4. Making the Fuselage (Cylinder Method).

In this Section:
Making a Cylinder
Modifiers and Such
Sub-Object Modification
Shaping the Fuselage & Using "Mirror"
Moving, Hiding, and Pivot Point
Creating and Extruding Polygons

NOTE: In this tutorial, I'll be making an Me334. This aircraft has basically a cylindrical fuselage. If your fuselage is not round enough to use a cylinder easily, you can use the "Extrusion" or "Loft" Method. I'll demonstrate both of these in Making the Wing.

Adding a Cylinder

In the "Create Panel" click on Cylinder and then under "keyboard entry" enter your general length and radius. It doesn't have to be exact as you can modify it later. Hit Create.

Number of sides: A 16 sided cylinder works well. If you use a number of sides that make the top/bottom flat--and you'll want to apply right/left texture later--you'll need to rotate the cylinder along the Y axis so the sides are vertical and an edge of the cylinder runs along the top and bottom. You've got to have the edge to get the texture to split right.

To have it facing the right direction, have the "Front" or "Back" viewport selected. If it's not facing the right direction anyway, just rotate it (in this case, exactly 90 degrees along the X Axis) by using the Rotate Button and using the X,Y,Z reference boxes at the bottom of the screen.

You'll also want to make sure you have enough segments to get started in shaping your fuselage (don't worry, you can add more later). You can change the number of sides, number of segments, and size in the "Modify Panel".

I'm using 10 segments. This isn't a magic number or anything. I've just kind of played around with it and took a guess on how many I'll need.

Modifiers and Such

You're almost ready to shape the fuselage. One way is to Add a Modifier: In the "Modifier Stack" pull down the menu and select "Edit Mesh". This can be termed "Adding an Edit Mesh Modifier". You can "roll out" the Edit Mesh modifier (hit the "+" sign with the mouse) and now select a series of modes to work in: Vertex, Edge, Face, Polygon, or Element. I find it easiest to shape in either the "Element Mode" (the entire cylinder) or "Vertex Mode" (each corner where multiple polygons meet). This is almost like working in FSDS again.

NOTE: We could have simply converted the cylinder to "Editable Poly" or Editable Mesh" and accomplished the same thing. However, using modifiers allows us to go back and make changes to the object that wouldn't be possible if we simply converted it.

Expert Notes! From Finn: "The purpose of the stack is to allow you to return to your initial object/modifiers and alter them. Although I tend to leave stacks un-collapsed unless I start getting performance problems, in the case of an altered cylinder almost anything you do will be dependent on the geometry of the original cylinder which will change if you alter your cylinder creation parameters - and as a result I suppose it's not worth keeping. So, in this particular example, I'd say there's no difference. "Basically collapsing a stack will give you a performance increase, but sets what you did in stone. In low-poly modeling I'm not sure you'd often notice much of a difference on modern machines."

To modify within a stack, you will add modifiers to accomplish what you want. See the example to the right. On top of my basic Cylinder (from "Create/Standard Primitives/Cylinder) I added a Poly Select Modifier. This allows me to select a sub-object in a polygonal mesh (i.e.: Edge, Border, Polygon and Element. See Sub-Object Modification below). In this case I've selected Vertex in the Poly Select Modifier, then added an XForm Modifier and with it used the Select and Non-Uniform Scale tool to modify my object (don't worry, this will make sense later).

Collapsing The Stack: However, collapsing the stack into Editable Poly will give us the same options--and will be a lot easier for me to explain as we go--so that's what we're going to do.

When you're first starting in gMax I think converting to Editable Poly or Mesh is simpler, and that's the key to this tutorial: Simple. However, by "Collapsing the Stack" we'll loose the ability to return to our initial object/modifiers and alter them. Therefore, I highly suggest you save a copy of your work prior to converting the cylinder. In fact, I save hundreds of copies of my work over the course of a project. I'll use a number for every major change and a letter for minor changes. When I start work on the wings, I'll name my file: "Mossie_01a.gmax". Then as I add the flaps, ailerons, and whatnot I'll save more files as "Mossie_01b", "Mossie_01c", and so on. When I'm done and ready to start on the tail, I'll name it "Mossie_02a.gmax" and so on.

Remember, this is only a technique. One of my Ranger Instructors used to say "Techniques are like A-holes... Everybody's got one." You can play with this and figure out what works best for you.

Sub-Object Modification

You're going to use the different "Sub-objects" in your cylinder to shape it into your fuselage. The Sub-objects of the "Poly Select" (or "Editable Poly"--same thing) are: Vertex, Edge, Border, Polygon and Element.

Important things to keep in mind here are that you select the sub-object you want with Select Object Arrow. To select multiple objects, you can "Drag and select" or you can click each individually while holding down the Control key. If you only want to select the sub-objects you can see (and not those ones on the "other" side of the object) then check the Ignore Backfacing" box.

The tools I use most with shaping are Select and Move and Select and Non-Uniform Scale (this can me found by click and holding Select and Uniform Scale until the three Flyout buttons appear, then selecting the middle one). Play with these and you'll find your best method of shaping your fuselage.

You can also use the Restrict Axis buttons to assist you in achieving the designer effect (kind of like FSDS). However, I find it even easier to use the Gizmo to limit my axis of movement.

Anytime you select something (Vertex, Edge, Polygon, etc) you can "lock" that selection by hitting Spacebar. This is very helpful when you are switching between viewports.

