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The Guppy Spacecraft



We will build a little model spaceship called Guppy,

We will try to extrude a lot of the bodywork to try and keep poly count down, but I expect it will start to go a bit haywire when we begin adding some detail.

We will try to do some videos but it will start of as  text based ( with Screenshots).
We do hope you follow along and possibly provide some input whilst we ramble along. Use the image above to loosely base
the model on, we will NOT add every detail to the image shown , but you can enhance how you wish.

Make sure you are in front View, Object Mode(Default)
Lets drag out a parametric Sphere, and while its still parametric double left click it to get the editor box and
change DIV lon to 18 and Lat to 12  click ok.
Menu/Edit Rotate x90.
Menu/Edit Rotate y90.
Menu/Build/Convert to mesh.



Select Point Mode (Point icon on)
Lets cut a few Edges Select the Knife tool Shift/C
and then make some cuts per the screenshot(make sure both front and back are selected and hopefully if you
are careful enough the cuts will go through to the back of the sphere as well. Just make sure they have when you
have completed it (switch to back view to see ) if any have missed then unselect BACK and complete those cuts.
Remember to switch back on again when you have done this and return to Front View.




Select Point Mode (Face icon On)

Select all the faces that have been cut from the main sphere, This will form the Visor/Window for the
craft. You can either multi -select them or use Ctrl and right click your way round until they are all selected.
See screenshot. With all faces highlighted use Menu/Edit/Detach Faces.




Lets make this a new object.
Select Object Mode.
The Visor part should be highlighted with its bounding box ( if not just click it) do a Ctrl/C to copy the object
then  Menu/Object/New Object and paste Ctrl/V  Use Menu/Settings/Object to rename this to "Visor"
Now switch back to the original object highlight the visor and use delete to erase it from the sphere.
To not get confused with various objects that will be created in this workshop I would recommend you rename the sphere to "Ship Body".
We are now ready to manipulate the bodywork

In the Screenshot Below I have drawn out slightly The points at the top and bottom of the Hole/



Lets build the intake Cowl on top of the ship. Select the faces as shown in the screenshot and extrude them up



We have adjusted the points once we were happy with the height of the cowl, so that they followed roughly the shape
 of the Sphere.


 Shift to left view and select the two faces on the front of the Cowl then use Shift/M to merge the
faces.



We have adjusted the points to make them more equal in relationship to each other,  then we have selected the face and extruded it inwards into the body, afterwards we have gone ito edge mode and selected all the edges around the front cowl and Bevelled them with the bevel tool. You may need to flip the faces on the model once you do this as they have a tendency to flip when using the bevel tool.



So we have the top cowl done , lets attend to the font of the ship now,

We need to select the edges on the front as shown in the next screenshot



Make sure both Front and back are selected when you select the edges using the multiselect tool,  then use
the extrude edges tool Shift/E to drag another set of edges you will need to use the scale and move tools to roughly follow the contour of the ships front.

and I attach a series of screenshots to help you do this.





Finally for this section you will have to join across the points that have been made when extruding these
edges. and then one you have filled them with faces, can use the knife tool (In Front Only)  to divide
these faces.



Continuing on...

Lets make some side pods now... Select on both sides of the model in face mode these faces per the screenshot below:



Then using Multiextrude drag them out just slightly:



Then again fully out to the size you want:




You will see from the above screenshots The three faces or each side have been merged using Shift/M
We can now inset them in then using a combination of single extrude and scale face drag them into the bodywork. the complete sections should look so below:



Now turn your model using Arc Rotate (Ctrl/R) so that the rear of the ship is visble and select t the two
faces shown below:



Inset them then delete the resulting faces, Now go to edge mode and select those edges that made up the inset
edges and drag them out using the Extrude edges tool Shift/E
These will make up the exhaust ports so you can do what you like with them to make them look cool.




Now rotate the ship around to see the cockpit and select in edge mode all the edges that make up the cockpit


scale the edges initally then use the edge extrude to make another set of edges , move then in and scale and finally make another set of edges and scale move  to make them as per screen shot below:


Rotate the ship to the underside and select the following faces...



Use the flatten command found in Menu/Edit/Flatten and do normal , this will later make up the undercarriage.

Lets move round to the rear of the ship , and select all those faces indicated in the screenshot which we will merge with Shift/M



and the we can start using the single extrude tool and scale face tool to drag out a main exhaust port.



Ready for another bout?

Adding more bits to our ship, Now you could really go to town adding refinements to the sphere, but I will try to keep the poly count down as I said before in the very first post to this tutorial.

Select the faces as shown in the next screenshot Front and Back views.



Extrude them out using multiextrude then scale in with the scale face tool.
then select two faces as shown (Both sides)



Have you used the Bump Tool?

In the next screenshot I have bumped those two faces (Both sides)




then turning the ship round bump those faces, The next shot involes scaling , and single extrusion to get
what will be a tubular vent I finally inset the last face and extruded it in



Select these faces both sides and then bump them three times.



Then these faces but extrude out




Select this irregular polygon ( again both sides )



Inset it then extrude out a couple of times.



Finally for this session highlight the model, then do a Menu/Build/Subdivide to see how its looking...
Hopefully it will look something like so...




Don`t forget to undo the last operation before saving the model. If you do save it as a Subdivision, just double click it, in the pop up requester change the 2 and 3 to  0 and 1 then Menu/Build/Convert to Mesh

If you find this useful then please do let us know and we will finish it off with the Visor!

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Well this is it...... We have finished with this piece  Firstly I must thank Ensoniq5, Falloffalot, Headwax and Roygee for making their valuable contributions towards this project without your support guys,  this would not have been possible.

As a major community project goes, I have learned some pointers, and will put those into practice for the forthcoming one.

Some submissions I had to omit, whilst others have been used though they were not quite finished.


Please bear in mind the animation is 11 minutes long (324.5Meg).... and may take some time to buffer.

All The models submitted were constructed using Anim8or, however, all animation, lighting and rendering were done with Carrara

FUNFAIR

or view on Youtube at


A new Project is in progress at Animanon