Continuing work on the main rotor base mesh.
It was quite difficult to figure out the complex shape of the Mast Assembly. I utilized a combination of AI generation from photos, Image Modeler, and Camera Match in Blender to recreate at least an approximate version of this part.
I am currently assembling the rotor elements in the main scene, and I can finally start connecting several parts together. When you begin this process, modeling errors become immediately obvious because parts simply might not fit or align properly. Fortunately, my discrepancies have been minimal so far. Again, this highlights the critical importance of the blockout / base mesh phase. If I had modeled every part in high-poly from the start, I would have had beautiful renders and posts for each individual piece. However, upon assembling the full rotor scene and discovering that parts don’t fit, making corrections in high-poly would have been extremely difficult.
The Lower Shoe is a complex and subtle detail. There are good photos of the MD 500 rotor (below, left), but the part there has a completely different shape than the one on the 5-blade rotor (below, right).
Once again, frames from this video were a massive help.
I’ve created a simplified version for now, but everything seems to align correctly.
To be continued…
The completed high-poly main rotor model is now available in the 3D models store.
The completed game low-poly main rotor model is now available in the 3D models store.
