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Original Title: Utvandrarna Based on the book by Vilhelm Moberg (published in 1949) depicting a few people emigrating from Sweden to the United States in the 1840 - early 1850. Haven't seen the movie, but judging from the VFX below, I really do want to see it.

OK, I have a plan for this, which I think is going to produce some fairly decent results. It's based on modelling the top half. So, for stage 1 I have done what you presumably did initially, but instead of doing it flat, I am extending it down half the depth of the mattress from either side, with the intention of avoiding the surface deformer altogether. So that tessellating piece is going in a standard linear cloner / connect type setup to produce a suitable amount of them nicely stitched together, and then I'll be able to flatten the ends of the sheet. The crucial difference here in this edge flow versus your original is that mine remains fully planar in the direction I want to to fold, and so it can do so without any interruption to the zig pattern because there are no diamond / kite polys at 45 degrees to the fold lines. And that is going to be the key difference here I think... but as a secondary thing we also have topo at the start that is impossible to produce ngons or triangles from when later subdivided, which is also a good thing, and will keep all the modelling tools fully functional until the end of modelling... Of course, once subdivision is involved then we will lose our carefully placed corners, and the sharpness of them, so we need to address that next. We have a number of options here, but one option we don't have is to bevel anything, which of course will destroy our overall curvature. So that leaves us with edge / point weighting or global non smoothed subdivision (with the command rather than the object) at very high level - probably 3 or 4. Experience tells me that the former is probably the best option for this project, or at least it will be faster to try than the other method, so is worth a go first. It makes sense to do as much of this as we can while it is still a single clone, so I selected these edges for weighting, and did so to 70% with the aim of ONLY hardening the corners that need to be sharp, and not the rest of it, hence the slightly unusual selection... So having cloned and collapsed that I have then path selected the end edge loops, and Pulled those down to match the longer sides. Then we need to cut in a single repeat of that pattern into the edges that are folded over (and weight them), giving us perfectly planar topology at the fold lines. We could also try a smoothing deformer on the weighted mesh, to dial back the weighting in a more organic way... Of course this is just one of many ways to approach this sort of thing. Most people are going to pop a cube in there, and then do the pattern with material displacement / normal maps if they are in a hurry, and the results they'll get from that will be pretty good. CBR

I tried to take a look at the file and it took like an hour or something to load. I had a look about before trying to render in the viewport and it froze up again, like maybe it was going to spend an hour in render prep, so I quit it. The one thing that stood out to me was the Liner 3D gradient. I wouldn't totally trust that shader to render the same as viewport, already it doesn't in some cases, even in its native renderer, and I would make low poly tests before trying it on something so huge. I usually use the 2d U & V gradient shaders and project them from the side to layer flat terrain.

Dang it, if it wasn't for Cerbera, I'd be done with this model by now. It wouldn't be any good, but I'd be done. Haha. I must have reworked this wing half dozen times now and it still isn't right. After reworking 3-4 times with a lot of point moving and such, I finally sat down and watched a couple hours of modeling lessons. That really helped. I went back and attacked this with a completely different approach. I got the basic wing done in about 20 minutes, with what I think was pretty good poly flow. The cone taper stumped me for some time and I finally put a cone in that section and moved points until the polys lined up with the cone. I know there is a better way, I just don't know what it is. The rear edge is still quite thick and whenever I try to taper the top of the wing from front to back so the rear edge is thinner, I get bumps on the top polys near the rounded engine compartment. I'm also not sure I'll be able to connect the wing to the nose section, which means I'll probably have to start from scratch at least one more time. I also know that I have a couple of complex poles on the leading edge of the wing. I'm not sure what to do about those. The back engine exhaust is messy because I only have the one reference image. So, I have to make it the way I think it might be. This exhaust section also makes it difficult to then the rear edge in the way I'd like to. Once the wing is good, I had planned to extend it to complete the body of the ship. Before I do that, I'll watch some more lessons. I don't know why it's so difficult for me to think this through. I never expected this model to take this long. Lol. It looked so simple. I uploaded a project file with several iterations and annotations on each so that you might see my progression. I really appreciate any feedback, even if it is to say; "Just give up, you're not meant to model". Lol. ship_wing_progress.c4d

Thank you! 🙂

Hey, where is the obligatory, "WARNING: Not for the squeamish tag?" 🙄

@Igor Thanks for the info. Though I'd wish there were some other plan than a Wiki. From very few exceptions I have not yet seen any functional Wiki, which did not degrade to a ridiculous mess within a very short amount of time. Usually the time needed to maintain a Wiki properly does not and can not be invested. No single person will be able to accomplish, what the community will not provide (and communities provide only the interesting stuff usually). A Wiki without maintenance usually falls apart quicker than Maxon can say subscription... For me such threads in combination with a few tags (already there) and a working forum search (also already there) would be enough. Anyway, thanks for the info.

Over the years, I have collected art books to be used for inspiration, ideas, etc. Now, my love for science fiction and VFX "behind the scenes" topics have therefore filled my bookcase with tons of "Making of...." or the "The Art of...." type of coffee table books published over the last 40 years. Books such as these are always at the top of my Christmas wish list. Last Christmas my kids both chipped in an got me this book which interestingly enough was published in November, 2020 but was back ordered and so I did not get it until May 4th, 2021....which is kind of ironic. This book is numbered in terms of its printing, so not sure if that makes it a collector's item. I did not think anything would ever beat that present, but my wife absolutely stunned me this Christmas with this gift: Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie She was not looking for it....rather she just found it. Normally, $250 from Amazon but reduced to $166, she found it (brand new and still shrink wrapped) for $50 at Homesense --- a furniture store!!!!. She did not know who Ralph Mcquarrie was or the influence he has had on sci-fi art, but instinctively knew that it would not be there for long. So, she bought it thinking that it could always be returned later if it was a complete miss. Not!!! Morale of the story: Next time your significant other wants you to go furniture shopping with her, it may not be all that bad of an idea!!! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with warm memories and a few unexpected surprises. Dave

aboard! We have few Bjoerns already 😉