Hello everyone,

I’m having difficulty at the moment modeling a ship hull.  I’m trying to model the Titanic, and although I’ve made significant progress on the superstructure there’s only so much you can do without a hull.  I’ve been trying for about a year without satisfactory results.

Anyways, onto the problem: I finally figured out that my graphics card COULD indeed display blueprints on planes as reference images, which is a HUGE plus.  Unfortunately, one of the images does not seem to be loading properly.  The body plan (view from the front) fits OK.  The profile plan (view from the side) cuts off somewhere - the full side of the ship isn’t visible and it’s stretched when I look at it in the viewport.  When I render it, however, the bitmap fits perfectly.

This is difficult to explain in words, so allow the attachments to help.  I did not move the camera or adjust any settings when I rendered the image.  You’ll notice the counter part of the stern - above the rudder - is significantly stretched out when you look at it in the viewport, whereas in the render it’s how it should look.  At the front of the reference plane, in the viewport the image is cropped; in the render, it shows up fine.  So, basically, my question is: what am I doing wrong?  I have “match bitmap size as closely as possible” enabled for both “background texture size” and “download textures size”.  When I turn these options off, the ship appears in full, but the quality is greatly reduced (so much so that it’s not worth even using the blueprint).

Also, as a side note, I’m trying to model the ship in 1:1 scale, which I know is going to get me in trouble, but I want to try it for the things I don’t have blueprints for but I have measurements for.  I have the scale set up to feet/inches, and therefore the reference planes are full-size (so, the length of the plane is the length of the ship, and the height of the plane is the height of the highest point on the ship.  The image is cropped to these extremes, which explains the white space).  I think I have the scale down so that it’s correct, but is there a more accurate way to do this, or is it just going to have to be me tweaking it by eye?

Any help would be appreciated ... I plan on poly modeling, but like I said, I haven’t had any good results for a year so any suggestions would be incredibly useful.

Thanks!

-BT7

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Thanks for your response.

I’ve looked at the old thread; unfortunately that doesn’t really apply here.  Titanic’s hull is a bit more complex than a fishing boat.  The actual modeling isn’t too difficult - the stern is a mess but that’s because I don’t have the shape of it down.  Then again, I’ve never tried modeling with reference planes, so hopefully it’ll be a little bit easier to get everything in roughly the right place.

I tried adding a UVW map, so it has to be my graphics card.  That sucks.  It should be expected though, this is a pretty low-end graphics card...I was surprised it even displayed the reference plans at all.  Might be time for an upgrade.

Thanks again!

-BT7

Could you post the scene (zipped), sans model, but including the planes and the image files. Would be useful to test it on another system - just in case it’s settings rather than hardware.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

A possible workaround, you could trace the sheer plan with vectors in a graphics app like Illustrator, then import them into max. Use them as splines or as guides for modelling.

In the illustrations, I see a series of vertical lines.

If those represent sections, and you have the drawings for the sections, then you could “trace” the sections to create spline objects. Either attach them altogether into a single spline object and Connect (? I think that’s right, don’t have Max open) and then convert to Editable Poly; or use the spline sections as Shapes in a Loft compound object.

Better yet, find a copy of Ted Boardman’s 3ds Max 6 Fundamentals. There are 38 pages describing how to create a boat hull, which looks amazingly similar to yours. Done with 2 Box objects for the front and back portions of one side, then Symemetry modifier to create the other half.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

I think the problem is more in getting the ref-planes to display correctly, not the actual modelling. He has the body plan in the front viewport OK, so he can trace out the sections, but he’ll want the sheer plan to place the sections on the Y axis. Although they may all be at set intervals along the ship’s length, there looks to be more at the stern than the midships area, and probably the bow too. So he could place the sections numerically by typing in the Y value using the sheer plan (not on the ref plane, but a print or image file) to find the distance.
Most of the hull geometry is defined by the sections, but he will still need the sheer plan to get the profile of the stern and bow.

