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IMPORTANT: To view the tutorial with larger images and screen shots please download the PDF or XPS files.
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This tutorial was written exclusively for The3dStudio.com by Rick Johnston of Dreamscape Studios (Member Link).
*** Building an Aerial Bomb in 3ds max ***
Aerial bombs have been used since the Civil War. During the Civil War there were some experiments of throwing hand held bonds or grenades from hot air balloons. However it was not for another 50 years before they became widely used during World War I. Even then many were still hand held and thrown out of planes by observers or pilots. However by the end of World War I bombs were becoming more sophisticated, powerful and safer to handle.
They have been ever changing since their inception, specialized for specific targets, aircraft and sizes. Now they are smart, finding their assigned target within feet and in all weather from miles away. They come in many shapes, sizes, with different fin arrangements, fuses, triggers and cases. Some use GPS, laser range finders and laser designators, and others are still conventional dumb bombs. All are easily modeled and good additions to an aircraft or military scene project.
This tutorial will teach you a simple technique of building a fairly realistic bomb in a matter of less than 30 minutes to two hours depending on your skill level and experience. The steps for modeling the bomb are:
Model the Casing
Model the Fins
Model the Fuse Casing
Model the Fuse Fan
Model the Trigger
Material Editing
Depending on your level of experience and skill, you should be able to model this bomb within 1 to 2 hours. Textures are provided.
This tutorial model is an example and is not to scale. Nor does it reflect a highly detailed model. It is not intended for use in projects or for sale. This tutorial is copyrighted by the3dstudio.com and is licensed for educational learning assistance only.
Model the Casing
Place a cylinder in the center of the front view of the 3dsMax environment. This cylinder should have 18 segments around, 15 segments in height, and 1 segment for the caps. See image.
Fig 1-1
Cylinder centered in the environment as specified above.
Now using the modify rollout, edit the vertices for the cylinder starting in the top view and bottom of the cylinder. Using the scaling tool, reduce the diameter of each row of vertices, independently and successively until the desired shape is obtained. See image.
Fig 1-2
The lowest two rows of vertices have been scaled down to about 1/5th of the original diameter.
Move the next seven rows of vertices down toward the bottom and using the non-uniform scaling tool, pull them closer together without changing their diameter. See image.
Fig 1-3
Now edit to give this end of the cylinder a nice rounded shape without affection the two rows of vertices previously edited. See image below:
Fig 1-4
The end of the cylinder has been rounded and the original two rows of vertices have been retained in their previous position.
Now you need to shape the rear of the bomb casing. This is just a continuation of the previous two steps. Pull the vertices of the next 6 rows closer together as shown in the next image. Use the non-uniform scaling tool to move them closer together without changing the diameter like you did in the previous step. These next rows will provide the gradual lessoning of the diameter of the bomb casing.
Fig 1-5
The next seven rows of vertices have been moved closer to the top row of vertices on the case.
Now reduce the diameter of the rows of vertices sequentially and independently one row at a time. Do this so that each row has a slightly smaller diameter and each rows diameter decreases incrementally more than the last. See the image. The last two rows of vertices should have the same diameter about 1/4th of the maximum diameter of the casing.
Fig 1-6
Rear of the casing is now in the desired shape and modeling the casing is completed.
Model the Fins
I selected the WWII era aerial bomb because the fins are more difficult to model than most and many have trouble building them efficiently. We will build one fin, move the axis, make a copy using the rotate tool and then modify the original. Then deleting the copy we will have one of four complete fins and a quick rotate copy will complete them.
Model a box with 1 segment in width, 4 segments in length and 3 in height. Locate this box to the left of the rear of the cylinder as shown. See image
Fig 1-7
Box that will become the fins shown above.
Once this box is modeled, now select the vertices on the corners as shown above in Fig 1-7 left view. Make sure that when you are selecting the vertices, ignore back facing check box is off. Now using the non-uniform scaling tool, squeeze the vertices toward the center of the box, about 1/8 to 1/5th of the distance between them horizontally. Do not change the height of these vertices. See image below
Fig 1-8
The top and bottom outside vertices have been moved inwards along the length of the box without changing height or width.
