How can I realign wandering verts? Why do they wander?!?

[Phill_Evans]

Hi, can I consult the hive mind? I’ve returned to the hard surface modeling section of the course while awaiting a RAM boost and I am having a problem I’m sure has a simple solution but it evades me.

I’m making a World War 1 lozenge shaped tank using good reference drawings for source to, in effect, trace. These images are set to be seen in the top (NP7), left (NP3), front (NP1) and rear (NP Ctrl+1).

I used a plane rotated to be seen from the left side and then extruded it out in segments following the elements of the tank. My plan is to then extrude the shape to make it the side of the tank, mirror it and build up from there using other shapes.

My problem is that whilst I constrained all the extrusions to the Y axis and then edge slid the vertices along the z axis to create the lozenge shape, when seen from above the vertices have obviously wandered. How? And how do I fix them? I suspect it is somehow involved with the scale command but I cant for the life of me figure out how or why

Thanks in advance,
Phill

[FedPete]

Instead of trying to create things as a massive block.
You need to break it into simple basic shapes.
Don’t look at the details like tank tracks, rivets, and armor plates. Those are just details.
But make a tank body. And design it by using the mirror modifier.
Add more Objects to the tank, like the side bulkhead? Then the side cannons, etc.

While the tank body is a strange shape. It still consists of many rectangles. Start an outline and fill the face. Try to create quad faces (with four vertices).
like following the vertikal armour plates, work from there. Add only more vertices if details require.

[NP5]

Select the flat plane of vertices.
View front on as in the second image.
Shift S cursor to selected.
Then Set the pivot point to the 3d cursor if it is not.
Then S (scale); X for axis: 0 (zero)

That wandering vertices plane will now be flat to the X axis.

How it happened is a mystery. Probably some time not in proper orthographic view, got slightly moved without noticing it. Some part before you constrained to axis? Scale can do it unless constrained too. Especially depending on where the pivot point is.

[Phill_Evans]

Thank you so much. I had actually worked it out for myself after much trial and error just before you posted but your reply is very much appreciated