This project was made to learn blueprint modeling and unwraping (I had never done this before). In this making of I'm going to show all parts of my work and also I'm going to point on mistakes that I have made. I hope that my making of will be useful for those who wants to start with this as well and will help them to avoid of making the same mistakes.

I used this software and plugins:
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*VIZ2008 - scene
*Brazil r/s V2 pro beta - rendering
*Texporter - VIZ doesn't have feature to save unwraped wire image (I didn't find it:) so this plugin was handy.
*Photoshop - texture painting and postproduction

Some info about the jet which I created:
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This aircraft is being developed for Indian army as LCA (Light combat aircraft) since 1983. Its main goal is to replace old MIG 21. In present is done prototype PV-3.
In some details is similar with Mirage 2000. Aircraft is very small and it belongs among the smallest and the lightest in the world.

At first I had to find some good blueprint reference. There was a little problem with this aircraft as it isn't very famous. I found only one version of blueprint on google, unfortunately not much detailed.


Here is an example of which I consider as a great reference if you want to make a quality aircraft model with all details :)
I loaded blueprints into photoshop and with rulers checked if the dimensions of top, side and front views coresponds. I dont't have screenshot of this from HAL Tejas project but on image below there is example from another project which I'm making.
I inverted colours on whole image (there is also good to add some contrast). I like to have black background and white lines which helps me later with the opacity trick in scene. Then I cut each view into separate images: top, side and front with ~ coresponding image rosolutions and saved them. I created box in VIZ with matching proportions to the reference images, converted it into editable mesh and deleted 3 sides. I assigned its own Material ID (1,2,3) to each of resting sides. Then I applied multi/Sub-object material on this box. Sub-Material settings are showed on the image below (self ilumination set to full white, speculars off and previously prepared reference images in the opacity slot). This makes visible only the lines of drawed aircraft and they are independend on the scene lighting.

*/TIP: there is also a lot of tools and scripts for crating bluprint planes in the viewport e.g. imagePlaneMaker.ms -- By Neil Blevins/*

I have downloaded some photos of real aircraft to have some additional reference.

IT is good for begginers to go through some tutorials and pages about this problematics before modeling starting.
some links on sites which can help you:
* www.military-meshes.com - a lot of usefull stuff on forum
* www.colacola.se - Anders Lejczak: great site with very good aircraft tutorial which helped me a lot.
* http://home.wanadoo.nl/r.j.o/skyraider/index.htm - Sky rider's tutorials

And finaly, I can really recommend to consult your work with more experienced friends and people arround you. For example, when I went to a pub with friends I took some mesh prints of my model and friends showed me where are mistakes or where improve topology.


My thanks to:
Temüjin - (Tomáš Müller) www.temujin.cz
JohnBruk - (Jan Brukner) www.johnbruk.com


I have chosen fuselage part under a cockpit as my starting point. Then I continued extruding and adjusting mesh to fit blueprints. I modeled only half of plane and then used mirror modifier. And in the end applied turbosmooth modifier. Some details like pitot tube are made as separate objects. Ailerons/elevators and rudder are made as separate too in case of my intention to animate the jet in future.


I haven't time to model some parts so:
1. Pilot - by the courtesy of Oddon Milich
2. Pylons, rockets, bombs and fuel tanks are used by by the courtesy of Anders Lejczak (www.colacola.se). Outer pylons are of my made because I had to match them to real ones on Hal Tejas.

My first unwrap isn't ideal.
Fuselage is mapped cylindrically, remaining parts (wings..) simply with planar mapping.
On the picture bellow there are red marked error areas. When you'll do your own model be aware of making mistakes like:


1. overlaping parachute (I fixed this one because the error was markable in final scene)
2. fuselage top details - I had to map them separately
3. overlaping outer/inner cockpit
4. air intake/ fuselage overlaping
5. distorted fuselage - non spherical details
6. distorted nose


I have used Texporter plugin for exporting the unwraped wire image from VIz.

For texture painting I helped with mirage texture from Anders Lejczak's web page. This was my base test texture. I repainted it whole later. See image below how it changed. In the end I used reference photos and cut details like flags, signs and put them into separate layer above the basic paint of plane. Bump map was painted to ~ copy the panels directions. Main aircraft texture is made in 4k resolution.

Weapons, ejection seat, pylons, engine and other details has it's own materials with textures. I have also funny mood so I painted on them some little jokes like red flower and go arrow on the rocket. From camera view it looks like relevants signs :)


Lighting is done in Brazil r/s V2.


I was trying to keep lighting as simple as possible. Sun is simulated by direct parallel light with soft edge shadows. Skylight is done by domelight with spherically maped texture of clouds.

All my light and render settings are showed on the picture bellow. There is also an example of material (main plane texture). There could be seen that I have used *.psd file in diffuse (color) slot. This is not ideal, because this file is usually very big (in case of high resolution and lot of layers). I used it because I was still tweaking and repainting some parts of texture and making fast test renders how it looks until I was satisfied with the result.


I made a several composition setups and variants:

First one:


I tryied also a low fly over runway but I don't like it.


I chose this one as a final version (wingman tests)...


... and moved into photoshop. I was trying to use nondestructive adjustmens. They are showed on the seccond image bellow.
Background and contrail on the bottom. Above are adjustment layers with it's masks. I like to use brightnes/contrast and curves adjustments a lot.

*/ TIP: with aircraft renders there is a big problem with hi-res photos above the clouds. My recommend is tell all of your friends to take photos when they travel by a plane on holidays :) /*



Final images:



I hope this making of will help you with starting of your own works and also keep you away from my mistakes:) It's my first writing so excuse me please if I have forgoten on something. Feel free to ask and I will answer your questions.

*/TIP: don't worry if you make any mistakes in your work, take it as an learning lesson. You see how many mistakes I have made and the result is still lookable. You'll fix it up next time =) /*

Author: Pavel Romsy
Country: Czech Republic
www: http://www.romsy.cz