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Small Tutorial: Preparing a ship plan for 3D modelling


Malachi

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How are you doing? I am looking forward to more off this tutorial. Are you planning to proceed?

I certainly do :)

Unfortunately, I didn´t have much time lately to do anything useful, but I thought about the format of the hull modelling tutorial.

Many sites dedicated to wooden scale ships have a group project, where community members work on the same ship with plans provided for by the site (like modelshipworld´s Triton).

This is a pretty neat idea, as the members can help and assist each other because they´re working with the same plans, face the same challenges and problems with the model and find different approaches on how to deal with them (and, ideally, share those with the other members :P).

I think that´d be great take on a 3D hull tutorial, too. The biggest problem is of course finding proper plans. They should be high-resolution (3000px +), easy to work with and, most importantly, free of any copyright so they can be uploaded and distributed without problems. This eliminates scanned plans from pretty much any book (like L' Amarante) and plans from the NMM. Okay are plans from the danish, dutch, swedish online archives, including chapman.net, and the Atlas de genie maritime. 

And the ship should be rather small (pierced for 12 to 30 guns), you don´t do a three-decker as your first ship model ;) 

 

I already had a look at the archives I mentioned above and at a first glance my favourites would be the dutch Lynx/Komeet and Pallas, the danish Triton, Iris, Venus and Lille Belt shown in this thread and La Créole  and la Perle (La Diligente-class) from the Atlas de genie maritime. Other suggestions are more than welcome, of course!  

 

This is how the process would look like: I upload the plans as they are and the adjusted versions (according to my first two tutorials), so it´s easy to understand what I´ve changed/adjusted and why. Then you can choose if you want to do the modelling with my version or if you want to edit the original plans yourself.

I´ll then make a step-by-step 3D hull tutorial, but as we all are working on the same ship, we should able to help each other more easily when problems in the modelling process arise. This also has the benefit to get eventual questions answered (quicker) even when I´m busy with other stuff as other members may be able to help out. And I may learn a thing or two, too, as there is no single right approach to tackle a certain challenge in 3D modelling,  just different ways how to do things.  

 

So, is there interest in this approach? If yes, which ship should we should choose?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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this actually sounds pretty awesome. I pretty much love the idea - as you said. Even if you already know a thing or two about ship building and modeling there is always room to improve. And the same problem has different angles of approach.

One word of warning however is that one should be at least familiar with a 3D modeling programm of his choice. So that ppl do not start from zero but at least know how to navigate their model and know the basics. Im not saying one needs to already know the tool by heart but if malachi has to explain how to move vertices, this tutorial might derail.

Back on topic and the cool part^^: As of late there is a thread that includes loads and loads of nice little ships:

What you/we could do is to open a 2nd thread to clean this one up and move all of the ship choice related posts in there. IF this approach is accepted I or any other moderator can help you with sorting this out.

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Indeed, i like this idea very much. However just as @LeBoiteux i havent done any 3D modeling in a year. I think i am able to do this though. Also this is an opportunity that i cant let slip, so i will join you!

I was started modelling the "Windhond" but because of the lack of time and knowledge i stopped the project. Maybe this is a good ship plan?

Nationaal Archief "Windhond"

Edited by Rob
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18 hours ago, Malachi said:

The biggest problem is of course finding proper plans. They should be high-resolution (3000px +), easy to work with and, most importantly, free of any copyright so they can be uploaded and distributed without problems. This eliminates scanned plans from pretty much any book (like L' Amarante) and plans from the NMM. Okay are plans from the danish, dutch, swedish online archives, including chapman.net, and the Atlas de genie maritime. 

And the ship should be rather small (pierced for 12 to 30 guns), you don´t do a three-decker as your first ship model ;) 

I already had a look at the archives I mentioned above and at a first glance my favourites would be the dutch Lynx/Komeet and Pallas, the danish Triton, Iris, Venus and Lille Belt shown in this thread and La Créole  and la Perle (La Diligente-class) from the Atlas de genie maritime. Other suggestions are more than welcome, of course!  

I don't know whether or not the following plan matches the requirements of your project, but its drawing was made (and posted on NA forum) by @Surcouf, if I ain't mistaken, so knowing whether or not he'd give his permission would be quite fast and straightforward, I guess.

