The Fans!

The fans for the ship are an important element to the aircraft carrier which was discussed in the previous post for elevation reasons for the carrier. The fans will be placed in the middle of the wings so although size doesn’t matter an inaccurate fan would make the final outcome look weird and out of place.

The fan will have to be created using all four screens (viewpoint) of 3ds max for accuracy.

Since a fan is considered to have a round shape a sphere will be the first object to be used in 3ds max. Once the required size is acquired it needs to be squashed so by using the resize tool in 3ds max the sphere should be squashed down to a reasonable height and an image below shows what size was used for this project.

Now the fan needs to have a whole for the blades to rotate so by converting the sphere into an editable poly mode the faces of the sphere can be selected and deleted so that a smaller sphere is in the middle but still containing and outer shape for the rim of the fan. An example image is shown below and both sides need to be accurate and symmetrical to be able to continue.

 

Now the rim maybe squashed more that the inner part of the fan but this is not a problem and will be resolved but for now the inner part of the fan needs to be connected together and this can be done through the bridge tool making sure that the inner part of the fan has no holes.

Now if the outer rim is selected it can be raised slightly so that it’s easier to work from and the inner piece should also be raised, the inner piece should be raised so that the bottom of the inner piece is in line with the bottom of the outer rim. The outer rim should be pulled evenly using the resize tool so that the centre piece is now in the centre of the rim in size.

 

Now the centre piece can start taking shape with a simple extrusion upwards to a sort of cap or lid for shown in the example below with the top of the cap now being just over the top half of the rim in height.

 

Now the basic part of the fan has been created but more detail is required to give a more fantasy or advanced look so a box was formed into a rectangle and by using the swift loop tool more edges and faces were added for easier editing.

 

Then 2/3 of the box or rectangle now was deleted so that only a thin even rectangle remained. From here the  rectangle was squashed and reformed in editable poly mode to make sort of an upper layer to the fan for more detail.

 

 

Then a simple cylinder was used on the back end of this object so that it would be able to connect to something or the rest of the fan.

 

Then another cylinder was made and re-shaped using editable poly mode to make the final attachment of this object and simple extrusions and symmetry was used to create this which the images clearly explain below.

 

Before the object can be added to the fan a little inset needs to be included on the outer rim of the fan so that more detail can be added in certain places which the will involve some extrusion later on.

 

Now the object is complete it can be added to the fan and in this example resizing and rotating it appropriately to fit on the fan is shown and from there it’s a simple duplication around the fan to give the fan some of the detail it requires for this project.

 

 After the object is in place the top layer of the rim and the bottom are extruded out so the object is not stretched out too meet the rim which gives the fan more depth towards it and complicates the shape slightly. This is then duplicated across the whole area of the fan.

 

Now the fan is taking shape but a little more detail is required so a sphere was taken and reshaped the same way as the back end of the first object for the fan. With a slight difference to the back end of the new object and the image below shows the difference.

Another cylinder was taken and resized to fit in the gap of the now new piece of detail for the fan and is rotated and resized to fit on the fan like the example below.

 

From this the detail of the fan is complete so the last thing to do would be to add the blades for the fan and since there is enough detail to this fan so just simple fan blades but the bottom of the centre piece will have to be extruded slightly to allow for some space for the fan blades and the fan will now have different levels to it which will make it more organised.