NOTE: When zooming in on a view, you may run into a warning "Displayed Background will use over XX MB of memory. Display Background?". Simply click "No", then once you've zoomed back out, Right Click on the name in the upper left corner of that view, and select "Show Background". If you've absolutely HAVE to see the background larger then save your work, zoom to where you want, Right Click to "Show Background" and hit "yes" at the error message. Your computer will either handle the file or it won't. Soon you'll get the feel for what your computer can handle (lol)!

Shaping the Fuselage & Using "Mirror"

To review, we've now added a cylinder and converted it to "Editable Poly". Now we have a basic idea of how to work in Gmax, let's start making this airplane.

Naming the Object: Under the modifier tab at the top you'd see a box that probably says "Cyliner01". Change this to "fuselage". While you're there you can also click on the color box next to it and change the color if you want (gMax randomly assigns colors to new objects unless you change this in your "Customize" menu).

Making half the fuselage an "Instance": Since most aircraft have symmetrical fuselages, it'd be much easier to only make one side, and have a duplicate. So that's what we'll do. Select the sub-object Polygon and using your selection arrow in the back view select all the polies on one side and hit the Delete key, and "yes" to "Delete Isolated Vertices". You now have only one half of your cylinder.

Now you're going to make an Instance, which is an exact copy of your fuselage half that Mirrors your changes. To do this click on "polygon" again in the stack window to take you back to the "object" level (out of "sub-objects"). This may move your "Pivot point" back to the center. If not then click and hold on the Center Button until the three button flyout appears. Choose the top one Use Pivot Point Center. If your gizmo still isn't in the center, then adjust the Reference Coordinate System flyout window in your tool bar. Setting this to Grid will usually fix your problem.

Next select the Mirror Selected Objects button to open the Mirror Screen Coordinates dialog box. Be sure the proper axis box is checked, and the Instance box is checked (you'll see a preview in your viewports). Click OK and you now have an instance.

NOTE: Do NOT use "Mirror Selected Objects" to mirror objects for your final model!!! There's a bug in the system, and any parts mirrored this way will look fine in gMax but will be "inside-out" in the sim. To Mirror final objects go to Edit/Clone to make a copy, then in the Modifier Stack choose Mirror (under Parametric Modifiers). You can then add an edit mesh modifier on top of that or you can Collapse the object back to editable ploy/mesh. You have been Warned!!!

Let's say you look at your aircraft in the sim and find that a bunch of objects are inside-out anyway. Don't Panic! It's an easy fix. Back in gMax, select the offending objects. Use the Mirror Selected Objects button and mirror it. Now go to Edit/Clone then the Modifier Stack and choose Mirror. It'll now be "right-side-out" again.

Now you can click back on your first copy of the Fuselage, and use the techniques you've learned for manipulating sub-objects to shape your fuselage. We'll cover this in more detail below.

Moving, Hiding, and Pivot Point

Moving Sections: I used FSDS for a long time, and old habits die hard. So I build the same way here. I look at my Fuselage backdrop in the side view, and in the Vertex mode move each section of vertices back and forth until they seem like they're in the right spot to shame the fuselage.

Hiding Poly: You can select sub-objects (in this case Vertices) that you aren't working with and Right Click on any viewport to bring up the Quad Menu. Choose Hide (Poly) and the sub-objects will remain hidden, although you will still be able to see the entire object.

Adjusting the Pivot Point: The Pivot Point is the "center" of an object, and determines the location and orientation of the Gizmo. There are several ways to adjust this. You can use the Reference Coordinate System pull-down menu to choose from several options (View, Screen, World, Parent, Local, Grid, and Pick). You can also adjust the pivot point by going to the Hierarchy Tab/Effect Pivot Point Only and adjusting the pivot point with the Select and Move tool.

Using the Select and Non-Uniform Scale tool , I now shape the fuselage further. I usually do my shaping in the "Back" view, but I'm watching the side and front at the same time. Also keep you eye on the perspective view to make sure everything "looks" right.

If you find that you don't have enough "Vertex Cross-sections" you can add more by using the Vertex/Slice Plane tool. Clicking on the Slice Plane button will bring up a yellow (in default colors) plane that can be positioned and manipulated using the move, rotate, and scale tools. Once it's in position, click on the Slice button and you will have a new cross-section.

The front of the fuselage of this aircraft isn't round, but more of a teardrop. To shape this, I activated the Fence Selection Region tool by click and holding the Selection tool until I got the three flyout options. Then you can select only specific vertices with the Select and Move tool and move them how you want.

Creating and Extruding Polygons

To make the radiator intake in the front of the fuselage I used the Polygon/Create and Polygon/Extrude tools.

Create Polygon: To create a poly, go the poly sub-object mode and click on Create. You'll see that all the Vertices appear. You can now click on each vertex that you want to use for your new poly in order. When you click the last one, Double Click and you're new poly will appear. If you went clockwise, and you got an "Illegal New Face" message, then try clicking on the vertices in reverse order (counter clockwise). If that doesn't work, try starting with a different vertex. I've always gotten it to work, but sometimes it takes a few tries.

Extruding Polygons: This is very easy. In the poly sub-object mode select the polygons you wish to extrude and then click on Extrude. Then in a viewport hold the cursor over the selected polies and you'd see the "extrude cursor" appear over the Gizmo. You can use the axis to "pull" the polies the direction you want to. I usually just pull the polies in the desired direction and them using the Move and Select tool. For this radiator intake, I extruded several times, adjusting and resizing the polygon each time.

Now we're complete with the fuselage for now. We'll come back to this for the details (cockpit, etc.) after we make the wings.

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