USF Confederacy in 3D | Blender

[3DShipWright]

15 hours ago, Martes said:

Note, thought, that the Constitution does have cant framing both fore and aft, as we discussed earlier.

So if you employed cant frames forward on the Confederacy, you possibly should consider doing the same on the aft end...

 

Indeed. I have modelled cant frames on the aft, it was just a bit hard to see on the last screenshot. All frames behind the dashed line are cant frames.

 

 

 

 

[3DShipWright]

19 hours ago, Martes said:

Exactly like it's neighbour to the right.

 

If it were any other ship, I'd agree, but I'm not sure how that would be physically possible on the Confederacy. All plans I can find show 3 pairs (6) of vertical timbers - technically comprised of the transom, counter, and quarterboard timbers) at the stern. I have all of these already but then there is an additional outboard floating timber that connects to just the quarterboard.

My question is - I think there needs to be a frame that essentially sits in the corner of where the tuck meets the lower counter and possibly extends up to the edge of the outboard timber. I just now added the highlighted piece. Can you tell me if this looks correct, and if not, how I can fix it? I know that may be asking a lot, so thanks in advance.

 

[Martes]

Thou shall not trust Hahn.

 

But, seriously, he went so far with structure simplification, that it has nothing to do with how real ships were constructed. Only contemporary practices and examples (the same Constitution) can provide some clues to construction methods.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Martes

[3DShipWright]

On 12/30/2023 at 2:59 PM, Lieste said:

Rigged for navigation, the partitions are all appropriate, but on clearing for action most if not all were struck down, along with removable furniture.

Indeed. And I 100% agree. I actually intend to go so far as to model the clip to which each individual removable partition was secured to the beam above and the raised foot board below. I will screenshot again when finished.

 

Best,

-Nate

[Lieste]

19 minutes ago, 3DShipWright said:

Indeed. And I 100% agree. I actually intend to go so far as to model the clip to which each individual removable partition was secured to the beam above and the raised foot board below. I will screenshot again when finished.

 

Best,

-Nate

I was thinking you might want a parts group(s) option which also allows arranging the model as 'cleared for action' as well as set up for navigation... because mostly we only see the ships closed to the weather if the are extant, or in film representations, or in physical models... because they are prettier that way (and/or are .. 'supplied that way' and are weather proof)

[3DShipWright]

11 hours ago, Lieste said:

I was thinking you might want a parts group(s) option which also allows arranging the model as 'cleared for action' as well as set up for navigation...

 

Yes Sir, you got it. I started an armature on the ship a while ago, but presently, it only applies to the gunports. The end goal will be to allow any part of the ship that could move in real life also move in the model... including, but not limited to:

 

1. The steering gear [the armature will control the rudder/tiller, inverse kinematics will spin the wheel at the helm. Drivers will be used to control shape keys on the curves so that the rudder chain and ropes move accordingly]
2. Windows [slide up and down]
3. Gunport Lids [open and shut independently]
4. Sweep Port Lids [open and shut independently]
5. Belfry [swings around the block]
6. Capstan [rotates on z axis]
7. Doors [open and shut independently]
8. Battery [the cannons will be able to move and fire, though still gotta figure out to what extent is reasonable]

[3DShipWright]

Setting up the standing rigging and getting a preliminary feel for how the yards will look.

 

 

Edited February 4 by 3DShipWright

[3DShipWright]

From another angle. The figurehead is temporary.

 

[3DShipWright]

Forgive the repeated topic postings - I think I'm close to finding a 'lossless' image resampling method that will allow you guys to actually see what I see, because sadly, every image I've shared comes out unbelievably blurry...

 

That said, there is hope! I finally bit the bullet and did the scale down in photoshop, so lets see how this goes...

 

@Martes - returning to a topic from long ago, I did some updates to the relief material, and I believe them to be historically accurate. Turns out, they were neither bronze, nor leifed with metallic paints. They were simply the 'sad colours' which your reference material I learned a bit more about. Turquoise-ish color became popular among American ships around this period, because they found that ochres in American soil produced more of a green hue than those in England. I can personally atest to this as, even though I now live in New England, I grew up in the south where lime and real turquoise was abundant (not saying there were literal gemstones in my sand box, but greenish dust was common. But I digress... If you mix everything together the resulting 'sad colour' you [can] get in America is a lot more grey than ochres in England. If you then mix in a little bit of blue paint, you get a material that very closely resembles patina, which captains would use to make their vessels look far more expensive than they actually were.

 

[Martes]

1 hour ago, 3DShipWright said:

If you then mix in a little bit of blue paint, you get a material that very closely resembles patina, which captains would use to make their vessels look far more expensive than they actually were.

Which is a very plausible explanation :)

[64Pacific]

This is quite the project that you have completed, thank you for sharing! I've always wanted to do a ship in 3D but spend way too much time using 3D CAD and have trouble convincing myself to grab the mouse after work, however, this thread makes me want to try it!

