Corsair

[hunter]

Hi all,
I finally got my copy of 7.5. mmmmm, 7.5. I've been working on this for a handful of saturdays now. I still have some detailing and surfacing to do. The engine and prop are ripped out of the avenger model in the lightwave content so please no praise to me for that. I will model my own but I wanted to show some progress and ask for any crits.
Cheers

[jman66]

excellent model.. love the detail right down to the cowl flaps

[Ralph Keyser]

I'm not sure which model of the F4U this is, and I'm away from my reference material. Was there an antenna mast just aft of the cockpit? You might also consider pylons for bombs/drop tanks.
Do the wings fold? ;)

Really nice looking model. Love that engine detail.

[mrxd]

I really like the model, especially how the rudder has faint surface undulations to look like a fabric control surface.

Can you post a wireframe? I'm working on a plane as well and I want to get a look at wing/control surfaces.

[cathuria]

Sweet:) - Great job on the control surfaces.
Aside from missing details (which I assume you're still adding), my only crit at this point would be that you need a joining shape at the wing root.

[jman66]

to the best of my knowledge, the corsair does not have any major joined fillet at the root, except for what ammounts to a small angular riveted strip that keeps fuselage skin and wing skin panels from separating. Should be able to get away with good results when you do your texturing.

http://www.f4ucorsair.com/legends/n72nw.jpg

[Aquaman]

Looking very nice. The Corsair is still one of my favorite planes.

[michael_ash]

Hi,
I see you have the 2% angle on the rudder which is good.
A lot of people just leave it straight.

You probaly don't need this now but here a couple hundered Corsair links.

http://f4ucorsair.tripod.com/links.html

http://www.kithobbyist.com/walkaround/f4u.html

http://www.thefreedomeagle.com/photos/f4uphotos.html

http://www.kithobbyist.com/IPMSAuckland/Gallery/Real/F4U-1D/corsair1.htm

http://users.skynet.be/bk317032/Part_Corsair_Plane/htm/Links/Corsair_Links_Site_map.htm

http://www.andrews.edu/~dodge/f4u.html

Mike

[hunter]

Thank you all. I really appreciate the comments and crits.

Jman66: Still some detail to add but the cowl flaps actually open and close with endomorphs. As do the flaps, airlerons, and landing gear doors.

Ralph: It’s supposed to be the F4U-1D. And I do need to add those antenna masts. The wings don’t fold yet but maybe I’ll throw that in. Just so much detail exposed when they do.

Mrxd: Not sure you want to see the wire frames the thing is pretty poly heavy being frozen and all but I’ll see if I can’t post some. For the rudder I modeled it with sub D’s, knifed it up a lot and pulled out the undulations.

Cathuria: Yes still adding away. Actually working on maps right now and jmann 66 is right there really isn’t a wing root , but there may be a bit where the flap closest the body meets it.

Aquaman: Been my favorite since I was about 7 years old when I saw Midway and got into WWII Aircraft. And I never missed Blacksheep squadron when it was on.

Michael: Thanks for the links. They do actually help. I got most of my reference from a book I bought at a store at Pearl Harbor when I was on vacation. I think you can even get them Online. I’ll see if I can find a link if anyone’s interested.

My wife has Spring Cleaning planned this weekend so I don’t think I’ll get to work on it much. I’ll post some more shots soon.
:mad:

[Aquaman]

Ahhh, Blacksheep Squadron was one of my favorite tv shows when I was a kid. The Corsair was the main reason why I watched the show.

[gpdesigner]

Hey Aqua,
If you want I have some blue prints you could use, I got them from Chance Vought before I started to build my corsair... Whe you start to surface your let me know and we can work together... just an Idea
ralph

[gpdesigner]

By the way awesome plane dude, I think yours is alot smother than the one I did...
that show blacksheep squadron was the reason I went into the corps... The corsair model has been along time coming.
good job
Ralph

[hunter]

Here is one of those childhood tragedies:
When I was ten my dad raced motocross. Almost every weekend we would travel hundreds of miles and camp in the van. One weekend I said "look, I don't want to go this time. I want stay here and hangout with my friends." They let me:)
When they got back, it turns out, the motocross track was right next to the blacksheep sqadron set. My dad said there were Corsairs lined up and the whole vella lacava. D'oh!:mad:

[gpdesigner]

OOOOhhhh....Man you don't have the luck,
When I was in 29 Palms we had a few A5 from the 60's i think they were? from the vmf 214 at the base it was totally cool and alittle surreal seeing how they were the reason I was there... life is funny.

