Looking for ideas on how to solve a technical problem in Blender 3D

[Irishman]

I'm working on my adaptation of the Pointer class, and was wondering if anyone had had any experience in adding the detailed saucer rim edge from the NX-01, to the definitely not-circular main hull of my Pointer.

Is it possible to use the shrink-wrap modifier to accomplish this with a minimum of muss and fuss? Or maybe something I'm not seeing?

Here's the close-up render of the NX-01 saucer rim details that I ultimately want applied to the outer edge of the Pointer main hull:

https://www.deviantart.com/irishman20/art/PointerWIP39-809766078

And here is the top-down shot of the Pointer model:

https://www.deviantart.com/irishman20/art/PointerWIP41-809884728?ga_submit_new=10:1565966234

Oh, and BTW, I only want the detailed edge to appear on the left and right sides of the main hull.

 

[Rekkert]

Keep in mind, shrinkwrap is used to fit clothing or organic layers to objects, not something you'd like to use on something like the usual Trek ship.

I'd suggest using an extrusion, and scaling it along the normals. This is a very crude example, but I think it's what you're after:

Imagine this is the side of the hull. I'd inset the faces in a bit to create the outer "lips".

Then I'd extrude those faces, with a value of 0 (thus it'll appear as they're on the same place they were before), and then press alt+s to scale that extrusion along each face's normal. This will make it scale naturally along the curve of the hull, rather than just skewing it.

You'll probably need to tweak the resulting shape on the Z axis, either by moving or scaling it.

Afterwards, just subdivide into the segments that you need, and repeat the extrusion with them.

 

[Irishman]

Rekkert,

Thanks so much for your ideas, I may end up going that way. However, I must admit that I first mentioned the shrinkwrap modifier because scifieric used it in an Enterprise warp engine tutorial

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

.

I had a thought at work today, maybe I could use make a path using a bezier curve, make it match my Pointer hull, and then scale my NX-01 saucer detail geometry along it?

 

[Rekkert]

Ohh, interesting use there, certainly outside the box.

The think with shrinkwrap is that it always "sticks" shapes to the target, so its great for translating holes into a shape, not so much for translating elevation changes, as they'd all be rendered flat along the target object.

Using a path would work, you'd have to remove an edge of the hull, and convert it to a curve (convert to -> curve from mesh), thus it'll match the hull perfectly.

 

[Irishman]

Ok, an update, I've been working on a combination of an array and a curve deform modifier. So far, I've had limited success. Success in that the curve modifier is recognizing the array, but something is literally getting twisted up, because it's rotating my geometry 90 degrees downward. Now, in troubleshooting, I've already done Shift+S and Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C (on both my geometry and my path) to fix origin and pivot point issues. I've also done Ctrl+A to apply location, rotation and scale (on both my geometry and my path) to see if anything was out of whack that way. So far, no luck.

But, in preparation for reaching out to you guys here again, I took a couple of screenshots that I hope are helpful. They show my geometry and my modifier stack (Array first, and then the curve). I really hope that this ends up being a tickbox I've missed.

https://www.deviantart.com/irishman20/art/Shows-that-the-curve-recognizes-the-geometry-810514747

and

https://www.deviantart.com/irishman20/art/But-this-angle-shows-the-unwanted-rotation-810515123

Any ideas?

 

[Starscape]

It could be the Deformation Axis that you've selected in the Curve Modifier. Try each one in turn and see what happens - that's what I usually do.

 

[Irishman]

It could be the Deformation Axis that you've selected in the Curve Modifier. Try each one in turn and see what happens - that's what I usually do.

Thanks, Starscape, but that was one of the first things I tried. The Y axis is the only one that follows the curve at all.

 

[Starscape]

Hmmm, I've been playing around in Blender, using your settings on a similar setup, and what you've done should work.

Did you fix origins and apply transforms, etc for the object and curve individually? If you highlight both and apply it may only apply the changes to the active element (the yellowy highlight) rather than to both.

The only other suggestion I have is to remove the modifiers from your object and try again (it sometimes seems like the modifiers in Blender don't always act consistently, but I could just be making excuses for my own mistakes). And when you add the Array Modifier, make sure the Relative Offsets are set so that the modifier extends the object from the desired edges before you apply the Curve Modifier.

 

[Ora Tzo]

A bunch of fellas have attempted and done Trek ships on this discord, could get some extra feedback here.
https://discordapp.com/invite/DdCsuUE

 

[Irishman]

Thanks, Ora. Just joined

Starscape, I have one last thing to try before giving up. I'll let you know how it goes after work.

 

[Irishman]

Success!! It finally worked. Jeez. Let me tell you what I had to do:

I rotated my geometry 90 degrees clockwise, applied that rotation via CTRL-A, and then reapplied the array modifier, with one difference: I set the Fit Type to Fit Curve, and eyedropped my path. Then, I added my curve the same as before.

Please to enjoy: https://www.deviantart.com/irishman20/art/PointerWIP42-811326406?ga_submit_new=10:1567015955

 

[Starscape]

Well done, it's looking good.

 

[Irishman]

Kind of you to say! It has kind of forced me to see some imperfections in my curve, so I'll play around with some ways to fix that smoothing.