Well, it was nice to get my old Siren back, but lord, she has so many mistakes that I'm

embarressed that I ever released her like that. I'm rebuilding her, and her military varient,

War Siren. Both will be Poserized, this time properly. :) The old chairs were terrible! :)

Anyway, here's what I have so far. Sea Siren almost has her exterior finished, but War Siren,

on the left, has two weapon emplacements and two mini torpedo tubes to go. Hmmm. I'm

also wondering if I should give her the ability to launch a pair of small one man fighter subs.

 

Greywolf

 

Some forward Diving Planes would serve better than one-man subs.

Also, it's make it look cooler AND be more authentic,too.  Hard to beat authentic, AND cool. LOL  If you're re-doing, how about one of the Navy's low-noise screws instead of the old-school propeller?  Or even a SEA engine variant?

Hmmm. Most of the subs I've seen had the planes on the conning tower. Heh. And the pic

of Tom Swift's old jetmarine had no planes at all. Ah, the fifties. Long on imagination, short

on reality. :) No props though. The Siren was my attempt to make a reasonable looking

version of Tom's old jetmarine, and like the jetmarine, Siren is powered by a small reactor

and gets her speed from jet turbines that use water instead of air. I know, i know, not a

workable idea, BUT, she IS sci-fi. The goal was to make it more believable than Tom's

old 50's design. If you had seen THAT, you'd have laughed yourself sick. I thought it was

cool when I was a kid. :) I'd like to try his diving seacopter one day. Heh.

 

Greywolf

 

Diving planes are on the front of the sub to guide it down.  Theconning tower fins act sort of like the ailerons on a plane's rudder. Having an impeller is one way to get around underwater. A SEA engine is a turbine-less impeller that a reactor could power, and silent to boot.  It has no moving parts!

Tom who? Is he one of those Flash Gordon era guys?  Before my time. ^__^ LOL  I'm only fourty-eight.

Could you shoot me a pic, or direct me to a site that has a few? And a site with info on the

impeller? Preferably what it looks like? It might be a lot better than my original idea. I like

the idea of foreward fins too. If I can get those fins off the conning tower, they won't interfere

with Siren's name logo. :) I'm 45 and Tom Swift was a series of books, ala Hardy Boys, about

a young inventer and his adventures. So, yes, if you can direct me to some info on both topics,

I'm all eyes, figuratively speaking of course. :)

 

Greywolf

 

I grew up with Tom Swift myself. Here's a link to a pretty good Tom Swift Jr. page. One of the links on the page goes to a photo of the cover of Tom Swift and His Jetmarine. Tom and his pal Bud tickled many a kid's imagination with Tom's inventions and the pairs adventures. I was lucky to be born in an era when television was still young and evolving and you could still hear tales of Gunsmoke, the Shadow, the Green Hornet and others on the radio. Book series like Tom Swift and Tom Corbett Space Cadet just added more to stimulate imagination and make life interesting. Nice work on your Siren model. The minute I saw it I thought of the jetmarine.

Well, I just got Hexagon 2 and downloaded a whole MESS of tutorials on using it. I don't know

if it's better than trueSpace, but I hope so. trueSpace's OBJ export sucks wind, and it's UV

mapping editor is crap. I like it as a modeler though, and I hope Hexagon 2 will surpass it.

 

Greywolf

 

Attached Link: subs

just for info - subs have thier fwd dive plnes on either the sail (conning tower) or the hull NOT both  as **JOELGLAINE**  indicated. As a 10 yr. Navy Vet. I've seen a few. The current state of the art in Screws (propellers are on planes) is the shrouded non cavitating type. Here's a link for ya-

Thanks, John.

Always good to hear from a Vet. :)

The old Siren was built more with enthusiasm than knowledge, I think. She is a sci-fi sub, but

I want to make her as real as I can. Now I'm learning a new modeler that MAY replace

truespace. Hexagon is graphically oriented and I just couldn't get used to modelers like

MAX, Maya, or Raydream Studio, and that's assuming I could have afforded full versions of

the first two! :) Thanks for the link!

So far, the only problem I'm having is UVmapping. Just can't seem to get the hang of it. :)

 

Greywolf

 

USN nuclear subs seemed to go for the conning-tower dive planes, while the RN went for hull-mounted forward planes. I don't know what the advantages might be. Hexagon 2 does need up-to-date OpenGL support. Make sure your graphics cards drivers are current. That can alsoi help Poser stability.

You're right there. I have OpenGL 1.3, and while Hexagon warns me that I need 1.4, so far

there are no problems. I have an ATI Radeon 9250 with 128MB. Apparently, it only supports

as high as 1.3 so it might be time to upgrade. :) It is so hard to stay current these days without

breaking the bank. As to diving planes, I think I'll keep them on the sail for now. :)

 

Greywolf

 

lookin' good!

<,"))%%%><<

Thanks. :) All my modeling projects are 'on hold' for the time being. UVmapping is the culprit

here. I just don't have time, right now, to try and puzzle my way through this complex topic. :(

Current tutorials aren't very useful because they all deal with simple (or relatively simple)

objects. I think if I can figure out how to do the hull, then the rest should be simple since the

full with it's interior and exterior surfaces and curved surface etc, is a real bee-atch to map. :)

L8r!

 

Greywolf