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the long delay in posting, things have been a little busy around here.

That’s a good idea about tracing the lines in Illustrator.  The plans are high-quality so that would be a good start; however, don’t you have to scale the plans up by like 1000%?  The thing I’m trying to do is model the hull in real-world dimensions.  (I know, everyone’s going to jump on me - that’s a bad idea!!!! - but this is a personal learning exercise and it will be beneficial down the road in this project.  Realism is a key factor here.  I’m not going for 8-poly model, I’m going for extreme detail wherever possible.  I know that on my computer, especially if my graphics card isn’t good enough, I’ll have to cut a few corners and cheat a little, but I’d like to keep the shapes consistent with history.

I will try posting a scene later so you can see if it displays for you all as it should for me.  I’ll also try the Illustrator method ... do I just export the file as .ai and then import it into Max?

Thanks for all your help so far! :)

-BT7

EDIT: Also - this started off as a question about using reference planes, but it also is slightly a question of how do I go about modeling this.  I’m planning on using polys w/ splines as references, but I cannot model a counter stern for the life of me.  The bow won’t be so hard - after all, it just tapers to a point really - but the stern is weird because there are several different things that need to be considered.  Attached is an image of Titanic’s stern.  Note how there are basically four sections if you look at it from the top down: the vertical section painted white (where the portholes are), a section that’s angled at about 45 degrees, another section that’s angled even more, and then a vertical section that goes all the way to the bottom.  (The rudder is/was a separate element and it will be added later).  So I need to have the hull be smooth all over, but still have some “knuckles” and hard edges for these areas.  It’s just a mess to try and work out the shape - I have enough images and reference materials but any ideas on how I might go about this would be appreciated as well! :)

EDIT #2: I forgot the image.  Whoops!

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Reference Planes:
It helps if you scan the plans at the same DPI/PPI on the scanner.

Here is what I do:
1. Scan the different views at the same pixels per inch on the scanner. Assuming the plans are all to the same scale.
2. Import into Photoshop
3. Layer all the plans into a single Photoshop document; change the Canvas size as necessary to accommodate the different views.
4. Turn off the visibility of all but the Background and Layer01. Change the visibility of Layer01 to 50% or so, then move the layer so that the lines in Layer01 line up with corresponding detail in the Background. Change the Canvas size as needed.
5. Turn off the visibility of Layer01, turn on Layer02 and repeat the Move to align the details.
6. Repeat the process with all the remaining layers.
7. Check the alignment once more by setting the visibility at 10-20% per layer.
8. Crop the image to remove large areas without relevant detail information, then change the visibility of each layer back to 100%.
9. Turn off all the layers and Save the Background (lets say its the right side view).
10. Turn on Layer01 and Save the document with a new name (example: Frontveiw.png)
11. Turn on each additional layer in turn and Save with a corresponding file name.

What you have now are a series of images, each identical in size (pixel dimension) to the others.
Note the pixel dimension. Example X=3000, Y=800.

In Max, set the display unit to your choice. If I’m working 1 Unit = 1 Inch, I like to set my Display Units to Feet with Decimal Inches.

1. Create a Plane in the front viewport (Example: Length = 800, Width = 1000). Right-click to Object Properties and turn ON Backface Cull. This is so you can see through the Plane from the backside. You may need to re-Rotate and Move some of the Planes.
2. Apply a Standard material, with the Frontview.png as the Diffuse color map at 100% Self Illumination.
3. Shift+Rotate to create Copies for the additional Planes for each of the other views.
4. Drag and drop the first material into other material slots in the Material Editor to make Copies. Rename each and load in one of the other reference views for each. Assign these materials to the corresponding Planes.
5. Group all the Planes.
6. Using the Left and/or Top images as a references, create a Box to the known dimensions of the hull. Right-click to Object Properties and turn on See Through.
7. Select the Group. Uniform Scale so that the reference images match the “size” the the hull stand-in Box.
8. Ungroup the Planes and move as needed.

