???canopys???..........whatever

I was wondering if im close enough, this is my first aircra, well it my first anything!

For the most part I am refering to the canopy i have work to do on the wings, tail, spinner, guns, doors, VC (hopefully), landing gear, flaps, ailerons, rudder, doors, windows (possibly), and prop.  just a short list of to do's 


Referance photo

Pic.1

Pic.2

sorry about the compression, funny it's mostly on the tail

Thanks, I have been working on this awhile, and now i notice the two sides dont have symmetry 

Yes, canopies are certainly a challenge that requires some thought.  My preference is to model the fuse as perfect as possible, then make templates to do a boolean to Cut/Refine the windows.  Do not remove the glass polys.  Simply detach and texture.  BTW, symmetry is easily attained if you model  half the fuselage, then clone it when done.  Attach the new half and weld the vertices.

Let me point you to a tutorial that may provide some insight in how to do these things well by a seasoned 3D designer.

http://forums.netwings.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2358

uh..... how do i turn a scene file into an mdl so i can preview my work (in FS9) ?

Yes, make template objects perfected to the shape of the glass of the canopy.  Turn on Edged Faces so you can see all the line edges of your polys (right mouse click the Viewport name to do this).  I would recommend cutting the door first, then the windows.

Position the templates so they intersect the fuse body, adjust the template shape as necessary.  (Note it may help to go to properties of the template and/or fuse and select Make Transparent so you can see your 3-view behind your work.)  (Also, if you are working on half the fuse, the boolean may not want to cut as it likes to have the object fully enclosed.  If so, select the fuse and under the modifiers rollout, select Cap Holes.  If this doesn't give desired results, then manually close up the center slice with a large poly.)

Select the fuse, convert to editable poly, select all polys, and remove all smoothing before the boolean operation.

Then boolean the fuse selecting the template as the B item.  This will be a Reference/ Cut / Refine operation and will simply leave the glass cuts on the fuse.  Move the templates out of your way and check the cuts.  Remove the center poly you made to allow the boolean to work.

Convert the fuse back to editable mesh, select all polys and auto-smooth.

Now clean up the excess vertices by repositioning and welding.  

You can see in this pic that I have made the fuse transparent (to see the 3-view behind it), kept the red templates as simple as possible to get my shapes, and that the cuts have been done around the templates.

Do not detach any cut polys until the entire fuse half is done.  Leave the fuse intact.  When done, clone the fuse and using the modifier rollout, mirror the fuse half to make the other side.  (It helps to set the fuse pivot at the centerline before cloning and mirroring).  Then attach the other half and weld the vertices of the halves together at the centerline.  You now have symmetry in your fuse.  It may help to select all polys now, and resmooth.

Select your fuselage and have you template available.
Click the white Create Icon.
On the right side at the top of the rollout, click on the down arrow next to Standard Primitives, select Compound Objects.

You will see the Boolean button.

Sorry, I do not understand your question.  What are you trying to do or accomplish?

You obviously did that cut as a Subtract operation instead of a Reference/Cut/Refine.

Not a problem.  Simply turn on edges, select and delete those polys.

I recommend that you take two different sized boxes for practrice, and experiment with the different kinds of operations so that you understand them better.  There is good explanation of them in the Gmax Help.