Su-25T Frogfoot

As you know, I can never go for very long without something to do, and even though my GT40 has only been finished for like 2 days, I’ve already started my next project. I wanted to finally step into the world of modelling aircraft. It’s kind of like going back to my roots, as the first thing I ever tried to model was an F/A-18. I’m aware that an aircraft is an infinitely more detailed thing to model than a car, so this project probably won’t be going as quickly as my previous ones.

Anyways, here’s what I have so far. :smiley:

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Original Post:




More progress, added the wings and horizontal stabilizers. I’m blocking out rough shapes and details and then will go more in detail for separate parts :smiley:






Looks good. How much of it are you planning on making, your obviously going to detail the exterior quite a bit, but how much or the interior are you doing?

Can I see some wires?

@sdighe looking good, isn’t the engine’s intake is a bit more oval? I kinda see it a bit round in the second image in #2, but with that being said…if this is just the blocking stage, can’t wait to see it smoothed down and with the details being added…great job!

Looks good. How much of it are you planning on making, your obviously going to detail the exterior quite a bit, but how much or the interior are you doing?

Can I see some wires?

Well I have quite good reference of the interior, so if the vert count allows it, it’ll be highly detailed :smiley:

@sdighe looking good, isn’t the engine’s intake is a bit more oval? I kinda see it a bit round in the second image in #2, but with that being said…if this is just the blocking stage, can’t wait to see it smoothed down and with the details being added…great job!

The front intake’s top and bottom should be a little more flat I believe, I’ll get on that. Here’s the ref I’m using for that:


And here are some sort of bad wires:




Modeling looks good. Waiting for the texturing. :smiley:
That’s gives “wings” for the model.

Indeed, that’s gonna be the most difficult, but most rewarding part.

I added the hardpoints under the wings, as well as the fans and other visible engine details. Also added the drag chute holder.




Overall nice topology (I’m not an expert, and I’m not expecting any bad topology from you eather), but I’m not so sure about how you have everything connected with intersecting (like I said, not an expert, but that is sticking out to me).

Also, what do you think of raypump. I might consider using it.

Thanks! Most of the stuff that intersects are actually meant to, like the wings and horizontal stabilizers, because they aren’t one piece with the body. When I get to the stage of adding details like rivets and panels, I can then properly ‘attach’ them with rivets. As far as Raypump goes, it’s extremely convenient and easy to use. It makes test renders that would normally take my laptop half an hour last for 30 seconds. Do recommend. Only con is it adds a little Raypump watermark in the bottom left corner, but I only use it for test renders anyway.

I completely redid the cockpit, because the topo on both parts was cluttered and messy, it looked pretty bad. Here’s a comparison:
Before:



After:

Looking fiiine!!! hmm hmm hmm [snap fingers] :yes:

My only little issue is, I see a bit of pinching in the rear of the cockpit’s second window corners, although I’m sure you must have already fixed it by now

The overall shape of the airplane seems creditable (I am not a Su-25 buff, so I cannot say more about the details).

However, I would suggest:

  • to make the cockpit canopy as two objects: 1. The transparent Plexiglas surfaces, 2. The frames. It will be much easier to form these two meshes that require quite different topologies. Canopy frames always require a lot of work. I usually form the transparent shape first, then duplicate it, thicken, and cut into the frames.
  • to use textures for rivets and panels (You mentioned that you are going to model them. The result on the render is the same as for the modeled details, while they are much easier!)

Do you use photos as the reference? If you want to make an accurate model, do not rely on another model, from a game. Use photos instead, to verify every other reference, like the blueprints.
The canopy from post #9 seems to have irregular (non-circular) cross sections. I think it is deformed (probably beacuse you tried to make the frame and the transparencies as a single mesh);

It may be a great model, keep working! Maybe this add-on that calculates mesh intersections will be useful?

Added detail to the wing hardpoints, and also added the Air brakes. They are definitely going to be ‘interesting’ to animate.






Hi! Nice progress, I like this.

Ohne thing I noticed, without knowing exactly how the reference looks like:

the edges around the rudders look too smooth to me. You should use the edgesplit modifier:

Hi! Nice progress, I like this.

Ohne thing I noticed, without knowing exactly how the reference looks like:

the edges around the rudders look too smooth to me. You should use the edgesplit modifier:
/uploads/default/original/4X/2/6/3/263cbae36ac24e48aba3449cb0ca2c77919a127b.JPGd=1409646269

Duly noted, I will sharpen up that area.
Say hello to a rough version of the GSh-30-2 30mm cannon.


Worked on the wheels a bit, and also carved the landing gear bays into the fuselage.


:eek: Nicely done! Like the composition showing the wheels. Keep on the great job

Thanks man! :smiley:

Finished all the fiddly bits on the nose gear, just needs some rigging and materials. On that note, any good landing gear rigging tutorials out there? Hopefully I can learn quickly. For some reason Raypump insists on rendering nothing but frame one, so the landing gear bays are closed in this render, and the actual gear is sticking through them :frowning:


That looks pretty cool. I like the cage like part of the thing that attaches to the wheel (really sounds like I know my air plane parts doesn’t it?). When you set the frame to something later it still renders frame 1? You could just change the pose for frame one and then get rid of it once it renders.

After a LONG time of desperately trying to understand Russian engineering, the entire landing gear system is rigged, including the total of EIGHT bay doors. I’m pretty sure my laptop would kill itself over rendering an animation, so here are three stills of the rear gear cycling.






Still got a little bit of rigging to do before moving on to materials (and inevitably modelling the 83453 things I forgot) :smiley:

Tried my hand at uv unwrapping. I’m REALLY new to this whole uv unwrapping thing so let me know how I can improve! Obvious things are the giant seam right down the middle (top) Also, ever since I put the texture on the model, Blender uses like 400-800mb of memory consistently. Any suggestions? Thanks :smiley: (BTW, the UV map is of the fuselage only)