[straswa]

Hey guys, attempting to model my first ship for IL2, the USS Ranger.


It still needs alot of revamping to make it IL2 ready, but it's coming along.












Current poly count stands at 13,125.

[VT-51_Razor]

Wouldn't it be better to have the stacks folded down, as they would be for flight operations?

[COBRA19]

NICE , NICE .

[rossmum]

Excuse the bluntness, but either you've made it all wonky, or my eyes are worse than I thought. Are you aligning things by eye? Break the habit, I learned that one the hard way.

What program are you using?

[straswa]

Program is 3DS Max. This actually started as a class project, but now I want to import it into IL2.

Yes, I know the shape is not exactly right, I plan to work on that as time goes on.

I started with blueprints, but as it came together I started to go off the plans. I'm going back to them when I work on it next.

Yeah, aligning things by eye does not produce good results.

Things to do:
-Smooth/cut away excess hull per the blueprints
-Carve out openings to represent an open hangar
-Add more detail to island/flight deck
-Improve the current guns/add AA guns
-Lose the standard texture on it now



Anything else you guys can think to better improve my model I'd be happy to hear them.

Thanks.

[American]

Anything else you guys can think to better improve my model I'd be happy to hear them.

Thanks.

Start all over this looks to be way to bad of a start to be brutally honest.

[asheshouse]

You will probably be quickest starting afresh with this. The hull shape is one of the trickiest bits to get right.
You need to start with some good drawings and must have a drawing of the hull lines.
Set all these up as reference images on planes. You must spend as much time as necessary to get these correctly scaled and aligned to each other before you start modelling. The image below is my "work area"
Set them up so that the bow points towards -ve y axis, the hull should be centred on the origin of the axis with sea level at zero on the z axis. (This is important later when importing the model into the game).



All the images are aligned and to scale. The hull lines details are shown to the right.
Model one side of the hull using planes and use the symmetry modifier to create the other side.
Start with a single plane mid-ships and get the vertices correctly located in 3D space. Once the first one is correct then extrude the edges to create more planes. I think its easier to do it this way than to start with a large solid and try and trim it down.

I make the superstructure elements "off model", using the detail sheets you see in the image, then move them onto the model when they are complete.

Ranger is quite a complicated model. Not an easy one to do as a first project. Good luck with it.

[American]

^Kool

[straswa]

Wow, thanks for the very detailed advice.

I see I totaly had my blueprints set up wrong. I just had the side shot and that was it.

Perhaps you are right with starting over, that way I can get a correct shape.

Thanks again.

[VT-51_Razor]

Good luck Straswa. I hope you complete this model. It's a very worthy project. The Ranger was pretty active in the European theater during the early part of the war and would make a great addition to the mission builders' bag of tricks. :wink:

[straswa]

I agree. The Ranger is my favorite WWII US carrier. I will do my best to see this project through.

[American]

I really like the ranger because it has launched p-40 from it;s deck before :p


Well man hit me up if you need help kool? i aint got much time but i really like the ranger as well.

[glbellairs]

I love the Ranger because it had such a long history :wink: 1934-1946 :!: To bad they scrapped it :evil: :!:

[spitfire13]

if you can would it be possible to have a moveing elevator??

[Scharnhorst1943]

if you can would it be possible to have a moveing elevator??

Do you realize what that entails?

I am with you and would love to see this ... however ... I don't think this is even possible in IL-2, unfortunately.

All I am saying is that when the top #1 modder at this site says it is damn near impossible ... not a good sign. I think we should instead push really hard for this in SOW, BOB & later addons.