USS Tecumseh - Canonicus Class ACW Monitor

[DrPR]

This is an excellent thread. You are doing what I have started calling "virtual archaeology."

It is one thing to examine a shipwreck and publish a few sketches and text descriptions. It is an entirely different thing to create a full scale virtual model of the ship, right down to the nuts and bolts. Even if you had the original blueprints they would not reveal the way the parts of the ship came together as well as an accurate CAD model. It is the next best thing to the real ship.

Here is another enormous model done in blender - 500 Mbytes, 80 million polygons, 14 hour render.

http://www.max3d.pl/forum/showthread.php?t=63919

Phil

[tea monster]

The level of detail there is frightening. I was going to say that Ironclads are fun, but making a modern warship at that level of detail would be a life-times work.

I too am intrigued by CAD models of various ships. I know that there are several CAD representations of the original Monitor around the place - going down to re-creating all the original strakes and hull braces. Someone did a virtual re-creation of her for a website and rendered out some QuicktimeVR renders of the interior. I don't know how accurate they are.

I've got to stress this though, my model is NOT a CAD model. It is not accurate down to the millimeter, and I would not be able to render out proper builder's blueprints from my model. Blender is not made for that. I've got my model to be as accurate as it is by matching it up with photos and period drawings and examining every piece of evidence I can get my hands on. After making the main hull the correct width and length, the rest of the parts of the ship are created by bringing in the blueprints underneath the mesh and visually matching them up. I'm doing this out of a primary interest in that period of naval development and ship type.

Not much progress to show. I've started UV Mapping the hull so that I can add some plating detail. I've got the anchor chain started off. So texturing is to come.
EDIT: 06/03/2020 - Repaired Photof*ckit damage.

[tea monster]

Plating is starting to happen. Needs some tweaking, but it's getting there.
EDIT: Repaired Photo*ucket damage.

[Roscoe]

Man, that is really looking good. (drool) Thanks for showing us some of the UV mapping, more please...

Dean

[tea monster]

Deck plating is just about done and I've started the turret.

First off, I got a concrete texture and ran it through the high-pass filter in Photoshop. Then I fudged around with it and re-sized it a bit till I thought it looked about right, then I tiled it (off-set filter and some clone-brushing). I'm still not really happy with the main colour of it, but that can be changed.

The bump map for the deck was created as a vector image in Inkscape. I brought in Capt. Peterkin's deck plans and traced the location of the deck vents and then hid the graphic for export to a PNG for Blender. I had to crank the bump map up to 4096 pixels to maintain the line clarity! It's not as dramatic as the earlier version, but I think it's more to scale. I also varied the deck plate position somewhat as all the other versions I've seen have very 'kitchen tiled' deck plates and if you look at the original, they are staggered all over the shop. I've left those deck openings that don't look like vents as actual plates, mostly for variety.

The turret was fun. I got that photo of the Mahopac that I posted earlier and actually got a section off of a high-res version of it and clone-brushed the cable and some officers head out of it. Then I tiled it and used it as the bump map for the turret. It needs some tweaking yet (scale might be off), and I'm not sure about the colours yet, but I'm generally happy with it.

Oh, to reduce problems with the UV map, I switched to top view, Selected only the vertices that made up the top deck, then chose project from view to get a nice, even map with no distortion.

One thing that has come up on the thread of Bernard Kempinski is the way in and out of the pilot house. There has to be an access hatch, but I can't see any details of it in the plans I have. Anyone have any solid info?

EDIT: 06/03/2020 - Re-uploaded dead photobucket file.

[Roscoe]

Looking Great, and thanks for the texture/maps info.

Haven't seen anything about the pilot house hatch, they had to get in there somehow.

Dean

[tea monster]

Thanks

Here is the Turret texture (WIP) I think I've got the iron bumps down pat. I need to add the plate and rivet detail yet. I'm still not 100% on the colours though...

Owen

EDIT: 06/03/2020 - Re-uploaded dead pb link.

[mcg]

Just splendid -- and it keeps getting better and better. Fascinating to watch. Michael

[tea monster]

Just some work on the turret to make it solid inside and out.

Oh, and found this guy in the pilot house...

EDIT: 06/03/2020 - Repaired dead Photobucket links.

[Roscoe]

Oh, and found this guy in the pilot house...

How the heck did he get in there?

Just keeps getting better and better, this is one sweet looking monitor, awesome work.

Dean

[tea monster]

Still doing detail passes.

I've decided that I'm going to do a turret interior, so the deck plates, rail top and interior are all being modelled (yes, all those holes were a pain in the posterior). Oh, and I've also decided that I'm going to model those vents. The texture just isn't doing it.

Got the Cannons started off. A few more details left, but it's going well. I've added a slight swell to the front of the muzzles of the Dhalgrens. Contemporary artwork says that it had a straight chiselled front end, but just about every photo I can find, and even the Monitor's own cannon, have this swell just before the end.

