I spent a little more than a week practicing shrinkwrapping hull- panels to a base mesh and this is what resulted from that. I know it's not a perfect replica of the 3d model from Elite Dangerous, but I wanted to get most of the general modeling skills from this project, and I think I did. Please enjoy :)
I created flat planes that matched the shape of the hull panels as you can see from top view of the ship(The White Panels). I then added a shrinkwrap modifier to each panel individually and set the target as the black base mesh that is underneath all of the hull panels. I think the base mesh is almost completely covered, but ,basically, it matches the general shape of the Imperial Eagle with a subdivision surface modifier. It's important to set the "mode" as "project" and not "nearest surface point" under each shrinkwrap modifier. Then I dragged each panel down until they followed the curvature of the base mesh surface. You can add a solidify modifier to each panel or extrude all faces at once, which by default, will extrude equally and give the hull panels a bit of thickness. Sorry for the long description.
Thanks for sharing! I'm working on a high res version of the Enterprise NX-01. I'm using the shrinkwrap modifier for that too. I'll probably have it up for sharing in...ten years? I wish I had more spare time but what you did here looks great! Keep up the good work!
wow thank you this will save me a lot of time and i just love the texture
HI, really cool spaceship, do you mind if I use it in an experimental shoot? thanks
Interesting, how exactly that wrapping of panels was done? Thank you