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Marek Rys - Digital Images and Modeling
The following images were created from a digital model of the B-58A Hustler created by Marek Rys of Poland. His story of this project follows after the images below. We feel compelled to note that these are not photographs, but are extremely detailed images modeled and rendered from drawings made by the talented Mr. Rys. The B-58 model in these images is the property of Milviz Inc. www.milviz.com. Please click the image to see a full sized version. Please do not publish these images without Marek Rys's express permission and attribution. Exterior Views
Interior Views
Marek's story The B-58 Hustler was always one of my favorite planes. It is a little bit strange, because normally I'm a fan of older aviation: WWI and WWII. "More wings, more fun", I could say. But there are also few modern (means "postwar" for me) airplanes I love. The Hustler is on the top. Probably because it is so beautiful and elegant. First attempt to model this bird I made almost twenty years ago, when I was fan of paper models. But then I couldn't find any good drawings or photographs - web didn't exist. And Poland was never a country where you could easy buy foreign books or magazines. I gave up on the Hustler and had to wait for better time. About ten years ago I started to get interested in computer generated 3d graphics and start to think about using it for airplane visualisation. I had some experiences as a draughtsman (few hundreds of technical airplane and tanks drawings for magazines and books) so it was a natural way to give flat blueprints a third dimension. But the process of learning was long and sometimes painful. A few years ago I started to use free Blender 3D modeler and try to model something more complicated. Software like 3dMax or Maya was too expensive so Blender was an ideal solution for this work. It is free, but as good as the commercial software available at the time. I showed a few of my models on some CG forums and got a proposition to do some work for Milviz Inc. Milviz is a firm located in Canada which sells military models for visualisations and animation. More info on Milviz can be found here: www.milviz.com. They requre very high detail models so I had to rapidly extend my abilities to make them happy. I have made a Junkers Ju 87G-2, Messerschmitt Me 262A, General Dynamics F-111F and now the B-58A for them. The crew of Milviz Inc. are a really fantastic group of airplane lovers and the man who invited me to work with them is a big Hustler fan. So my old dream could finally take "real" shape. I did my research on the web and found many interesting photographs, bought some books including B-58 manual, and started to model. As a foundation I used drawings from a Russian magazine - they seemed to be not too bad - I planned to improve them based upon photographs. After a few days I found really great drawings in the Czechoslovak Magazine Revi. Dimensions, proportions and details were very carefully preserved on them and I discovered, that my Russian plans were totally inaccurate. I threw away what was done and started over from the beginning. Airframe was not too hard to model - but there were some traps, especially in aft part of wingroots area. Also the wing themselves are not so easy to create thanks to their profile. But the real challenge was the undercarriage. It is finally fully animated and has the cinematics working, lets say 80% as in the prototype. I had to simplify some parts because of time limitations and because I had no accurate drawings of the landing gear. Seting up all pivots and sequences of going up and down was really hard and was based mainly on photographs, films and experiments. Especially the main gear is completely untolerable of any mistakes: when the gear is going up like a big scissors 0.1 degree more and part of tires are visible over wing surfaces. 0.1 degree less - and tires are still visible under bay doors. I was working on the undercarriage only for more than a month, and a few times wanted to kill the designer! (kidding) . But finally, I had to say that he was a genius. Working with the cockpits also proved difficult in some parts. the pilot's station has a very complex layout of walls and all those "holes" and "shelves". Navigator's and DSO stations were a lot easier. But lack of full documentation forced me to improvise in a few areas. And that fantastic capsule/ejection seat! Like a big egg... This model is the property of Milviz Inc. I can use it for my own purposes - doing images or animations, but it can't be sold unless by Milviz. For commercial use it is necessary to contact with Milviz Inc. and buy the model. But I can publish images non-commercial on any forums, web sites etc. The only needs is to place on images small inscription: Model is property of Milviz Inc. www.milviz.com. So feel free to show any of my B-58 images on your web, provided they are properly credited. During work on the Hustler an idea was born to write a book about this bird. I wrote few books about planes in the past and have started to think that the B-58 could be great topic for the next one. Adding good drawings and colour plates... But the problem is with photographs -especially prototypes, testing planes, mock ups, etc. I have no idea yet from where to get them and not be financially ruined with my limited budget. But I think I will find some solutions. -Marek Rys, August 2008
Marek Rys can be reached at marekrys@onet.eu
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