Using Editable Poly to Draw a Spaceship

This tutorial will hopefully show you how to use some of the features in editable poly. Hopefully you will find it useful.

Since a spaceship is symmetrical we will use a box that has 1 height, 2 width and 1 length segment. Turn on Edge Faces from the viewport at this time. You should see something like

If you are modeling a specific spaceship that exists it is important to have a model or picture of it beside you to refer to it. I am just going to draw a spaceship of my own design.

Right Click on the box at this time and choose convert to Editable Poly

Notice that we can select by vertex, edge, border, polygon and element. We will first use the edge selection tool and the connect button.

Using the Edge Selection

With the edge selection tool active and ignore backfacing checked I am now going to select the following two edges and connect them.

The connect tool draws an edge between the two faces.

These two edges were selected

And then the connect button was clicked

To give me this new edge

Now I have another edge to work with.

I will now create 2 connects at the same time.

The middle and top edges were first selected.

Then the little button beside the connect button was clicked and 2 was selected. These faces can be moved

Edges can be moved simply by using the move tool

Using the Polygon Selection Tool

Select the following Polygon

And now click on the extrude tool

Make sure the Polygon is selected

Use an extrusion of about 25 to see this

Extruding can also be done by rightclicking on the selected polygon and then choosing extrude. A target like icon will then appear.

Pushing forward with the mouse will then make the extrude appear

The polygons can be moved and manipulated just like an edge or a vertice

Here you can see I extruded 4 more times from various polygons to do this

Simply by extruding from various polygons I can get this unique shape

Symmetry and Meshsmooth.

Adding a symmetry modifier at this time will let us mirror the space ship.

Add a symmetry modifier along the x axis.. You might have to flip to get it to look like this

Add the symmetry

Choose the mirror axis

And flip if you need it

Now everything you do on one side will be mirrored by the other.

Put a meshsmooth modifier on at this time.

Two iterations on the meshsmooth should work just fine

When I go to select vertices , edges or polygons I like to have the meshsmooth turned of and the show end result turned on like this

Meshsmooth off

Show all toggle on

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