Other variations are possible.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

The thing I’m trying to do is model the hull in real-world dimensions.  (I know, everyone’s going to jump on me - that’s a bad idea!!!!

That’s a good idea. Always model to correct scale in Max. It’s just a case of choosing sensible system units for the size of scene. I wouldnt use mm’s to model something the size of Titanic, more like meters, but feet & inches should be better for you since the plans will not be metric and the inches will be good for the finer details.

The plans are high-quality so that would be a good start; however, don’t you have to scale the plans up by like 1000%?

If you use Illustrator, trace it at the scale of the paper plans, I’m not sure Illustrator will handle titanic sizes well, but Max will. Scale them up in Max after you import them. If you plan to use the traced splines as a basis for the model, Reset the scale, or scale in SOM. If they are just for reference, it doesn’t matter.
I’ll also try the Illustrator method ... do I just export the file as .ai and then import it into Max?
Max can be a bit funny about importing .AI files, export to an older lagacy .AI file, not a straight save or it won’t work.

As for the modelling, with reference to my thread with the trawler, although it’s a much smaller simpler vessel, the same modelling technique could be applied.
First draw the sections fom the body plan. It would be tempting the faithfuly copy the exact smooth curves with beziers, but I would probably use just a few straight corner verts to rough it out to begin with, so it starts off as a lo-poly approximation. Put some thought into how many and where the verts are, they will define the longitudal edge loops. You have already identified the four segments from the photo, so that’s a start to where the section verts (edge loops) will be. Looking at the photo, there is an visible edge half way down the deep straight bottom part, so that’s another vert/loop, I would also add some more near the keel to allow for modelling the bulge where the side prop comes out and the hole for the mid prop.
When placing the verts on the body plan, if you are going to use subdivision smoothing (which you may well to smooth out the lo-poly), don’t put the verts on the lines, but place them so the mid sections are tangent to them. Because the subdivision smooths like B-splines, not beziers.
Once you have the sections drawn out, place them on the Y axis according to the sheer plan. You may use the reference image to do that, but it’s more accurate to do it numericaly, refering to the plan for each section’s distance from the datum.
When they are in place, draw in the longitudal loops by goining the dots with vertex snap on. You will need the half breadth plan to get the rounded curve at the top of the stern. I’ve done a very rough sketch over the photo to give some idea of how the lo-poly roughing out medel may go on the stern. When you have your splines drawn, attach them all and apply a surface modifier, you may get rid of the steps to let mesh smoooth or turbo smoothe handle the smoothing. Set smoothing groups as appropriate before subdividing, then you can separate these groups with the smoothing mod. After appling the subdivision smoothing, you may want to go back in the stack and twaek the spline verts for more accuracy. Then on top of the stack, add an edit poly to further refine the mesh and add details, you may need an edit poly before the smoothing to refine the result.

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BT7,

Looking at your top reference image, if you could post that at a higher resolution (pixel dimension) so that the text is visible, all the information you need is there.

What would be really useful is a stern view showing the sections for the vertical lines we see in the side view. However, with a better side view, you can figure out the sections for the vertical lines.

Please post it here. If it will not attach directly due to oversize pixel dimensions, Zip it first, then attach.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

I had a go this afternoon at modelling a ship’s hull. It’s not the Titanic I’m afraid, I couldn’t find a set if lines drawings on the web for it, so I’ve done this rather smaller brig that I have lines for. It’s a bit of a different hull, it has a transom stern and no props, so no hole in the skeg, or bulges in the side for the side props, so thats a bit more modelling for you, but it illustrates the method I use for boats. It’s not perfect since I knocked it up quickly as an example. I’m sorry but the file is a Max 2010 file, I never thought when I started it, that the thread is in the 2009 forum.

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leon01.zip