Here is an exploded view of the turret. All mats are test. I don't have the wooden cross beams in yet, they are to come, as is the grated floor of the pilothouse.

EDIT: 06/03/2020 Fixed dead Photobucket files

[Roscoe]

Wow, this is going to be good!!! I'm digging the details...
Hey Tea, are you going to animate the turret and cannons while your at it?

Dean

[DrPR]

tm,

I tried using a flat "texture" for deck drains on my model, and they didn't work well there either. Shadows especially came out bad - shadows across the hole openings! I ended up modelling the hole gratings and drain opening below them, and they look much more realistic now.

Phil

[tea monster]

Thanks!

Roscoe - I could animate the turret firing, which would be interesting. I've got a lot of detail work to do on it yet. There is the turret floor to do, all the errata like cables and braces and ram-rods. Then there is some more work to do on the carriages (the sub braces and there are nuts and a bolt on top of the pivot brackets).

I'm going to working on the Captain a bit. I've got a model of a Redcoat soldier that I was working on that I'll 'adapt' into a few officers and some seamen. So I could actually have the turret 'manned', which would be a challenge.

DrPR - That is exactly the problem I'm having here. Ideally, it should use something called 'displacement mapping' which actually distorts the mesh on rendering, so you get 'real' shadows. Blender dosen't have very good displacement mapping though. I could give it a try, but I'm having to use stupid-sized textures to carry the illusion off with all the close-ups I'm doing. It looks OK when you have the whole ship in view, but the minute you zoom in, it goes flat. After modelling all those deck grates, a few vents shouldn't put me off!

Oh, and I'd like to apologize, I know the convention here is to sign your posts at the end, I just keep forgetting.

Owen

[tea monster]

Not a great deal to show, but a lot of work has gone on. I had to re-do the upper hull as when I tried to cut in the vents, I found a problem with the stern (of course, after I'd already cut in half the vents on the mesh with the smooth modifier applied). It had to be done though, so do it I did. The vents are in and the hull has a lot better geometry than it did before.

The cannons are done, as are the carriages. A lot of work has been done on the turret interior. I still have to do the turret floor details and the errata on the ceiling, but it's mostly there at the moment. The mats on this shot (sans turret body) are nearly complete. The brass and the iron are probably way too shiny (but they do look nice! ). The muzzles are back to how they were. I found this pic of an actual 15in Dhalgren gun from a Monitor (the Catawba), in, of all places, Japan! The end on this cannon is flat, so I took a digital file to mine as well.

Dean - There will be an animation. I'll probably get a few crewmen in there as well! Jay Moore at the Mariner's Museum has suggested to me that I do the complete interior. I conferred with my eldest Son (also a modeller) and he too thought it was a pretty good idea. I think I'm going to get the exterior of the ship and the interior of the turret/pilot house completed first. I may move onto another project for a bit (I get cabin-fever if I'm on one project for too long). Then I'll come back to the Tecumseh and start the interior. I'll need some time to get some more research done anyway.

Owen

EDIT: 06/03/2020 - Fixed dead links due to PhotoF*ckit

[Roscoe]

Owen, that looks superb!
And leaving the brass shiny gets my vote, it adds extra pop to the interior, plus like you said, it just looks damn good that way.

I know what you mean about getting burnt out on a single project, I'm so used to working on multiple projects that I wouldn't know how to handle just one .

So what's your plan for the animation?

Dean

PS- Your son does some excellent work also, a chip off the old block, aye!

[tea monster]

Cheers!

I'm planning on making a couple of crew members, then doing a turret load and fire. I've got some ideas of other renders, but I don't want to define anything till I get the turret interior sorted out and the characters done.

Thanks for the comments on Steve!

[Roscoe]

Cheers!

I'm planning on making a couple of crew members, then doing a turret load and fire. I've got some ideas of other renders, but I don't want to define anything till I get the turret interior sorted out and the characters done.

Very cool!!! can't wait...

Dean

[Devin]

Very nice work on that turret interior! The pilot house as well. Just so you know, I saw a drawing of the pilot house while at the Mariner's, and yours is spot-on. The odd thing is that the plan drawing didn't show a thing about the access hatch. Weird. Still a mystery.

[tea monster]

Thank you!

I'm reaching the point of diminishing returns as far as the turret interior is concerned. If anyone has anything that they think really just must be in there, then let me know.

One last point though. I've found a plan that kind of describes the ship's binnacle. But I have no idea what that round thing is behind the helm. It looks like a Telegraph, but its way too big and placed strangely. Usually these things have a compass on them, but the compass is mounted higher and it's usually in some kind of 'diver's helmet' looking housing. Does anybody know what it really is or have a picture of something similar?

Thanks again,

Owen

EDIT: 06/03/2020 - Fixed dead photobucket links.