[keinmann]

I've been fooling around with a free 3D modeling program called "Wings 3D", just to get the hang of modeling before I go out and buy a very powerful program. I've gotten the hang of making different shapes, and different methods of editing and modifying geometry (somewhat, lol). What I want to do now is just make a basic model of something like a Bf109, or similar aircraft. However, I've been having trouble setting up some blueprints as a reference image. I have problems getting each view of the aircraft scaled correctly and lined up properly. I'm not quite sure what I can do to correct this, as I've even tried rescaling my images in photoshop to proper size. If anyone can give me any tips on this, it will be a great help! Thanks!

!S

[asheshouse]

I have not used Wings 3D but I would guess it is similar to other packages.

I assume that you have some good 3-view images.
Side View
Front View
Top View

Make sure they are all the same scale then crop them so that they are the same relative sizes in pixels.
Make the crop precisely at the tips of each part of the image.
So Top is x pixels by y pixels
Side is x pixels by z pixels
Front is y pixels by z pixels.

check the proportion of x:y should be the same as length/span from technical data.
--- and from that you can calculate z

In Wings 3D make a box dimensions x by y by z in metres.
Explode the box into separate planes and erase 3 of the planes.
Apply your cropped images to each of the remaining planes.
You may have to rotate them to line them up correctly.
They should be correctly aligned.

Theres a brief tutorial here http://www.onnovanbraam.com/index.php?t ... int_setup/
Not exactly as I've described, but there's more than one way to skin a cat as they say.

[keinmann]

Thanks a lot, man! Really can't thank you enough. I found other tutorials which weren't much help, but now I have a much better understanding of what to do. One tutorial was explaining how to export an image plane object and use a program called "LithUnwrap" to apply the reference images to it, which you could then import back to your 3D modeling program. It worked fine for the sample images they had, however I couldn't get it to work with my aircraft blueprints. I'm going to try what you told me though, and see what happens. I'll ask questions if I have anymore probs.

I do want to ask one thing though. Where could I find some good quality blueprints to use as reference images? I'm not sure if the ones I have could be considered "good quality". If you could link me to some, or even post some, I would appreciate that as well.

[keinmann]

I took a few screenies of a Spitfire Vb CW I've been working on. I had a LOT of help with this, so don't think I did this ALL by myself! LOL!

[RAF_Magpie]

Moved. Please post in the correct sections...

[keinmann]

Oops! hock: Sorry about that magpie! I wasn't quite sure where to post, so thanks for clarifying!