United3dArtists Archive

I've been working on building some parts for a model kit I'm working on of the GB Ecto-1. Mainly I'm trying to create all the computer stuff in the back. I'm trying ot make it as accurate as possible to the actual movie used car. What I've been doing is modeling all the consoles and pieces in tS7.6 and then I plan to print those peices up at Shapeways and then use them in the actual model kit. So far it's been going pretty well. But I still haven't printed any test pieces yet. I'm working on a build log as I progress on SMA... but here's the idea I've got so far.






Been getting alot of help from the Ghostbusters Fans as well (they know just about everything there is to know about the Ecto because most of them built the real things!) Lemme know what you guys think!

Hi ! Welcome to the forums ! Looks great so far !
Peter

Uh oh!

Fantastic work!

Of course, now the Ghost busters theme song will be stuck in my head the rest of the day!

Thanks guys... still working on stuff... I've always had a problem with using paths and extruding a cylinder along it. I want to make the gurney back pack rack and just am having a hell of a time with it in tS. Any ideas?

Try making a cylinder to use as an SDS control mesh. Move edge rings in point edit mode to shape it. Side and top views are good for that. Then smooth with SDS. Credit to Spacekdet for that idea.

In TS 7.6 with model side when you make a primitive there are useful controls available. Just after you click to place a primitive right click on the primitive icon to get these controls. You can change the number of sides, rounding, number of loops and rings, etc. You can make a nice cylinder with enough rings without unnecessary extra edges.

The SDS control mesh with a cylinder, I have to try that out.

In the MS of TS you can make curves, move them around like nurbs curves, save it into a path library and then use that curve as a path extrude, then you just need to rotate and scale the path it will extrude along. You also may need to right click on the tool, after extruding, and toggle the "follow/normal" option (if I remember correctly) or else the loops will not follow the curve and all orientate a single direction.

Keep up the modeling! Keep us posted! I'll be following your progress. =)

Thanks all... I find myself doing alot of my modeling in tS6 over tS7... just like the interface more and hate that they changed most of the icons (the X,Y,Z for example). It's a shame they won't be updating tS anymore. Anyone have a good tutorial on doing path extrusions?

Um. I would like to make you a tutorial for you, but I'm far away from home and a computer at the moment on Holiday. But you can make a path using the path animation tool in the animation toolbar in MS. Once you have the path, you can save it as a curve or path in the library toolbar. Another way of making a path is doing an extrude, saving that as a path or curve, or even making a curve and saving that as a path or curve.

Once you have that, you can then select path-extrude then select a path/curve, or vice versa, don't remember, and it should work! Then you may need to scale and rotate before hitting the path extrude again, the once it extrudes, right click on it and make sure "bend" with the curve is activated, or else all the control planes will extrude in one direction, not with the curve.

Viola!

Well it's just an idea, not really a tutorial... Hope it helps.