Model 1: Spaceship with more details

          Today, I decided to add a propeller into my engine so that it will look better (Figure 1). I saw this method from a classmate and tried it. It worked well and I am happy with the result. I can say that it add more attraction to my spaceship. I just made one of it then duplicate it with the Mirror tool. By applying the Align tool and Move tool, the propellers sitted in the right position.

Figure 1. Added propeller

Figure 2. Closer look to the propeller

Total Polys: 4, 542
Total Verts: 3, 912

          I also learned something today about the Layers and applied it into my work. Beside grouping the same elements, it is better to put them into layer like we are doing in Photoshop. Layers make the objects put into an invisible plane so that it will be easier to manipulate object and to speed up the rendering time.

Figure 2. Manage Layers

Model 3: Space Tank Part 3 of 3

          This time, I added another object and I called this as the armour stand. At first, I made used of a single box and added new edges with QuickSlice then move some vertices. Unfortunately, I did not get the design that I want. If you take a look at my previous post where my base model is, the armour stand's edges (the top armour) are visible unlike what I made (it looks kinda flat in Realistic mode). So I decided to used Pyramid and manipulate the pyramid's vertices such us moving the vertices and Weld two or more vertices to somehow looks like my base model. Thus, the result is much better than the first method I used (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Armour stand

          One of the importing thing in making the tank is moving and aligning the objects. From the box to the Pyramid along side with another box and checking every angle if there are unwanted part. Figure 2 looks easy but I carefully move the vertices and the element even used X-ray mode to see if it is in the right position.

Figure 2. Aligning the elements

     
          My front big armour (Figure 3) is not as good as my base model but somehow I managed to make it look neat.

Figure 3. Front big armour

     
          I named Figure 4 as my rocket stand.  The technique I used here is the Reference option from the Mirror tool. So that if ever I will do some modification, the other one will automatically modified. Therefore, it will save time. However, I used the Copy option in the middle element. The reason behind this is that, when I first duplicate the image by Reference then deleted some polygons from it, I realised that the other element's polygons are gone too. Good thing there is undo option and I was able to redo the step but with different approached.

Figure 4. Rocket stand

         Because I always accidentally moved the tank's body, the alignment between the body A and body B (from my previous post, I duplicate the half of the body) is a disaster. To end this problem, I attached both of them and combine the vertices (Figure 5) so that it will become as one element.

Figure 5.  Attach and Weld

          In making the rockets (Figure 6), I just made one then duplicated it. The red circle in the middle of the rocket, I did not add another element but made used of the polygon of the cylinder. I detached the polygon, changed the colour and then attached it back to the cylinder. Moreover, I did not extend the box up to the front rather I aligned it from edge inside the rocket box. This is because it covered the rockets. I did try using the Boolean but I failed. But if I'm going to do the same step, I thought of using the slice then make a rectangle and use Boolean option. Another method would be after slicing,  delete the unwanted polygon then just create polygons to cover the hole.

Figure 6. Rockets

          Figure 7 shows some details I added to the rocket holder. I felt like I should put something on that place because the cylinder holder is too small for the rocket box. If this is true, the rocket box might collapse because it is too heavy with loads of rockets inside and nothing supports it.

Figure 7. Added details on the rocket holder

          I created so many elements. By grouping them as shown in Figure 8, it will be much easier to locate each elements and it looks neat and in order.

Figure 8. Grouping

          After so many hours I spent in doing this and errors encountered, I finally finished my space tank as seen in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Space tank in Realistic view

Figure 10. Space tank in Wireframe view

Total Polys: 14, 933
Total Verts: 10, 314

          There is a huge amount of polygons in this model, it is because of the details I put and some of the errors I made. For those people who are making models for gaming, it is better for the model to have a small amount of polygons so that it will be rendered easily and not too heavy for the program. But for us, Media and Internet students, this is okay.

Model 3: Space Tank Part 2 of 3

          For my front design, I used box to make it. As you can see (Figure 1), I added more height to my box. This is because I wan to cover the flaws of the tank. When I put this object with Autogrid, it was not placed properly, maybe because the body of the tank was not flat. So I rotate and move the object.

Figure 1. Front design

Figure 2. Side design

          The side design took me a long time to make it. It is because of the angle of that part so I did a lot of rotating and moving the object. As shown in Figure 2, I added a rectangular shape object and made it into X-ray mode so that I could see the shape of the tank's body. With this method, it is easier for me to add edges using QuickSlice patterned to the body of the tank. I added more details on this design by slicing and extruding it (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Add details and Extrude polygon

           Unfortunately, there was a problem with this method. As you can see in Figure 3, the lower part of the side design is so messy. It is the outcome of extruding the polygon. In addition to that, there are gaps between polygons. To overcome this problem, I decided to move the vertices and cover the gap and I even deleted unwated polygons (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Moving the vertex to cover the gap

          I just realised that it would be much easier to delete the side polygons and then create new polygons using the Create option. This method might give me a neat outcome compared to what I have done. Anyway, I did not do it because of the effort I put when doing the messy method.