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Here some new images from the newest RC Helicopter I just designed for ElyQ.

The design task was to keep alive a family-feeling but to offer the market a less radical design, yet making it even more functional and streamlined than before.
The first comments from the community after the recent publication have been very positive.

The model comes out of Solidworks and it's "production-ready", complete in all its parts, including ball-bearing inner details, screw threads, electronic components, switches, connectors and wirings.
The canopy has been modeled in Rhinoceros V4.

The purpose of these images was a preliminary presentation of the new model to the market, to gather feedback and comments from the users, and to submit to the production chain and suppliers (located in the Far East) a detailed vision of the new product under development, including the graphic design to be professionally airbrushed on the composite canopies.

The design (submission and approval process between Dubai and Italy), canopy modeling, map preparation in Photoshop, texturing in Rhino and full hi-res rendering have been done in two working days.
The model itself has not been optimized for rendering purposes.
Thanks to Maxwellrender for its unsurpassed quality and - now - speed.

I still have crazy issues with some setups, especially for interior design applications, but for product design Maxwellrender V2 fully satisfies my needs.
All the images presented have been rendered at 3072 or 3600 px resolution, HDRI lighting setup and 2 to 3 hours of rendering time on a 8 core - now pretty old - Xeon machine (running on Win7 professional).

All comments and critics welcome.

Wow, great work! I love these kinds of highly detailed models. Hey, tell me that the 2-day process didn't also include the modeling. Did it??

Thanks for the compliments.
No, don't worry. The frame assembly was already modeled - actually the exhaust had been modeled on purpose in those two days, plus some piping and minor details.
I also modeled a completely new landing gear (in the same design process), pretty nice but not visible on these images since it would require a totally new set of molds and too many new molds are already going into production at this time, so we cannot disclosure that design now. The scale models and RC models market is really a crazy one, I thought the Yacht Design was the craziest market to be, but this one is really out of control.

So far, back to your original question: I designed the new canopy from the scratch, following the requirements and feedbacks received from the market on the previous models, but ensuring some continuity with our original design. I think I modeled four or five versions of it, including some different painting schemes, in approx. a couple of hours on Easter weekend.
Next day I added the whole frame assembly and assigned all the materials (the longest task since the assemblies coming from Solidworks appear as multiple block istancies in Rhino and I had to explode them until they were separated in parts but not in single surfaces, assign the materials, texturing and grouping them back together for a better manipulation of the whole set).

All the materials on the model have been generated as new by using the V2 Wizard except for the polyethilene used on the gasoline tank. That's from the maxwell gallery, many thanks to the original creator (I apologize but I cannot recall his name at this time).

There's only an HDRI lighting set in the scene.

Pretty straightforward.

Pavel,

Really nice renders and modeling!

I fly RC heli's (Trex 600esp, Trex 500 and Blade 400) but I have never seen the Ely.Q before. That's a really unusual and interesting mixer design, without any washout base or arms (at least not visible). Any chance you could render an exploded view of the swash plate on up?

Regards, Don

Great modeling and nice renders! I will have some suggestions because these are very close to perfect.

- You should use SSS for those white gears. It works pretty good under IBL, no worries.
- The oil tank somehow looks hollow and unrealistic. What kind of material is it?
- Brushed metal parts on the top requires anisotropy (that would require UV mapping for correct direction though).
- Shiny metal parts requires something to save them from the mirror-like look but, I'm not sure. Maybe fresnel. How does the material look like?

Hi all,
thanks again for the nice comments.
Donb, ElyQ is a pretty new company on the RC Hely, based in Italy, is a subsidiary of QBell, a monitor and TV manufacturer. The President is a real RC enthusiast and he's directly behind all the design and project. They're investing quite a lot, designing and developing in Italy and manufacturing in Taiwan (mostly plastic molding, I think most of aluminum parts are being manufactured in Italy).

You can get more info at www.elyq.com (I hope not to infringe any rule by publishing their address here).

Tom,
thanks a lot. This is exactly the kind of comments I was looking for.
Actually I didn't pay too much attention to those details, especially due to the very limited time available.
However I also had the same feeling about some reflections and surfaces.

I was a bit worried about playing with SSS, I definitely have to start playing with that. The material is Delrin 100 and it requires some translucency.
For the tank I used a polyethylene I found on MXM Gallery, it was the one which worked better compared to my own settings. It looks pretty similar to the real thing, however it's surely possible to achieve a better result. I will try with SSS again. I tried some solutions by mixing rough and very smooth materials (different setup for internal and external surfaces) but the results were not even close to the actual material. I feel the actual material being blow-molded polyethylene.
I'll do some tests following your suggestions. And I'll post the results.

Thanks again

Paolo

Feel free to share or send me the reference photos of real materials and I can quickly provide you the MXMs.

Really!

Feel free to share or send me the reference photos of real materials and I can quickly provide you the MXMs.

Wouw Tom really nice of you, I'm guessing these are not available in the MXM gallery

Yes, because I'm willing to build

Great! So that's a 'to be continued'?

Well, I can't do this for everybody as you may agree.

I understand. I'll contact you if I rendered a scene that needs material improvement

Uhum! Back on topic

Hi Tom,yesterday I finally found some time to follow your suggestion and made new materials for the tank, the Delrin gears and the Aluminum parts.
I feel it looks much more natural now, the tank is definitely very close to reality.
I will keep playing with SSS in order to achieve a better looking (and quicker - if possible - rendering) Delrin material, but now it's better than before.
Thank You again for your comments and suggestion. Really precious to me.

Much better.. I mean the sss...

cool heli...

I love the engine render, so real!