Exercise 10: FW190 Fighter

I modeled the plane today.
I added the wheel wells as boolean cuts and modeled the wings and tail so I could install a rig.
Have not got the rig yet but the plane came out pretty good I think.


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Very nice Tim. You sure modeled that quickly.

How do you feel about the booleans. Did that work as well as you hoped?

The wheel wells seem to take notions where they cut thru the entire wing depending on the way you are looking at it when you render.
The boolean volume is well under the wing surfaces except the bottom where it is to cut thru.
It seems pretty straight forward as far as its rules but it seems like a last resort rather than a slick option.

My day job is 3D CAD doing product design of automotive pistons.
Boolean cuts work much differently there and are as common as creating positive volumes.
They create the new surfaces and you can see and work with them in the model.
I have to say it is one feature I miss from the mechanical side of life.

Reading this back I must be a little nuts.
CAD all day and trying to learn animation all night.
What is wrong with me?

The animation keeps me sane and I love doing it.

That's a sharp looking plane!




possibly the wing mesh is not entirely closed?

could you show a few examples where it didn't work right?

Here are a few pic's that show the problem.
I added a pic of one boolean pocket.
It is closed on evey side.
Are (5) point patches a problem for booleans?

Thanks for taking a look at this for me.

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Are the wings splined into the body of the plane or are the wings and body two intersecting meshes?

The wings intersect.

I went back and capped the ends of the wings inside the fuslage.
The edges and cut out for the elevators are all capped also.
Now one side is still showing thru and the other does not cut all thebottom surface.

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We know that's a must. Both the cut and the cutter need to be closed shape.




Just to try... delete the body and see if the booleans cut the wings any differently.

(and of course, you'll do this on a copy of your model and not save over your finished model)

I did what you said and removed the fuslage. When I did I noticed the wings intersected at a very small spot on the bottom.
I fixed that and adjusted the pockets just a bit to cover the landing gear up inside the pocket better.
Here are the results.

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Here is the model if you would want to take a look at it and see what I may have done wrong.
The pockets need some final shape work if I can get the intermittent boolean cuts fixed.

Thanks again,
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Tim,
I played with your model for awhile trying to figure out why it wan't enclosed and found myself wondering if Booleans weren't working. So... I shelved your model for the time being and started a simple model from scratch to make sure.

Sure enough the Booleans work.

In the Tech Ref it states "The rules for Boolean operations are strict..." and they aren't kiddin'.
Attached you'll find a simple example of what booleans can do if the meshes are closed.
You can get Booleans to work sometimes without strictly following all the rules... but you shouldn't.

The example contains:
Example project file
Two Bones (one a boolean cutter with all the cutting forms assigned to it- the other assigned to the mesh being cut)
Various Groups all assigned to the Bone that cuts (except the main unibody wing).
Each group a different color. (it could also be a different material or image)
I've included a shaded wireframe image to demonstrate even cylinders capped wiht 5 point patches at the ends work fine.
No need for multiple bones either unless you want to animate what is being cut. (REALLY COOL SFX CAN RESULT)
Note: I've intentionally placed the two odd shaped cutters on the edge to demonstrate they cut cleanly through the wing on edges with no artifacts.

While I need to look at your model again I'd say your wings and/or your cutter objects aren't closed off enough.
If your patience can take it I would suggest remodeling and trying to standardize on 4 point patches.
In my opinion the knowledge of Booleans will be worth it in the long run.

Note: You've modeled parts of your wings that you can probably cut out as well.
If you know you are going to use Booleans from the beginning take advantag of that. Keep the forms simple and cut... cut... cut.

I've been looking at this.

If I take one cross section from a wing and re-extrude a new wing from that, the Boolean seems to always work. This set of rotations would always reveal a problem with the original wing

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But there seems to be no amount of "spline fixing" I can do to the original wing to make it work. Even though I respline it to have the topology of the re-extruded wing we still get odd frames.

Removing the wheel and strut reduced the odd frames but still doesn't eliminate them:

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So I think the "problem" is with the wing, not the boolean cutter, but I don't know what.

I think this would make good AM report since the shapes don't seem to violate any rules for Booleans

Exactly.

At one point I think I deleted an extra spline from one patch section.
As I wasn't sure if I had somehow caused that extra spline in the first place I began to think in simpler terms.
The problematic areas seemed to be the cutout area reserved for the aeliorons and the end caps near the fusilage.
There are a series of 3 point patches in both areas as I recall.
The cutting meshes had some similar noncontinuous areas and I ended up throwing those out as well.

I'm sure you've played with the mesh enough to know but for my part I can't see this as A:M Report fodder.
I just think it needs to be remodeled with continuous splines as much as possible.

Edit: In looking back into the model... I'm not finding the wing mesh assigned to a Bone.
Makes me wonder if I'm looking at the right model.

Robert and Tim,
I think you can scratch both theories.

After adding two Bones (one for the mesh cutter set to Boolean Cutter=On) and one to both wings the cutter appears to work without any modification of the meshes. Is it possible the necessary Bones weren't in the test model?

See attached file to see if that's the case on your end.

This will be easier to see if you assign the Left and Right Wing Pockets (the cutting meshes) a slightly different patch color.
I've assigned a hot pink in the attached image so it'll stand out.

I updated the last post with what I think is the proper setup of the Bones.
Everything seems to be cutting as it should here.

Back to you and Robert for additional validation.
If there is a lesson I learned here it might be: Check the Bones first.

Edit: I like what you've done with this model (modeling-wise).
Nice job!

Thanks a million to both Rodney and Robert.
The boolean cuts do seem to be working now after I assigned the wings to a bone and cleaned up the dead end splines in the pockets.

When I read the Tech Manual (page 55) to know how to set up the cut, I did not see anything stating the geometry getting cut (wings) needed a bone.
I understood the geometry that was the cutter needed one and any geometry that was not to be cut had to be a child of the boolean bone.
I went back and re-read it and I still don't see where it says the wings need a bone.
Not making fault, I just don't see it in the manual and don't know where you picked up on needing one for the wings.
Obviously they need one and you know what you are doing.
You are both great teachers.

At any rate, I won't make that mistake again which is the important thing....I learned something.
Booleans do work, absolutely have their place, and are another trick in the bag now.

Thanks again to both of you.
I could have taken forever and eventually gave up if not for your help.

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I had already tried adding a bone to the wings and it still didn't work, so Rodney must be magic!

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I'm not totally sure what the magic was.
I did what both of you recommended.
I closed the winds and tried to make sure I did not have dead end splines.
I did the same with the pockets.
I added the bone for the wings.
When I made two different chors, I did not get any openings.
They are just twisting around to look at the plane from different directions.
I am using v14c rather than v15. I don't know if that has an effect or not.

I appreciate the help you both gave me.
All I know is the plane seems to be working so far.

Thanks again to you both.
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I was channeling Tim.

Speaking of Tim...


How... in... the...
How did you learn to fly like that!??!?!

Many years spent at the Oshkosh Air Show with my dad and our airplane.
Maybe this explains why he was so nervous all the time.

Thanks Rodney,
Now your a mentor and therapist

I finished rigging the FW190 Fighter and thought I would post a clip to show how the boolean cuts worked out with the landing gear.
I also rigged the rudder, ailerons, and elevator just for fun.
I even figured out how to apply the lesson on "Walk cycles" to make an action to have the prop turn.
This was a really fun lesson for me and I learned a whole lot in the process.

Rodney, this clip won't make you sick like the last time. I flew it nice and level.

Hope you like it.


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