[hunter]

Quick update: Working on the Bump maps.

[gpdesigner]

Dude that is freagin sweat.......:D :D
speachless.......and pissed:mad: I ain't gonna be anywhere close to that.:eek:

[jman66]

wow!

that is absolutely wonderful.

[Randog]

Looks cool. Just a nit-picky comment though.

The Corsair was constructed using spot welds and not rivets. So the bump would be inverted on the stuff on your plane. I would also knock down the bump quite a bit on those features.

I built a really detailed Corsair a while back. I think I posted picks of it before, I don't want to post it in your thread.

Keep up the great work.

Also something else to consider is how close you intend to get to your object. If you are going to get as close, or any closer, than your posts you may want to consider modeling the panel lines. Bumped seams will look too soft as you get closer.

Good job!

-R

[hunter]

Randog,
Thanks for the tip. I know they were certainly more flush with the body and I'm working on it. If you would like to I'd like to see your Corsair. feel free to post a pic here or a link to your thread. There's a corsair here in san diego at mira mar but with people getting arrested for making a wrong turn at the base I'm wondering if I could even get close to it:)
I'll post more soon.

[hunter]

O.K. Maybe Ididn't post more exactly soon, but here is some beginning color and diffuse work. Let me know what ya' think. Thanks.
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/02-570051_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/02-570051.jpg)

[gpdesigner]

Hunter that looks totally sweet, I am truely jealous.... :mad:
Nice machine.... I see you folded the wings, cool... but I can't see the bumps on the top side did you remove them for this render?
Ralph

[hunter]

Thanks. I didn't remove them they just don't show up until you get closer. I think I'll have to seperate out the rivets so the rest can be pumped up. There are some great textures here:
http://www.simviation.com/cfs2aircraft8.htm
They're made for microsfts flight sim I certainly woouldn't use them directly but a great reference. Check out som of the pages there are a lot of corsairs although some of the zips are corrupt.
These guys are good at painting textures.

[oxyg3n]

Wow, i really like how your plane is coming along. The pic with the bump maps looks great.

[hunter]

O.K. I've finally got my own engine in it and she's ready to fly. what do you think?

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/09-201813_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/09-201813.jpg)

Oh yea, here is wire frame and the corsair as a show plane all shiny and new. (this was before I tripled it so there is a problem with the shadows:wtf:

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/09-202406_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/09-202406.jpg)

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/09-202458_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/09-202458.jpg)

[oxyg3n]

That looks really slick!

[gpdesigner]

Hunter that is amazing dude... hats off to you man,...
Pappy would be proud...:D I like the bumps they look good and the rivets show up well... really nice job, I'm jelous...:mad: you just set a bar for me, inspiration dude...

[jman66]

damn, that is one fine bird... have any cockpit shots???


... and when do we get to see some test-flight animations :D

[hunter]

Thank you all sooo much. I did a quick test of the gear going up last night. Looks promising. I'll post an animation as soon as I get one worth viewing:)
Here are some detail shots. The pic is 1.2 megs so dial-up beware.
BTW I tripled it to eliminate render errors. The poly count is about 89,000 even tripled so i didn't take any real render time hits. Most of that is in the canopy and wheels which I didn't triple.
I never intend to get as close as these shots are and this lighting scheme makes the bumps a bit too pronounced:o

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/10-265004_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/10-265004.jpg)

[jman66]

Hey, thanks for posting those!

I think those close-ups hold up extremely well. Its wonderful to see all of the attention to detail that went into this by seeing the panels, stains, and everything right down to the streaks at the various connections.

[gpdesigner]

oh..great close up shots... I hate this plane more and more everytime I see it......:D
gp

[hunter]

Hi Everybody,
Been away fro a while and finally got to play. Motion kinda bites but I don't want to re-render until I get a better environment. Any tips?

corsair.mpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/30-991669.mpg)

[jman66]

I agree with the motion needing a bit of tweaking, it seems to pop up off of the runway a bit un-naturally, tho from what i can tell the gear sequence looks really good.

The whole scene reminds me of microsoft CFS2. Looks a little barren tho.. adding some buildings/ makeshift hangars/ aircraft to the scene would give it all a more "live" feeling. The colors seem a little too saturated, but maybe thats just me.

...sorry I cant be of more help, I'm not too good with that scenery kinda stuff.

[hunter]

No that helps. Seeing through a fresh set of eyes and all, and I agree with everthing you say. :)