Modeling the Bell X-1 Rocket Plane in Blender - Part 1
Modeling A Piece of Aviation History
Hello, folks! I finally have time to write and blog again. With all the stuff I've made since the last one I posted here, I hope this Christmas break is long enough for me to write blogs for some of the things I want to share here.
So, anyway, here is my latest. It's a 3D modeling demo video I made for some of my colleagues. Two weeks ago they asked me to teach them basic 3D aircraft modeling.
They need to get up to speed on it for a project they will be working on in the summer of next year. Since it is something I can do well without breaking a sweat, I started working on in my free time.
The Bell X-1 Experimental Rocket Plane.
To make things a bit easy for my friends, I chose the Bell X-1 rocket plane for the simplicity of its design, making it a perfect choice for teaching an aircraft modeling beginner. I also chose it because of the recent passing of the aviator who made it famous, Gen. Charles "Chuck" Yeager.
Now, not all here know who he is and what he had accomplished in his distinguished flying career. He was an American fighter pilot who had 11 kills in WW2, and was the first man to break the sound barrier by flying faster than the speed of sound in the X-1, on Oct. 14, 1947. You can read up more about him in Wikipedia.
Preparing the Modeling Resources
The first step is to gather all the reference images, particularly the blueprint-style orthographic drawings, like the one below. Having one makes a modeler's job a lot easier, as well as having a more accurate result, than just relying on pictures alone.
But pictures are just as important as 2- or 3-view orthographic drawings. After about an hour of searching, I have found the best source of pictures of this history-making aircraft. It's a link to the online gallery of 110 pictures of Glamorous Glennis, the actual aircraft flown by Chuck Yeager. It is on display in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
The Video
Ok. Get yourselves a drink or two first. Then it's time to step into the cockpit and strap yourselves into the hot seat. This is the first of at least four aircraft modeling videos that I am going to make for my colleagues. The next ones are going to be more complex than their predecessors. And probably more fun to watch.
As you can see in the video, it is divided into chapters for the specific parts being worked on. It also makes it a lot easier for me to write about them. All I have to do is follow the list and give brief descriptions of how and what is being done.
00:00 - Start (it's just the title screen)
00:06 - Viewport setup and placement of the cylinder (fuselage)
04:22 - Creating the basic shape of the fuselage
06:01 - Creating the dorsal spine
09:05 - Extruding the vertical tail
10:43 - Modeling the wings
14:38 - Modeling the rudder
15:38 - Modeling the horizontal tail
16:32 - Modeling the elevators
17:39 - Modeling the pitot tube
18:46 - Setting up a simple sky texture environment
18:57 - Creating a simple shader for the aircraft
Breaking Down The Modeling Process
00:06 - Viewport setup and placement of the cylinder (fuselage)
Before one begins the modeling, the blueprint drawings have to be loaded first into the viewports. A lot of 3D artists like to cut them up first, with each piece containing a drawing of a particular view of the aircraft, and in this case, that would mean 3 separate drawings of top, side, and front views.
For this modeling session, I decided that it was too much of a bother, so I just chucked in the drawing into all three orthographic viewports, and just moved and scaled up each part into their proper positions in each viewport, with the default Blender cube as a reference. When the positioning was done, I put in a cylinder which will become the fuselage of the aircraft.
04:22 - Creating the basic shape of the fuselage
And with the cylinder scaled up to match the length of the aircraft's body, it's time to begin cutting it up into segments for shaping it into the bullet-like shape which the X-1 took its design from.
Now, watch carefully as I make those cuts. They have to be placed strategically on the surface to give you the vertices (the points) that you grab and move around to shape something, which is basically how things are mostly done in 3D modeling. It's like grabbing clay and shaping it into the form you want.
Observe where I place those cuts. I line up a lot of them on certain panel lines on the fuselage. The others are done without reference to any panel line, but to place them where I would be able to shape the area to match the contour of the fuselage.
There is a lot of trial-and-error that you will do regarding this, when you're just starting out in aircraft 3D modeling, and it'll become instinctive as you gain more experience and become more proficient in this kind of work.
06:01 - Creating the dorsal spine
This is pretty simple. It's just a cube scaled to match the length of the part it will become, and cut up just like I had done on the cylinder.
09:05 - Extruding the vertical tail
Now, for the part that will become the vertical stabilizer (the tail and rudder), that process is called an extrusion. In modeling, you will be extruding faces a lot, aside from pushing and pulling vertices around.
And, as it is now becoming obvious, almost anything extruded into some kind of part will also be cut up into segments, to create more vertices needed for shaping the form.
10:43 - Modeling the wings
The wings are made from a cube, just like the dorsal spine and the tail. And like the tail, the wing has some disjointed parts that form the control surfaces called the ailerons and flaps.
14:38 - Modeling the rudder
The rudder is created by selecting the rear faces (polygons) and duplicating and pulling them away from the tail, to create a gap them it and the tail. Then those faces are extruded, then the points are moved to shape the structure into the form of the rudder.
15:38 - Modeling the horizontal tail
16:32 - Modeling the elevators
Modeling these parts is just exactly like how the wings and control surfaces were created. In the horizontal tail the control surfaces are called elevators.
17:39 - Modeling the pitot tube
What is a pitot tube? Well, there is Google for that. Anyway, it is the long probe at the tip of the nose. It is just extruded into the proper length, then some segments cut around the tip. Also, the very tip is extruded inward, with some edges selected and deleted, to turn some triangles into quads (four-sided faces/polygons). Then the tip is rounded by scaling down the segments.
18:46 - Setting up a simple sky texture environment
18:57 - Creating a simple shader for the aircraft
These last two steps aren't modeling at all, and what they are for is pretty much self-explanatory. But the orange color wasn't a random choice. It is the actual color of that particular X-1 that Chuck Yeager flew in 1947.
Some More Screenshots
And that's a wrap. It was fun making this airplane and I can't wait to finish it and move on to the other aircraft I have chosen for the next modeling demonstrations.
But before I finish this one, I must first finish an artwork I promised someone. It's long overdue, and hope to show it to her before the year ends.
So, until my next post, I'd like to to great you in advance, a very Merry Christmas! And, if you liked this post, and found it useful and informative, please like, comment, and share.
Dedicated to the memory of the late Gen. Charles "Chuck" Yeager
This blog was made with Blender, ShareX, Shotcut, and GIMP.
All pictures are mine unless otherwise indicated.