In this lesson, you make one adjustment to correct an artifact that occurred when you created the horizontal stabilizers, and then you use NURMS smoothing to check the overall model.

Set up the lesson:

• Continue working from the previous lesson.

Adjust the join between the stabilizers and the fuselage:

1. Press Alt+X to turn off X-Ray display.
2. On the ribbon Polygon Modeling panel, click to turn on (Show End Result).
3. In the Perspective viewport, zoom in (and otherwise adjust the view as necessary) to get a good view of the area where the left-side stabilizer joins the fuselage. Press F4 to turn off Edged Faces display.

   

   The horizontal stabilizers look good, but where they join the fuselage, there are two faces that are awkwardly narrow. You can fix this by moving a single vertex.

4. Go to the (Vertex) sub-object level.
5. In the Perspective viewport, zoom in still further to get a good view of the vertices that surround the narrow faces.

   

6. On the ribbon Edit panel, activate (Constrain To Edge).
7. Turn on (Select And Move), then select the forward vertex where the narrow faces join.

   

8. Move the vertex forward along the edge so the fuselage faces have more area.

   

   The wider faces will smooth more easily.

9. On the ribbon Edit panel, activate (Constrain To None).
   ImportantWhen you forget that a constraint is on, surprising things can happen when you transform sub-objects. Because of this, it is a good idea to deactivate a constraint as soon as you have finished using it. Also, the buttons in this set behave like radio buttons. You can’t turn a constraint off by clicking its button a second time: You must activate Constrain To None to deactivate the currently active constraint.
10. Exit the (Vertex) sub-object level.

Use NURMS to check the appearance of the P-47:

1. In the Perspective view, zoom out and pan so you can see the entire airplane again.

   

2. On the ribbon Edit panel, click (Use NURMS).

   

   The NURMS option (it stands for Non-Uniform Rational Mesh Smooth, an industry-standard method) is provided for smoothing editable polygon surfaces.

3. On the ribbon Use NURMS panel, increase the number of iterations to 2.

   

   The airplane model, with its stabilizers, is looking good. Some faces, especially those at the air intake, are being smoothed more than they ought to be: You will fix this in a later lesson.

4. Click (Use NURMS) again to turn it off.
5. Click (Polygon) again to exit the Polygon sub-object level.