge was extruded from the back portion. Once one was made, it was cloned - the intersecting vertices then welded.





More detail is yet to come - specifically the hinge arms for the elevator itself (as with the rudder), but this will be completed later on.

I have also completed the aerodynamic fillet for the tailplane, which was a complex and finicky process.

 

[lythronax]

Last post in what's definitely been quite the productive day on my part - the beginnings of that timeless wing!

At the moment it extends through to the centreline but it'll be refined to true outline of the skinning in the real deal. Thereafter the wing fillet is the final basic contouring shape needed. Once that's sorted I can get onto the finer details, which I'm both anticipating and dreading.

 

[lythronax]

Speaking of the fillet, here's its beginnings!

First the middle contours of the upper fillet were drawn as splines, plus a lovely CrossSection then Surface modifier, then converted to poly. Thereafter it was fettled and fitted to shape.

Then, the end section section (actually a metal sheet attached to the fuselage itself) was modelled to the contours of the rearmost fillet section, then fitted to shape.

Next is the lower "gull wing" section, which is in my opinion one of the most important shapes in getting the contours of the Spitfire correct. Stay tuned.

 

[hairyspin]

The upper wing root fillet does look good, I’ll be interested to see how you get on with the lower one.

 

[lythronax]

I've tried my best!

 

[lythronax]

This is where it's at this afternoon - the wings and fillets have been stitched together at the vertex level into one continuous piece to simplify construction, plus some cleaning up has been done on the shape of the underside.

Here is the completed basic wing shape, overall I'm very happy with how things have turned out so far. Planform, thickness, dihedral and washout have all turned out to my liking.

 

[lythronax]

Progress continues! I've made an experimental interior by copying the requisite polys, copied them to a new object and applied a shell modifier of 6mm. Obviously I'd want to go thinner but I don't think anything closer than 5mm is acceptable in CFS3. Additionally I've cut the rear-view panel from the fuselage, applied the same shell modifier and given it a glass material.

Additionally, for some fun, I've built the extended wingtips of the Mk VI! I'm personally a huge fun of this look and the HF variants though I know they're not to everyone's taste. They've also *never* been modelled in a commercial sim, something to think about...

 

[lythronax]

My late night experiment for today is a rudimentary version of the Mk I-Vb windscreen and armoured glass. These were built freehand without splines or reference so they are undoubtedly inaccurate and will therefore be rebuilt later.

 

[lythronax]

This afternoon I got straight to work at further detailing the model. First was a new early/PR windscreen drawn to actual references - here is the view of the "cockpit" of this external model:

Afterwards I got to work on creating the guide rails for the canopy, along with the beginnings of the entry door:

 

[hairyspin]

The overall shape and flow is looking very good, but have you tried exporting to the sim yet?

 

[lythronax]

The overall shape and flow is looking very good, but have you tried exporting to the sim yet?

I have! When importing to Gmax from Max 2008 I had to reset the scale of each mesh, plus a few needed their normals flipped for whatever reason? (as can be seen from shading/smoothing in the results, I think some need to be flipped back, OR it's an artefact of the fuselage, tail unit and nose cowling being separate meshes) But nonetheless, it exported to sim perfectly - scale, camera rotation, buttery smooth 120 fps despite the high poly model, though of course that may change when detail is increased and textures are added.