Messerschmitt P.1106 R (luft46)

[eric_son]

I did a quick unfold of the model just to see if my redesign would make the assembly easier...

So far so good.

I'll still need to do the fuselage and wing formers. And also the paint job.

[Paperwarrior]

I still say you are on to something with this attempt. The unfold looks good.

Jeff

[rbeach84]

Eric, that unfold is a piece of art.

[eric_son]

Thanks!
I intentionally colored each object in Metaseq to make sorting them out in Pepakura much easier.

[eric_son]

I just finished performing the UV-mapping for all the components of the model.

In my previous models, I just let Metaseq automatically layout the UV maps for me.
But for some reason, Metaseq decided to punish me for the P.1106R's fuselage.



Normally, when I hit the "ATLAS" button on the UV-Mapping tool window, Metaseq would produce a nice layout without any overlapping surfaces. But for this one...well.

So, I had to do a lot of re-layouting to get the parts right and to maximize the limited bitmap space that I have.

What I did was to save my Pepakura unfold as an image, then use that as a "guide" for lining up the UV Maps.



Although it took much more tedious and repetetive work, I think it came out better.



Also, since the UV-Maps are in correct proportion with the actual unfolded surfaces, I think I'll get a nice bonus of having perfectly proportioned roundels. I won't have to purposely deform my roundels to make them appear correctly in the UV Map. The image above is the UV-Mapped texture I used for the BV212. Notice how I had to deform the roundels. I did this because I used the default UV-unwrap that was produced by Metaseq's ATLAS function.

Anyway, here's a picture of the progress so far:


RLM83 is not the final color I plan to use. I just did a hasty paint job to see what it looks like.
Time to do a little research. I'll probably base the camo job on the Natter or Komet.

[eric_son]

OKAY, now I'm a little pissed off at Metaseq. I'm not sure if it's a bug or just plain user error.
So here it goes.

If you recall in my last post, I didn't want to use Metaseq's auto-layout for UV mapping plainly because it sometimes distorts the alignment of my roundels (Balkenkreuz).
So what I did was to use use Pepakura to unfold my model.
Then, after a bit of layout arrangements, I export Pepakura to a raster image. I then use the raster image in Metaseq's UV editor by aligning the UV map to match the pattern in Pepakura.

So far, it worked perfectly! Here's a sample image of the fuselage:

Notice how the Balkenkreuz as well as the camo pattern on the UV map perfectly matches the one on the 3d model.

But lo and behold the results on the WING!

Holy wavy lines, Batman! What happened here?
Not only are the patterns misaligned, they're DISPROPORTIONATELY misaligned!
Notice the Balkenkreuz... small misalignment there. But look at the edges of the camo pattern and how they're wayyyyy out of alignment compared to the Balkenkreuz! Worse, tweaking the UV map coordinates may fix part of the camo, but it most likely mess up other parts.

I'll dump the texture for the wing and start over, maybe using the default auto-layout of the UV map. (Blech.) If it still does not work well, I'll have to post edit the Pepakura output by printing to PDF and editing the PDF via Inkscape.

In any case, here's how the camo job is going so far:

I think I should try doing the camo for the tail fins as well. Need to see if there are any misalignments there too.

Now back to the drawing board... :(

[Paperwarrior]

Wow! I applaud your stick-to-it-ness. The results are awesome. You're doing great work. I look forward to your next installment.

Jeff

[eric_son]

Done with the texturing!

I gave up trying to salvage the weird UV-Mapping of the wings. Instead, I started over, and made a new set of wing skins.

Here's how it turned out:

And here's a side view shot:

This is my first v-tail design. Would anyone know how to handle the roundels on a v-tail? Do the roundels go under the tail (as in the picture above) or on top of it? Or both?

Next step --- test build!

[rockpaperscissor]

Outstanding design! This is really going to be a fun one to build.

[Paperwarrior]

Awesome!!!!