WIP - Stubby Bob (Roadkill Ford F6 Project Truck)
polycounter lvl 7
Howdy. This is the latter half of my modeling reel, complementing the long wrapped up PRR T1, Stubby Bob. Roadkill's 1949 Ford F6 with 30 inches of wheel base removed, and a blown vortec 8100 and hella wheelie potential put back in.
Frame down the truck is done, mapped and rigged, and is currently being textured by a friend who's doing a texturing reel.
For this model i didn't have original technical drawings, spoiled as i was with the T1. So everything here is going off of one or two crude dimensional drawings taken from a 1950 promotional broschure i found, or any helpful dimensions i could scrounge up from the modern part's website, such as the air filter rim and venturi size for the Holley HP carburetors. The only "confirmed" measurements i had for the original truck itself was from a kind soul on the ford truck enthusiests forum, who was saintly enough to put his own ford F6 up on a set of ramps to measure the steering geometry for me. So shoutouts to Connecticut Calvin for being kind enough to indulge me wit my pretend truck.
So yeah, there she be. And yes, the rig does have a wheelie control built in.
Frame down the truck is done, mapped and rigged, and is currently being textured by a friend who's doing a texturing reel.
For this model i didn't have original technical drawings, spoiled as i was with the T1. So everything here is going off of one or two crude dimensional drawings taken from a 1950 promotional broschure i found, or any helpful dimensions i could scrounge up from the modern part's website, such as the air filter rim and venturi size for the Holley HP carburetors. The only "confirmed" measurements i had for the original truck itself was from a kind soul on the ford truck enthusiests forum, who was saintly enough to put his own ford F6 up on a set of ramps to measure the steering geometry for me. So shoutouts to Connecticut Calvin for being kind enough to indulge me wit my pretend truck.
So yeah, there she be. And yes, the rig does have a wheelie control built in.
Replies
Lifter valley is done. Some blocks have large openings to let oil onto the cam, but others don't, and i'm not sure what the distinction is.
I intend to do a complete motor down the line to sell, so when i do that i'll add those in, along with the hole for the distributor.
Will you remake them later? Remarkable work!
That white matcap just doesn't show the true beauty of your HP mesh. Great modeling work though.
Turns out locomotives are pretty big.
We got U joints up in here.
Not sure if it's accurate to the actual truck, but i couldn't find any images, so whatever. Based these on a photo posted on a hot rod magazine article about foxbody mustang driveshafts.
Satisfying.
Makin' progress on the motor. Just gotta do the oil pump seat shape, that shape's counterpart on the other side, the crank bearing/seal and the oil pan now.
Honestly, i'd prefer to make my own engine from scratch in solidworks than replicate this block from photos. Boy howdy this ain't fun.
Witness me.
Also it's only just now occurred to me that the driveshaft spins the wrong way. Whoops.
Motor's in and carbs are rigged
Glad you like the steamer too, sadly though, if you put stubby and the T1 side by side stubby's an order of magnitude better executed than the T1, but i ain't going back to remake that thing. Though a NYC J3A may not be out of the question in the future.
Yep i wouldnt rework that too
could be really funny to see this baby side by side with those kind of monsters. Another dope ass train that could inspire you could be this one: SNCB class 12, retrofuturistic as hell!
And yeah i've had a soft spot in my heart for the type 12. The outside eccentric driving a bell crank to the inside valve gear and driving rods looks really fuckin' weird.
I love it.
I wanna get a job at Turn 10 down in washington. And i know the first thing i'm going to do when i start getting paychecks is just convert it into LS motors and old sheet metal. So that's probably gonna delay the degree.
And come on, y'all gotta model something like that. Rigging it along makes it worthwhile.
Radiator's in, along with all it's plumbing. All that's left mechanically is the trans now.
Bodywork's gettin' there. It's a really tricky shape. Simultaneously extremely curvy and very flat.Without original technical drawings this is a real bastard to get right.
Things continue to happen
Looks a bit high-poly for game use though.
What are your plans with this mesh?
http://polycount.com/discussion/179091/wip-the-pennsylvaniasarus-prr-t1#latest
Apart from the nose trim, one support strut and the flange fasteners the front end and trim is done. Most of my time recently has been going into figuring out the eldritch madness that is the cab.
Boy howdy
Of note if anyone feels like doing their own first gen ford replica. The technical drawings of the sheet metal lies. It shows the inner part of the fender where it mounts to the cab as a straight unbroken radiused curve. This is a lie. There's a cutout in it to clear the cab, which i only discovered when i found one on the street and decided to investigate as to why that area was giving me so much trouble. Thanks ford.
Going's been slow since i've been busy with other things, but we're nearly there.
Also only after the new episode of roadkill came out and studying the slow motion of the wheelies do i realize i need a twist control on the rear diff, since those leafs bend real good.
Hey look, it's a twist control.
Also fixed some other stuff on the rig, like the shocks on the rear end twisting out of place whenever the diff moved on more than one plane/axis and other such busywork
No more educated guesses for me.
I wanted a project car with which to burn what little money have. Figured i may as well buy something i know, and something that can be useful while it's sitting on the lawn waiting for a motor. Now instead of endless guesses that produce inaccurate work that has to be fixed, i can just go outside with a tape measure and get it right the first time. Should just fly along now.
Still plugging away. Having the actual truck made me realize a lot was wrong with it. The entire fender well sheet has to be remade for example, and the hood latch spring panel is just completely wrong.
Oh well. having the primary diemnsions for things like the windows and the radius of the rear cab corner chamfer and door taper is making the real complicated parts of the body fall real nice into place. And a lot of the "blind" work was bang on, or within a quarter of an inch of my measurements, which is reassuring.
Toying with tire deformation.
Figured out the steering rig. I found the radius of the steering circle using ackerman geometry/formula, which turned out to be about 229.5 inches on the dominant kingpin on Stubby's shortened wheelbase. Since the kingpins are inclined at 8 degrees, i couldn't just have a simple track to on one of them. So i moved the target bone out by the 229.5 inches from the center of the axle to emulate riding the steering circle relative to the truck, and made a tracking bone to spit out the correct rotation, and gave the master kingpin a driver to convert the Z rotation to Y rotation, and it now appears to track correctly. The steering point bone then rides the road bezier ahead of the truck, and the steering geometry should make it's "predictions" steer the wheels correctly, and thereby look natural. Though i have to test it, since that's just my assumption at the moment.
Also the tracking bone is a child of the frame control, and the steering point a child of the root origin, so if i wanted to build in a drift/oversteer control, it'd track the point correctly relative to the frame of the truck. Though taking a truck with drag link style steering drifting isn't the best idea, since that design innately has furious bump steer, and as we all know having the motor over the rear means it wants little to do with spinning tires. But it'd look pretty slick in a render i guess