Modelling Jam 01 - Iconic Movie Car - Join in

Hello and welcome to the second Blender Car modelling workshop. I have slightly renamed this to a modelling jam and if my nerves should hold over the next eight weeks. I want to turn this into a recurring project with a new topic every month not just cars. I am thinking of something similar to conceptart.org’s CHOW. This first modelling jam will last for two months.

The theme for this modelling jam is Iconic Movie Car. You can model any car that you want provided it fits the following criteria. It must have appeared in a movie and it must be iconic. An iconic car will becomes the focal point of attention movie simply, by seeing the car you must be reminded of the movie or t.v series it appeared in. The are many cars that appear in movies the vast majority are not iconic so pick carefully.

The modelling jam starts on the 23 July and Ends on the 17 of September. Draw up a schedule of how much time you want to spend modelling, texturing and rendering. I would advise not spending less than three weeks modelling and another three or two on texturing. Don’t rush aim to produce high quality work.

The car must be modelled and textured. You can model the car realisticly or choose to stylise it in some manner. You must texture your car. Think of the kind of damage the car is likely to have suffered at the hands of its owner and try and show this with your texture. No cars in pristine conditions should be posted at the end, grime and damage.

Learning and improving in this thread occurs by you giving critiques and accepting critiques when the are given. Don’t take negative critiques personally remember that the are meant to help you improve and are usually more helpful than praiseful positive ones especially if you want to improve. No one is an expert here so help by critiquing and sharing working tips where ever you can.

Post wireframe shots. Simple wireframes shots done in edit model that are clear and easy to read make it easier for those who want to help you to do so. When you post wireframes keep it simple and straight forward, clear and simple to read wins over fancy.

You can email me therealtyrantmonkey(at)gmail(dot)com subject modelling jam 01 if you have any questions or suggestions.

Thanks

Resources

List of Iconic cars

Here is a list of iconic cars I draw up in case you can’t think of one you would like to model. The are longer lists out there on the web so google it up.

Blueprints

  1. the blueprints
    2.car blueprints
    3.smcars

Photosites
1.net car show
2. top speed
3.carphotos.org

Car tutorials

1.porche 356<- in depth but for max, you can follow along pretty okay but the chamfer/bevel operations need work arounds
2. thomas suurland smcar tutorial
3…Primer (<- I will post this on Friday its a first draft of a tutorial I am working on)

if you know of other good resources out there email me at therealtyrantmonkey(at)gmail(dot)com and I will add them.

I think I shall follow this thread closely from start to finish. :slight_smile:

Alrighty, I’m in! Nice set of resources you’ve got there TM, thank you. Also looking forward to reading your Primer.

Almost picked the A-Team’s van :ba: but I’ll be doing MacGyver’s Jeep Wrangler (unless you tell me it’s not iconic enough, although I would disagree :wink: ). Plenty of opportunity for grime, apparently even the paint job Paramount gave it was unique to make it even more “adventure” :eyebrowlift:

I’ll put in an hour a day this week and by the end of that estimate how much longer I’ll need for modeling. My main focus will be the texture work since I’ve got lots to learn in that respect, so I hope I don’t need more than 3 weeks to finish the model (but that really will depend on how many hours I’ll be able to put in). I will aim for high quality. I’m also assuming you guys will lean towards Cycles for rendering? I’ll take this opportunity to learn it with you guys, I’m happy with Lux but should really start dabbling with Cycles more.

Today’s hour will be spent figuring out the exact Wrangler model to look for (should be 1987 Jeep YJ but even that gets different results), then getting blueprints and downloading a barrage of images. If there’s one thing I learned with the Toyota is you want as many hi-res images of your car from as many different angles as you can get!

This will be fun :smiley:

will you be modelling a car TM? I will watch this thread closely :slight_smile:

Just a hint on searching for images: don’t settle for the images you get from google and car image sites; often you can find sites of enthusiasts of that specific car model (especially for older models) that are a gold mine of reference images. People also tend to take pictures of remodeling processes and parts installations and that is fantastic for detail shots! Like this one for the Toyota I did: http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/19390-doogs-ke20-lke020/page__st__30 (17 pages of that!)

