There's got to be an easier way to do these hull plates...

andar_b

I've finally got the warhead hull smooth and the shape is good enough for me, but I'm REALLY struggling to figure out a way to do the hull plating pattern, in order to get it looking similar to the original Defiant model. I'm dead broke, and Max won't run on any of my computers, so I'm stuck with Blender.

I spent another four or five hours working on it today, but still wound up with nothing worth using, though I think it was closer than I was before. There are some things that Blender just doesn't do, or you have to do it totally manual.

Due to the variety of curves, lines, and corners in the plates, and the fact that they frequently wrap around a soft or hard edge, it's not as easy as grabbing faces and extruding them. I do appreciate the suggestions that have been made, but I can't figure out a workflow that will even function, let alone one that is easy.

I'll assume that everyone knows more or less what the Defiant looks like. If not, my thread in the WIP section has some photos and such.

As I said in the other thread, I may have to go with texturing only, and forget modeling the plates. As it is, I have to redo the nacelles completely and half the back end to correct the shape, I just realized today when I placed the model over the corrected blueprints.