Creating the Gondola

Modeling an Airplane

Refining the Airplane

 

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials >  Modeling Tutorials > Modeling an Airplane > 

Finishing the Plane

One major step remains: to link the plane into a single hierarchy. Before it's airworthy, however, you'll also need to rotate it into the proper orientation and adjust a pivot.

Load a start file

• Continue from the previous lesson, Creating the Gondola , or you can load p38_lightning.max found in the /tutorials/p38_lightning folder.

To work properly with Microsoft Flight Simulator (FS), the pivot point of an aircraft used by FS as its center, should be midway between the propellers, and a quarter of the way back from the front of the wings. In this procedure, you'll make that adjustment in the Top viewport.

Adjust the gondola pivot

1. Activate the Top viewport and press Alt+W to maximize it.
2. Select the gondola object.
3. In the Command panel, click the Hierarchy tab. In the Adjust Pivot rollout, click Affect Pivot Only.

   

   The gondola's pivot becomes visible, near its rear.

   

   The gondola's pivot resembles the transform gizmo.

4. Use Select And Move to move the pivot downward along its Y axis so that the pivot is about a quarter of the way back from the front of the wings.

   

   The gondola's pivot properly positioned.

5. In the Adjust Pivot rollout, click Affect Pivot Only again to turn it off.

Currently the plane looks like a single object, but it's really just a collection of unconnected parts. You can demonstrate this, if you like, by moving one of the parts, such as the gondola (if you do move it, be sure to undo before continuing). In this section, you'll connect all the parts into a hierarchy, so that moving the gondola moves the entire plane.

Build a hierarchy for the plane

1. Using the Select And Link tool, link the wing object to the gondola object. Click on the wing and drag the cursor over to the gondola, then release.
2. Next, link the two sponson objects to the wing object.
3. Continue linking until all objects belong to the same hierarchy, with the gondola as the topmost node. You can start in the Top viewport, but you'll probably need to use the others as you go along.

   How you link objects is up to you; the only firm rule is that the gondola must be above all the other objects in the hierarchy. As a rough guide, link small objects to larger nearby objects. For example, you might link the propeller objects to their related spinners, and then the spinners to their sponsons. This would create a three-level hierarchy, with the sponson at the top, the spinner as its child, and the propeller blades as the spinner's children and the sponson's grandchildren.

   As you work, keep switching to Select And Move and move the gondola to see which objects come along with it. When you're finished, no objects should be left behind when you move the gondola.

   You can also check the hierarchy by clicking the Select By Name button on the toolbar (or press the H key), and on the Select Objects dialog, turn on Display Subtree. This displays the hierarchy as an tiered list, with the parent object at the top.

   

The final step is to rotate the plane so that it's pointing upward in the Top viewport. Otherwise you'll start out flying backward.

Turn the plane around

1. In the Top viewport, select the gondola.
2. On the toolbar, click the Select And Rotate button.
3. On the status bar at the bottom of the screen, in the Coordinate Display area, enter 180 in the Z field.

   When you press Enter, the displayed value changes to –180.0, which is the same thing, rotation-wise.

   

   Also, the plane reverses its orientation in the Top viewport, facing upward.

   

4. Save your work as myp38.max. Or you can open the completed file p38_lightning_final.max.