Lamborghini Rim - Please Critique

[Jdams]

This is my first completed render of a wheel and tire. Please let me know what you think. Praise is good, but constructive advice is better.

It's the rim off a Lamborghini Reventon w/ Pirelli PZero tires.

[Richard Culver]

Looks like it is probably cool. Would be nice to see it in a render that shows it off a little better. With the dark materials and lighting if is hard to see the detail. Push the camera in closer and brighten it up a bit. (Not that I like that kind of lighting mind you. But if you want feedback on the model, kinda need to see it).

A clay render (AO no materials) would be cool to see. Also love to see the wires too. :-)

[Jdams]

Thanks for the advice and I'll keep it in mind for later submissions.

Here are the AO clay render and wireframe you wanted to see. Also my reference img.
It took about 3hrs to model and 57sec to render.

[Richard Culver]

Looking good. For the clay render, turn off any lights in the scene as it is really blown out. And the render you had was nice. Would like to see it a little brighter and closer.

[Inferno]

Sucks!!!! lol, no I'm joking, I think it looks awesome, I couldn't do anything like that yet, I can't wait till I get good at blender, how long have you been using it?

[Jdams]

I've only been on blender for about 6 months. If you want to learn how to make sweet rims like these you should check out www.blenderguru.com. It's the site for a guy named Andrew Price. I followed his tutorial for making this wheel.

[Inferno]

Awesome, I'll check it out sometime.

Inferno

[tdietz87]

Rims a good start. Really was impressed with the texture on the caliper, normally something like those can get neglected. I noticed some imperfection in your mesh in the center of your wheel.

This is because of the technique used to model the rim. An easy fix though. Tab into edit mode center your cursor to your mesh (rim) and add a circle, scale your circle uniformally down to the correct circle size, make sure you do not deform your mesh, just scale it down. Then click on the imperfect vertices and merge them to the now correctly placed vertices.

In order to do this, you must apply the array and mirror modifier if you already hadn't. Your lighting needs work. It really won't do your wheel justice. Try adding AO to your colored renders until you get a better grasp at lighting and it will help show off your rim.

One other thing is your edges seem very sharp. Which I understand need to be, but its too much. I'm not sure if your using subsurf. Or if you've used the crease (shift+e) to sharpen your edges, but I feel in general the creases are feeling very sharp. Try to take off your crease and add a few properly placed cut loops and it can smoothly sharper your edges.

Not to say crease is bad, I use it all the time when needed, cut loops are a better idea if you can place them without making your mesh too dense.

Happy blending, btw wheres the car???

[Richard Culver]

Originally Posted by tdietz87 One other thing is your edges seem very sharp. Which I understand need to be, but its too much. I'm not sure if your using subsurf. Or if you've used the crease (shift+e) to sharpen your edges, but I feel in general the creases are feeling very sharp. Try to take off your crease and add a few properly placed cut loops and it can smoothly sharper your edges. Not to say crease is bad, I use it all the time when needed, cut loops are a better idea if you can place them without making your mesh too dense.

I don't think it was subsurf from a look at the wires. But these are very good points when doing so. I usually go with the well-placed edges. It is very easy to do.

[Jdams]

Hey thanks for the pointers on that whole shift-E thing. I'm using it alot more in my models. I also discovered that I can adjust the edge render sharpness in my modifier block. The subsurf modifier allows me to choose the render level while still working in a lower level. Any other rendering tips or modelling tutorials would be nice. I'm right in between that noob and moderate user level and looking for the next step. Any ideas where to go from here?

P.S. I'm working on the car...

[tdietz87]

Originally Posted by Jdams Hey thanks for the pointers on that whole shift-E thing. I'm using it alot more in my models. I also discovered that I can adjust the edge render sharpness in my modifier block. The subsurf modifier allows me to choose the render level while still working in a lower level. Any other rendering tips or modelling tutorials would be nice. I'm right in between that noob and moderate user level and looking for the next step. Any ideas where to go from here? P.S. I'm working on the car...

Glad to see your still blending. Um I'm trying to think of a few tips off the top of my head....Edge Loop Select is a tool I use often when modeling, Allows you to select rows of vertices with one click (Ctrl+Alt+RightMouse or Shift+Alt+Rightmouse) Also when working on a surface you do not want to deform, like a car body, select an edge and use the Knife tool to add nessecary vertices, so they are placed exactly on the surface.

Fo example, when adding detail to the side of the car (a very smooth area, where even one misplaced vertice will add unwanted bumps) that techinique is very useful.

Um Edge Slide (Crt+E then select Edge Slide) allows you to move entire edge loops and keep the mesh unmoved as well.

I never hand move vertices unless I am in perfec front, side, or top view. So you do not move the vertice on any unwanted axis.

Hopefully some of these tips help! Keep us posted about the car I look forward to see your progress.