Edit: Also when searching in Google images it often only shows you one picture of a set. If you follow the link to the webpage it is posted on, you may find several other images that didn’t come up in the search results. That’s essentially how I found out about the enthusiast gold mines :slight_smile:

I’m in! Gru’s car just sounds too fun to make. =D

For the Gadgetmobile, there are 3 different versions of it, the cartoon van to car version, the white convertible version and the Purple convertible from the live action movies. Please specify what version you are trying to list.

I’m in. I’ll shall be doing Eleanor.

that list is just a suggestion list if you can’t think of a car to do for the gadet mobile go with the one you like. You can do any car or two wheel vehicle as long as it appeared in a movie and is iconic and well remembered. where I would draw the line is someone saying for example I want to model the 1960 mercedes benz 220s from Bullit, the car is in Bullit but I bet most people wouldn’t even remember it as been in that movie. But the remember the mustang.

Stuff like the white Ferrari from Miami Vise, the BMW from moon lighting, Magnum’s Ferrari, the Green Hornets car are game.

@peter18 I shall be modelling the Flying Ford Anglia from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when it has gone a bit wild, I truly suck at texturing so I want to get stuck in and make it really good.

I just had to repost this because it absolutely vital get as many high-res photos as you can from as many angles as you can before you start modelling. Take time to look at your photo collection so that you start building a mental picture of how your car is put together.

This and blocking out your mesh in big chunky polygons is what I tell most people who are modelling their first cars to do. I will post my block out stage of my Anglia Just to show how much detail I ignore at this stage.

@Owldude sweet with the smoke simulator you could go wild with that engine of his.

Ok I’m game. although I’m really doubting for which car I should go (harry potter car is cool of the grime, but a cartoon car would be fun as well, and I’d also like to try something older). But I think I’ll settle for the car from chitty chitty bang bang :smiley: (atleast if I can find enough reference images). Looking forward to this! goes off to look for reference images

Today’s “hour”, first block out of the basic shapes and shaking off some rust (I’ve decided to document the modeling process in timelapse videos to see if I can gather any useful info by watching myself):

I sense a couple of mistakes already but although topology is already on the back of my mind I’m not too worried in this stage.

Edit: MacGyver’s doesn’t have a door and only has a cover on rainy episodes :slight_smile: Which is why I ignored those major shapes on the blueprints.

I’ll be doing the “police spinner” from the blade runner movie. I think it’s a great film and everybody who has seen blade runner remembers those flying cars. Syd Mead created the concept of this vehicle and me being a big fan of his work, choosing an iconic movie car was no problem. I’ll start by gathering a crapload of references, as I want to capture every little detail.

I’ll second the get good photos first.

Once you think you’ve got enough, spend some time looking at them, then go and get some more of the shots you haven’t got. The ones you don’t think you need. :slight_smile:

Doing the M6 BMW I did recently, it wasn’t until I was well on with the project before I got shots of the area partially and completely obscured by the bonnet (hood). I wish I’d had them sooner.

Sounds like fun, I’m going to give it a go.

So hard to choose which to do, I was tempted by the bluesmobile and ECTO1 but have decided to do the 1972 Buick Riviera Boattail from Due South.

Also - found this on my trails for reference images:

I am working on the Delorean from Back to the Future Part 2. It will be modified to fly. I have some references but I will not be using a blue print/tracing over an image. Here is an early WIP.

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/506/capturepdj.jpg

I’d like to throw in a small bit of advice about mesh and topolgy that I saw in a video tutorial online. Copy some of your reference photos and use MS Paint, Photoshop, Paint.NET etc etc to draw a mesh over the photo, which will give you an idea of how it should go. Obviously as time goes on it may change from the original but it’s certainly helped me visualise my mesh before I’ve even extruded the polygons.

thats not a good idea is it?

I’m originally a zbrush guy and that’s how I model. I have references pinned to the side but I want to try this without a blue print. Will see how it goes.