Switch to editing the polygons and select the polygons closest to the casing and nearest what will be the front of the fins and extrude them toward the casing. See image below.
Fig 1-9
The extrusion of the polygons is completed.
Convert the box to an editable poly and using the modify rollout, create edge tool; connect the large sections of the box. Then convert the box back to an editable mesh. Now move the outside vertices of the right side excluding those of the extrusion toward the center and the newly created vertices. See the image below.
Fig 1-10
The vertices have been added through conversion to an editable poly and then once converted back; they are moved close to the next set of vertices near the center of the large portion of the fin. Now move and adjust them so that they look like the image above.
Now change to the edit mesh, sub object polygon and select the polygons shown below in Fig 1-12. Extrude them a short distance then in the left view level the faces with the non-uniform scaling tool. When completed your fin should look like this. See image below.
Fig 1-12
Polygons have been extruded and leveled using the non-uniform scaling tool.
Select the object and move it down to be aligned with the cylinder centerline as shown above.
Modify all of the vertices except those next to the bomb casing by scaling them down. Use the non-uniform scaling tool and in the top view scale them in the vertical distance reducing it about 1/3. The end result should be that you end up with a swept section of the fin between the bomb and the extrusion. See the image below.
Change to the hierarchy tools and select the change axis tool. Move the axis of the fin to be aligned perfectly with the axis of the cylinder. This is best done in the front view. Once this has been completed, exit the hierarchy tools. Now go with fin selected, rotate and copy the fin 1 time at 90 degree increment making a copy. The end result will be as shown below. Note the image below shows four copies. I did this to demonstrate the accuracy. However to modify each of the fins would be inefficient and may even cause problems. Just copy yours once.
Fig 1-12
Fin has been copied around the cylinder four times using the same centerline as the cylinder.
Go back to modifying the sub object of the first fin. Select to modify the vertices. Now selecting the vertices at the top of the extruded polygons from the previous step, drag them up and over to the base of the 2nd fins polygon extrusion. You will need to line up the vertices exactly with those of the second fin as shown below. See fig 1-13 and 1-14.
Fig 1-13
Extrusion polygons are stretched to the base of the next fins extrusion. This creates the diagonal fin.
Using the modify sub object tools on the original fin, move the vertices on the end of the extrusion up and to the right. Position the vertices on the right aligned to the vertices on the next fin that are on the lower left of the extrusion there. You can see this in the image above. I have identified the accurate positioning on the image. Line up the vertices on the left with the vertices on the top of the next fin to the left of its extrusion. See the image above.
Once this has been done accurately, delete the second fin completely. Using the rotate and copy tool rotate the modified original fin around the axis of the casing as you did before, this time at 90 degree increments and making 3 copies.
After you insure all the copies of the fins are accurately aligned, use the Boolean tool to union each one with the next in turn. Then weld the vertices together where you move the vertices to line up on the next fin. This will reduce your vertex and face counts.
Fig 1-14
This image shows the result of making the copy of the fin with the rotate copy tool. If the angles are accurate and the numbers of copies are correct, the result should be perfect. See the image below for a closer look.
Fig 1-15
Review the positioning of the vertices at the intersections of the diagonal fins and the horizontal and vertical fins and make sure they are aligned exactly. If not, align them. Now create a Boolean, union the fins to each other. When all four fins have been unioned, convert them to an editable mesh. Now weld the vertices of the diagonals with the verticals and horizontal at their respective intersections.
The finished fins should look like this.
Model the Fuse Casing
The fuse casing is a cylinder on the rear of the bomb casing. It is usually a part on this type of bomb where the fins and the arming fan is mounted.
Build another cylinder. This cylinder should have 1 cap segment, 18 segments around and 7 height segments. This cylinder should be slightly larger in diameter than the after most part of the bomb casing where it is protruding out from the rounded section aft. It should be about double the distance of the protrusion in height. See the image below:
Fig 1-16
This image shows the cylinder added which is to be the arming fuse casing added to the rearmost position on the bomb casing.