[3DShipWright]

@64Pacific - Thank you so much for the kind words. While I won't undersell the amount of time or tediousness of such an undertaking, I absolutely love following the projects of the other 3D artists on this forum and draw continued inspiration from their works.

Specific shout outs to @CDR_Ret and @Martes for their continuous updates (both blender users) that keep me engaged in my own projects, even if I'm not as disciplined at sharing regularily. And many other talented artists I many have missed.

Finally, from an aspirational perspective, I'm still very humbled at what @herask was able to do on his swan-class (HMS Pegasus) 3D model. It is one of the most comprehensive digital ship models I've ever seen, even among the professional 3D artist's portfolios over at ArtStation. In point of fact, it's that level of detail that I hope Confederacy has when finished.

Point is, give it a go! There's a great community here to cheer you on and provide assistance should you need it.
Best,

-Nate

[3DShipWright]

Hi Everyone,
So after a bit of a hiatus, I'm back with the first of three major update posts to Confederacy. In this post, I'll cover updates to the bow and a couple of minor enhancements to the outer hull. Change log is first, photos at the end. As always, feedback most welcome!

 

1. Upper headrail remodeled to taper properly. Pendant joint added at the top.
2. Carling atop the upper headrail remodeled; trim rail now blends smoothly where it meets the rail
3. Lower headrail remodeled as two distinct pieces that follow the hull and connect with the bottom of the catheads
4. Upper and lower headrails are now adorned with decorative reliefs
5. Hanging knees installed beneath the catheads
6. Boomkin holsters installed the upper headrails to support the bumpkins
7. Beakhead platform flattened, height adjusted; position of the doorsand round houses adjusted accordingly
8. Ledges that connect the beakhead platform to the prow grating installed
9. Seats of ease installed in front of the bumpkins atop the grating
10. Color theme of the bulkhead has been updated; doors and roundhouses are now white; decorative motif (white on blue) carried over from the side of the hull
11. Gammoning slots cut into the gammoning knee have been corrected so they aren't covered by the headtimbers
12. Safety netting added to the headrail barricade
13. Tip of the cutwater has been cut back a bit to accommodate the figurehead
14. Horseshoe plates flipped from heel to toe (I had them on backwards originally)
15. Bower anchors haver been upscaled to their (nearly) correct size
16. Chain plates, channel ties, and straps (lanyards) in place on the forward channels; main and mizzen channels in progress
17. Inboard and outboard rings installed on all gunport lids; outboard rings each have their own bones in the armature allowing them to pivot as the rope pulls the port open

And now the photos:

[CDR_Ret]

Beautiful, Nate!

 

Terry

[64Pacific]

Cool!

[JerryTodd]

Why do the lower dead-eye strops and chains look like rope or cable?  They should be iron

[Robska]

@3DShipWright could you explain how you do the texturing of this ship? For example the planking.

[3DShipWright]

@Robska - Certainly!

 

So the first thing to note - in case you missed it - is that the planks on Confederacy are actually 3D modelled (refer to pg. 1, post #27 of this thread to see how I made the actual planks).

 

Basic Texturing Flow

 

Pick a PBR texture you want to use, download the images, and setup your material node(s). [Not sure what your level of knowledge is with texture node setup in Blender, so feel free to ask myself or any number of the other Blender users on here to get you started if need be] For all the painted portions on Confederacy, I used the Worn Wood 3 texture from Textures.com

Link: Worn Wood Surface - PBR0609

 

Ideally, you want a texture of a solid wood surface without planks already depicted in the texture itself. Conversely, if you are not modelling each individual plank or strake, then you may want to go with a texture that simulates the planking for you - just be aware that UV unwrapping the entire hull as a single island is going to be tricky if you want to minimize distortion.

 

Next, UV unwrap the planks. I think for Confederacy I actually just used 'smart UV project' because I wanted more randomization and didn't want to mess with manually dragging them around the U editor window. However, manually marking the seams gives a cleaner result and is what I would suggest for a smaller boat/ship like yours.

 

After you do the UV unwrap, scale the UV islands to their approx. real-world scale (tip - most PBR websites will indicate the scale of the texture on the download page).

 

To get the painted look, simply replace the color file with an RGB input. That way, the texture retains all the AO, roughness, normal, and bump data from the wood texture, but you can easily make it any color you want. It also saves memory when you duplicate the material to get different colored wood, because the same images underpin all painted wood textures on my boat. This greatly reduces the workload because now the only time you need to use other PBR textures is for any non-painted wood, metal parts, and ropes.

 

 

Once you get your basic textures setup and applied, let me know and I can give you more pro-tips, like edge wear, peeling looking paint, water/rust streaks, etc.

 

Hope this helps,

-Nate