To create the wings, first you make some adjustments to the contours of the fuselage.
NoteIf you feel comfortable with the techniques shown in the previous lessons, and don’t feel like going through all the steps
to build a wing, you can skip ahead to
Creating the Cockpit.
Set up the lesson:
- Continue working on your scene from the previous lesson, or open \modeling\p47\p47_02.max,
- If you open the file, select the P-47. On the ribbon Polygon Modeling panel, click Modify Mode, and then click (Previous Modifier) to go to the Editable Poly level of the stack.
- On the ribbon Polygon Modeling panel, click (Show End Result) to turn it on.
Create the “foundation” for the left-hand wing:
- On the ribbon Edit panel, click (SwiftLoop).
- In the Front viewport, use SwiftLoop to create a longitudinal loop of edges near the bottom of the fuselage.
- Right-click to exit the SwiftLoop tool.
- Go to the (Vertex) sub-object level.
- On the ribbon Edit panel, activate (Constrain To Edge).
- In the Front viewport, along the edge above the new edge loop, move vertices vertically to make a contour that will surround the wing faces.
- On the ribbon Edit panel, activate (Constrain To None).
- Click (Vertex) again to exit the Vertex sub-object level.
- On the ribbon Edit panel, click (Cut).
- In the Front viewport, use the Cut tool to creae edges around the outline of the wing. You can use some of the blueprint image
to help locate these cuts, but for the forward part of the wing, use the contour above it and the following illustration.
- Right-click to exit the Cut tool.
- Turn on (Cut) once again, and as you did for the stabilizer, add edges from the free-standing vertices at the leading and trailing
edges of the wing to the nearby corner vertices, to make sure all polygons are quadrangular.
- Right-click to exit the Cut tool.
Begin to extrude the wing:
- Go to the (Polygon) sub-object level.
- Click and Ctrl+click to select the faces that make up the base of the wing.
- On the ribbon Polygons panel, click (Extrude). Then drag to extrude the faces a short distance.
TipAs you did for the stabilizer, drag in the Front viewport but watch your work in other viewports, especially the Top view.
- On the ribbon Align panel, click (Align X).
- Scale the faces along their X axis and move them in both X and Y so the wing extrusion matches the blueprint image in the Top viewport.
TipThis step won’t work if constraints are active: Make sure that
(Constrain To None) is active.
- In the Left view, scale and move the faces along their Y axis so the wing matches the blueprint image.
TipAt this point, if the upper surface of the wing seems too low, you can go to the
(Vertex) sub-object level, activate
(Constrain To Edge), and
move the vertices along the base of the wing’s upper edge upward along the fuselage (it’s easiest to select these vertices
in the Perspective viewport). Be sure to activate
(Constrain To None) when you’re done.
- At the (Polygon) sub-object level, extrude the wing as far as the seam at its middle.
- Scale the faces along their X axis and move them in both X and Y so the wing extrusion matches the blueprint image in the Top viewport.
- Also scale and move the wing in the Left viewport, so it matches the blueprint image.
Finish extruding and shaping the wings:
- Extrude the wing as far as the last seam.
- Once again, scale and move the faces so the wing matches the blueprint image in the Top viewport.
- Do the same in the Left viewport.
- Extrude the wing again, this time to the very tip.
NoteThe long edge segments don’t do justice to the curvature of the wings, especially at their trailing edges. In the next lesson,
you will refine these the way you refined the curvature of the fuselage.
- In the Left viewport, scale and move the faces to match the wing to the blueprint image.
- Go to the (Vertex) sub-object level.
- In the Top viewport, use region selection to select pairs of vertices (top and bottom), and move them so the curve of the wing tip matches the blueprint image.