#20 - Assignment Models - Jedi Star fighter 5

Modelling the cockpit for the Jedi star fighter was a whole mission on its own. I began by using the bezier curve tool to draw the outline of the cockpit from the side view, then tried to revolve it into a 3D shape. The revolve tool would not work for me so instead I used the planar tool to add divisions and extrude the faces that had been created. Once I had a rough shape, I used the smooth tool to try and add curvature to the cockpit, which was essentially just blocks at different positions extruded from the bezier curve. Here was my next big problem; lots and lots of vertices were added in totally random places, although it did make my model rounder. I spent the next 30 minutes using the target weld tool and the move tool to remove many of these stray vertices, mould the cockpit into a more accurate shape, and pull vertices out to give more curvature. This, obviously, was the least efficient way of achieving the curved shape, however ultimately, I ended up with a decent shape (after much trial and error). I pulled the bottom vertices out to match the base of the cockpit to the schematic, which also allowed for a better curve as only the bottom was moving. Once the shape was right I used the mirror tool on the Z axis to reflect the other half of the cockpit onto the body.

Here you can see all the random faces and vertices inside the shape.

To be totally honest, I do not have a reliable schematic for the shape of the cockpit from the side or front views, as my two schematics are different, so I have matched the shape of the base to the top view schematic. Therefore, the shape of the rest of the cockpit will be decided by me, without using a schematic. So far, I have kept it looking fairly accurate, using what I know the cockpit to look like from the films. It is round, and could use a bit more smoothing but I will touch on that when doing the final details, rather than having to change it twice if I make a further change to the body.

I almost needed to restart this cockpit, and if I had I would have taken much more time at the start to get the shape of the cockpit right before using the smooth tool for the first time, to prevent so many vertices appearing. I also realised that the reason the revolve tool wouldn't work is because I forgot to move the pivot point again, so perhaps I could revolve the shape 50% of the circumference to create a cockpit on the top half of the main body, before extruding it inwards and reshaping it. When I first smoothed the cockpit the number of vertices inside the object was ridiculous, and would definitely have destroyed the processing efficiency when rendering. They weren't even visible as they were inside the cockpit. I did manage to target weld about 95% of them though, so that problem is hopefully solved. I imagine I'll find out when I try and render it. Regardless, this is not the best part of the model overall, and although for now I believe it is fine, hopefully I'll have time to improve it much more, generally by smoothing individual faces to avoid massive poly counts like I had before. In fact, I intend for this part of the model to be translucent, so for the purpose of the animation it probably won't even need to be any smoother, as it won't be close enough to the camera either. As it is, if it is translucent the curves will be barely noticeable.