A typical French Corvette

during the American War of Independence

18 x 6-pdr

post-5241-0-16538800-1445182914.jpg

post-5241-0-06024600-1445182830.jpg

 

Edited by LeBoiteux
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That´d be a pretty cool plan to work with, especially if it´s made by Surcouf :)

But I´m not sure if it´s good plan for a tutorial, as there are a couple of issues with it:

-the body plan looks like as it´s been photographed, not scanned, the left side is a bit distorted

-working with a true french-style draught requires a lot of experience as you have to make some educated guesses, especially when modelling the bow/head and stern (for example, there are no lines defining the shape of the stern aft of the éstain).

Quote

 

I was started modelling the "Windhond" but because of the lack of time and knowledge i stopped the project. Maybe this is a good ship plan?

Nationaal Archief "Windhond"

 

I´m not too keen on dutch frigates built before the 1760s (except those built at Rotterdam, if I remember correctly) as you essentially would be modelling  a british Establishment 20- or 24-gun ship.

You have the same 'problem' at the beginning of the 19th century as ships like Bellona, Maas, Rhijn and Lynx, Pallas, Komeet, Proserpina, Hekla are variations of the Sané Pallas- and Victorieuse-class.

 

 

Concerning the skill level required for the tutorial: as Bungee said, I won´t show you how to move verts around, but if you completed this really good tutorial (parts 1 to 4) by BlenderGuru, you´ll definitely be able to do what I´m doing. And I'll do good ol' hard-surface modelling, so no fancy splines or Nurbs surfaces. 

 

And I´m really glad that there´s interest in this kind of project :)  Bungee, I´ll denfinitely you up on your offer!

I´ll have look at some suitable plans this weekend and make two or three suggestions, you´re all more than welcome to do the same :)

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I think I got my first proper suggestion, the danish Triton of 1790:

 

Dimensions: 126 'x 34'x 16' 11''

Armament:  24 12-pounders, 6 12-pound howitzers (howitzers were kind of a scandinavian-navies-only thing and used explosive shot)

Crew: 260

Plan Quality:

Really good, no real distortions and the body plan lines up with the sheer quite nicely. One of the best contemporary plans I've seen so far. In total, there are 18 sheets for the Triton, including sail plan, cross section, inboard profile and separate drawings for the head and stern (which I put on top of the sheer and body plan, so you get a better impression what the ship looked like). It´s almost like a monograph for the Triton :)

Modelling Difficulty:

As far as I can tell, modelling the Triton would be pretty straight-forward. Head and stern are easy as it gets when it comes to 18th century ships (I´m not talking about the figurehead and carvings ;) ) and the hull shape should be no problem, either.

The only thing I really don´t like is that some station lines are really close to the gun ports which might require moving them a bit in order to avoid graphical glitches. But I´ll fire up Blender this afternoon and a have a proper look at it.

 

By the way, the other danish runner-ups were this really cool 18-pounder frigate proposal

 

and one frigate of the Freia-class. But @BungeeLemming already modeled the Freia, so I went for the Triton (which is by the same designer as Freia)

 

I'll have a look at the dutch plans tomorrow :)

 

Edited by Malachi
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Threw the plans of the Triton into Blender and, as expected, they´re really nice to work with.

 

 

 

Pleasant, french-style body shape with considerable tumblehome, this would definitely be a nice looking model.

Edited by Malachi
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Here is my dutch suggestion for the tutorial, the Heldin of 1796.

 

 

Dimensions: 130' x 36' x 14' (Amsterdam voet, 120' 9'' imperial, Triton's length in feet 129' 11''. Perpendiculars are pretty much in the same position, so a direct comparison is possible)

Armament:     24  12-pounders  6  4-pounders (this is her armament in british service)

Crew:              190

 

Plan Quality

Good,  a couple of spots with distortions, but all the important lines are pretty straight. This is the best plan from the dutch archives I found, all the others for smaller frigates and corvettes aren´t suitable for tutorial, in my opinion, as they would be too tricky to work with. Thankfully, the only good plan was for a genuine dutch design :P

There are two sheets, both with sheer, body plan and waterlines plus inboard profile,  one with detailed head and stern decorations and one without. We´d need to work with both, as some lines on the body plan are hidden on the more detailed draught.

 

Modelling Difficulty

As straight-forward as the Triton. Heldin had more elaborate decorations, but as sculpting isn´t part of the tutorial that´s no problem ;)

There is no cross section or deck layout plan, so that might require some guesswork.

