Since a lot of people like boats and they are a popular subject, thought I would share what I found out about modeling hulls. Not too bad actually. Been a while since I did any lofting type work. Here is the result, further down you will see how I got here.
The hull is a compound curve, at the bow, it is concave, at the stern, convex. In the next view screen shots you will be able to see that. The hull also curves along its length.
The next image shows the convex curve at the stern.
The next image shows that the bow is flat (a knife's edge) and it is hard to see, but it is actually a concave curve after the edge. This slowly changes about midway down the hull to the convex hull.
Relief carving is about surfaces, light, how light reflects and shadows. Curved surfaces reflect light differently than flat surfaces, that is how we know they are curved. Even very subtlely curved surfaces are apparent. So it is worthwhile to curve surfaces that should be curved. The next image is how I used the Sweep tool in Aspire to achieve the compound hull.
As you can see the bulge changes in the sweep vectors, also notice that the length of the "legs" changes. Those legs are what give the hull curve from left to right. Just so you do not have to count, there are 16 sweep vectors. I controlled the length of the legs by "lofting" using a smooth bezier curve. I also used one to create the mid point for the bulges. Trying to just "wing" the bulges and leg lengths would be very frustrating.
If you are not familiar with lofting, think of it as drawing where the boat meets the water and you are looking from above. Then think how far out you would like any particular point to be from your flat surface, that is the length of the lower leg. The length of the upper leg is how far out the rail is from the flat surface. The rest is just an excercise in drafting.
By the way, you will notice that the rails do not have to be the same length either. Gotta love that Sweep tool!
"If you see a good fight, get in it." Dr. Vernon Johns