Now using the uniform scaling tool, modify the vertices of the cylinder to look like the arming fuse casing in the image above.
Modeling the fuse fan
Build a box that is 1 segment in height, 8 segments wide and 5 segments long. It should be rectangular. Then use the modify vertices to shape the outline as shown in the front view of the image below. It is begun as a rectangle that is narrowed one row of vertices at a time and the top corners pulled in and down to make the shape shown below.
Then with the object selected rotate it in the top view to an angle of about 20 degrees. You can also just modify the vertices to do the same thing. See the image below.
F-1-17
This image shows the final shape and position of the arming fuse fan blade.
Once you are satisfied with your arming fuse fan blade shape, angle and position you will need to move the pivot angle to match the centerline of the bomb casing. Go to the hierarchy rollout and select affect pivot point. Make sure to select the local axis of the fan blade. Now move that axis to the exact center of the bomb casing in the front view. See the image below.
Now use the rotate and copy tool and make 8 copies at 45 degrees intervals. See image below.
Note some bombs had two, four, six or ten blades. Not all were located in the rear. Many were located on the nose of the bomb. Do some research on the bomb you wish to build and be as accurate as possible.
Fig 1-18
This image shows the axis of the fan blades at the exact center of the bomb casing in the front view and the 7 copies made rotated 45 degrees each.
Now group the fan blades and call the group arming fuse or something similar.
Modeling the Trigger
The trigger on this bomb is on the nose of the bomb. It is an impact trigger that when depressed will cause the bomb to detonate. This one is a conical ended cylindrical device mounted in the nose of the bomb casing. These also vary from bomb type to bomb type.
Build a cylinder in the front view that has a diameter about 3/4 of the diameter of the protrusion from the nose of the bomb casing. This cylinder should have three to five segments vertically, 18 segments around and1 cap segment. See image below.
Fig 1-20
This image shows the trigger modeled on the front of the bomb. It is made of a cylinder with five segments in height and 18 segments around.
Now using the modify rollout, and uniform scaling tool, scale the vertices diameter down from one row to the next sequentially to get the shape shown in the top view of the image above. Once you are satisfied with your results, the modeling is completed.
Now you need to link the fins to the bomb casing. Link the fan to the arming fuse casing and link the trigger to the bomb casing. Link the arming fuse casing to the bomb casing.
Move the model selecting the bomb casing a little and verify that everything moves with the bomb casing. If not undo and link the objects to the bomb casing not previously linked.
Material editing
Material editing on this model is very simple and should take you only a few minutes.
First we have supplied you with a material diffuse map for your bomb tutorial. You are welcome to use your own or create another one for this tutorial.
Go to the material manager and select the first material. Now select maps and then diffuse map. Select the bombdif.jpg map from the directory where you have downloaded it. Apply this map to the bomb casing. Then apply a UVW to the bomb casing with a cylindrical application. You may have to adjust the axis of the application. See the image below.
Fig 1-21
This image shows the material manager with the first material selected, the map manager open and selection of the bomb dif map.
Then finished material mapping result should look like the image below.
Fig 1-22
Material applied and correctly mapped to the bomb casing.
Now select the second material and use the color manager to make a silver gray color as close as possible to stainless steel. Apply this color to the trigger, the arming fuse casing and the arming fuse fan. See image below.
Fig 1-23
Image shows the second material close to a silver stainless color and the third material selected ready for editing the color.
Now create a third material of OD green that is close to the color in the bombdiff.jpg material provided. Apply this material to the fins.
Review your model and adjust the colors of the materials as needed to get a really good match between the OD of the fins and the material on the casing. The results should look like this. See image below.
Fig 1-24
Image showing a final check rendering of the model to determine if the results are satisfactory.
Make your final adjustments to the model, material colors and render the model.
Render the model.
Final rendering using a background image
We hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and have learned something from doing it.
Good Modeling
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