 

So, these are my two suggestions. I initially wanted to propose a third one, La Créole, but her plan from the Atlas de Genie Maritime is too distorted to be useful and I can´t use the monograph due to copyright reasons.

 

Edit: just gave the Heldin a try

 

 

As with Triton, I just modeled the station lines, so bow and stern are 'open'.  The plan is easy enough to work with.

The underwater part of the hull looks really nice with a relatively sharp entry and fine run, but I didn´t expect the upper part to be so wall-sided. 

Edited by Malachi
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5 hours ago, BungeeLemming said:

If Im not mistaken this ship design is very similar to what I modeled a while back.

The 32 gun frigate Euridice. I believe had 26 long guns and 6 carronades on the quarterdeck:

 

  Hide contents

 

Yikes. I had look at your models and dismissed any plan you've already done but since none of the plans on the archieven is named Euridice I thought I'd be on the safe side. She definitely could be a sister -ship of the Heldin. What's the length of the Euridice between the p/p?

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I found 2 plans on the "Nationaal archief" that i liked and fit the requirements set by @Malachi . Checked the plans for disortions by following the first part of this tutorial but they are both pretty distorted.

I am fine with choosing a suggested plan by someone else. I do not really like the shape of the Heldin but i do like the Danish Triton. Lets see if there are more plan suggestions coming in.

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On 5.11.2017 at 7:42 PM, BungeeLemming said:

It says 145ft "lang op het onder deck. Rotterdam feet

Okay, then the Heldin seems to be a smaller version of the Euridice. Would be interesting to know if Heldin carried 8- or 12-pounders in dutch service. I think the former was the case.

 

2 hours ago, Rob said:

Also, if someone has an especially good plan for a ship but no time or experience to join us you can drop it in here. I think thats fine. What do you think @Malachi?

Of course :)

If a plan fits the requirements (especially no copyright and size), then everyone can submit it, all suggestions welcome :)

 

And I'm thinking about doing a  two part tutorial. The first part will heed the advice given by Marion van Ghent in one of her tutorials back in the days of the PotBS shipyard:if you´re going to model a ship, model one of the ship´s boats first. I never really followed this advice myself but it would have saved me from shedding a lot of manly tears in front of Blender if I would have done.  It´s much less complicated but comprises all the steps needed for a full-size frigate or SoL, so it´s easier for a beginner to establish a proper workflow.

Anyway, I´ll probably make a new thread monday or tuesday with the plans suggested so far (and which will be open for new ones) :)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Malachi
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  • 2 weeks later...

Only just spotted this thread - great idea getting a community build of a ship going. Count me in :)

If you need any rigging info then just let me know - my barfleur is going over multiple iterations of that to try and tie down the majority of it - great learning experience too ;)

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That´s a fine looking gun, Rob. You´re definitely ready for the tutorial :)

 

By the way, the reason I´ve been silent for week is because 

a. I´ve been searching - again - for other plans comparable in quality with the ones I have for the Triton..well, I´ve found a couple, but they´re all danish, too. Anyway, the thread with my plan 

    proposals will be up tomorrow.

 

b. I´ve got four new books  - The Battle of Copenhagen 1801, Defying Napoleon (Copenhagen 1807), French Warships 1628 - 1786 and The Warship Anne - and couldn´t stop reading / get

    my ass off the couch to do stuff for the tutorial. Yes, I´m a lazy bum...

 

On 20.11.2017 at 11:57 PM, T1ckL35 said:

Only just spotted this thread - great idea getting a community build of a ship going. Count me in :)

If you need any rigging info then just let me know - my barfleur is going over multiple iterations of that to try and tie down the majority of it - great learning experience too ;)

Good to have you on board, Tickler! :) And yeah, doing the rigging is a real learning experience...especially on how to deal with frustration and resist the urge to uninstall the modelling app permanently. Which book(s) did you use as reference?

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Yes, I agree with you with the frustration side! :)

I'm using 'Rigging Period Ship Models' as there were a number of good pictures already online and it seemed to do a good job of letting you figure different areas out. I've just been recommended the 'Young officers sheet anchor' book and that looks like it will be very good and fill in a lot more detail from a practical viewpoint.

It's all still experimental at the minute though, playing with paths/curves etc.. in blender so we will have to see if it comes off or not

 

 

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  • 11 months later...

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