In 2017 my friend Christopher Williams modelled the exterior of a Hawker Hurricane Mk.II; and I always promised that I would do a highly detailed cockpit for it to sit into; and at the start of 2020, I did just that.
It took me around two and a half months to model the cockpit as well as improve the existing canopy around it with more details. This time was a large mix of annual leave, evenings and weekends to push through this project to completion.
In terms of modelling, I use Maya as my main program in addition to roughening up surfaces like the handle on the flight stick in Z-Brush. All of the decals are actual geometry as opposed to textures which is the usual method.
In terms of roles, Chris was responsible for the exterior of the plane and myself the interior, which is why the latter is mainly being shown. In terms of the future for this project, myself and Chris would like to Rig and Animate the plane, whether that be within V-Ray or UE4 to have a short animation.
Backplates for this project were purchased from Gumroad in the link below.
Below is just a small breakdown of retouched, main render, clay and wireframe render in that order from left to right. The tessellation of the model was subdivided in Maya by two divisions for the purposes of the renders; this is because V-Ray does not currently support the tesselation of a model on Smooth Preview within Maya.
One of my main goals when taking on this project was to be able to model the cockpit in a way that if a person was able to physically get inside of it, they wouldn't see holes in the geometry; that way the camera can be positioned pretty much anywhere and you'll still see the whole cockpit in shot.
Below I have two videos that demonstrate the scope of modelling work that went into this project through the use of Animation. Both of these videos were created back in 2019 and rendered using V-Ray.
In the windows below, you will find a large collection of models to pan around and view within Sketchfab; of various parts that I have broken up of the cockpit. I wanted to do this because I don't believe the renders do the model full justice as to how much modelling work there actually is within this project. Please feel free to pan around and browse as I have optimised all of these assets to be the best looking they can be.
Since Chris materialed the exterior of the Hurricane, he opted to do the same for the interior so that we could keep the maps and style consistant between the two models, since they would now be both combined together.
Therefore we have many large 4K texture maps using the PBR materials format to keep consistency between the two models.
The biggest help for me to achieve accurate details and proportions, was with the help of a high resolution dome image that I found in the link below. That way I had complete flexibility to zoom in and see small details that I may of otherwise missed from just reference photos.
Compilation of reference images below, that I used in order to ensure that I could fully see all of the parts I needed to model as the panorama still only gives me a view from any one particular angle.
In order to fully grasp how many things were needed to be modelled for this project, I have done renders of the individual parts below. Otherwise it is not possible to fully capture everything in a single render as the camera would need a full 360 degree view to look around the cockpit.
To model this entire project was three months of part time work, so like evenings, weekends and annual leave. Below you will see some clay renders on the exterior of the Hurricane that Chris modelled. He also did the shape of the canopy to which I then added addition details; but you can see from the renders that the blank space was where the journey began to build the cockpit up.
I always knew this was going to be a big project, but the real realization came in when I spent seven solid days of modelling all the dials and enclosure of the dashboard which is that half circle shape. When I then placed that object upright into the cockpit, I realized just how much of a long journey was left to go as it didn't look like much considering the efforts that went into it. But part by part, I eventually got there and by far my most ambitious project to date.
Below are some clay renders of various parts with other parts; just so you can get a feel as to how these things all assemble together.
It is therefore worth knowing that the actual square crate that goes in the footwell of the Hurricane is not an accurate representation of the real plane. This is only due to the fact of lack of reference photos of that area with everything else removed. So that was modelled for the purpose of covering the rest of the model through the gaps.
Some more renders of the Hurricane below using a mix of photoshop tools, images of clouds, birds and smoke as well as various flares that I got from the Nucly Starter Kit found in the link below.
