Attached / Detached wing question

[notloste]

Hello everybody.

I have another question about the Il-2 project - about how the wings are joined to the fuselage.  I made the two as separate objects at first, but then decided to try and merge them into one because on the real airplane there is a smooth transition from wing to fuselage.



Because I made them separately, though, I'm constantly running into problems with things like smoothing and what not.  Here's what it looks like detached (I could polish it up a bit if I decide to leave it detached):



At this point, I'm leaning towards leaving them as two separate objects and not worrying about the intersection too much.

What's your opinion?


Thank you very much.

P.S. In case you want to know, here's what the transition actually looks like.  Ugly, I know.

[SilverFox441]

Crash damge will require seperate objects and texturing will be far easier with seperate objects.

It does look great though fully integrated.

Have you tried looking for another location for the break? Maybe someplace where there is a natural line that you can follow to make the joint less obvious.

If it could be seperated at the point on the wing where the faces are shown as being rather large then you would still have a rather smooth transition.

[Ivan]

OK looks like a M3 model...

Depending on the version (early or late) you need the following separate parts for shine levels
Armor tub: (from engine to the sides of the rear gunner positions) Metal
Rear part: fabric over wood
Tailplanes: fabric over metal (later full metal)
Wing: inner is metal, outer fabric over metal (old one is overall fabric over wood, newer one is all-metal)

Tailplane and wings got metal covering in 1943, before that fabric over metal frame (but i have the slight impression that older parts were used in field repair and when the metal stock of the factory was low in the initial months of that change)

Wings need to be separate from the body for breaking and painting.
Breaking usually occurs on the weaker spots, so put one near the start of the aileron if you are doing a 'woody' version. Metal ones tend to keep their structural integrity when not too badly hit.

When you do a woody, the wings do have metal plating on the walkable part (cockpit entry), which usually sheds it's paint quite fast

Full metal wings only became common on the postwar machines, so the outer stuff past the guns is metal with fabric.

For painting check out this site

[notloste]

In Reply To SilverFox:

This model is intended for FS2004, so crash damage is not an issue.  Also, I already tried texturing the wing when it's attached, and it doesn't appear to be a big problem.

About the location of the break, I really can't move it anywhere since this is where the wing is supposed to sit.

If it could be seperated at the point on the wing where the faces are shown as being rather large then you would still have a rather smooth transition.

Hmm, perhaps, what I should be doing is making the wing come to the fuselage rather than extruding the fuselage to match the wing.  Maybe I can avoid having bizzare faces that way.

I appreciate your help, SilverFox.  Thanks.  :)


In Reply To Ivan:
From the photos that I've seen, the body of the Il-2 is reasonably smooth and uniform (example) so that's probably how I'll go about the model.  That could well be a postwar airplane, I have no clue.

I really don't want to make visible seams in the body where they could be avoided.  Heck, I'd be willing to sacrifice a bit of historical accuracy for that.

Oh, thanks for the website Ivan!  It's going to be immensely helpful for the repaints, as well as some of the modeling.

Again, thank you very much.

[Felix/FFDS]

Remember - you don't have to have separate "parts" for separation of fabric/metal etc.

Careful texturing will *usually*  take care of most of these adjustments.

[Ivan]

Photo is a postwar 'all metal' one

this one is a wartime one that crashed in a lake. armor tub, tailplane and inner wing metal... rest wood (so rotten away or burned in the crash)

[notloste]

Okay, after the second pathetic attempt at joining wing to fuselage, I'm leaving them separate.  It appears this is the way that Milton Shupe and his team are making the Spartan 7w (link), as well as Captain Sim's Yak-3 (link)  

If it's good enough for them - it's most certainly good enough for me.

[notloste]

Oh, another question.  I tried changing the alpha channel on the texture to a shade of grey, and ended up with a nice see-through airplane.  How can I make it so the alpha channel indicates reflectivity, rather than opacity?

[Felix/FFDS]

[quote]Oh, another question.

[notloste]

On the makemdl options, did you click on "HasReflectMap"

No - how do you do that?  When exporting a model, the makemdl screen pops up for a few seconds, and it doesn't let me change any options.