Trash it or retopo Vette WIP

Ok I started making decent progress then I got to a point where the verticies were in places that I couldn’t modify the mesh quite the way I would like to have. Would it be best to scrap the whole thing and start back over from scratch again and keep in mind those trouble areas to allow for nice vertex locations through extrusions or would it be able to be saved by removing some verticies and placing in new ones? This is my first attempt at modeling a car and am doing it on my own other than using reference images. So any input would be appreciated. There is more detail work to be done I am aware of that but for the basic shape of the body the main trouble areas are the wheel well flare area and the top roundness of it. And on the back of the mesh at the back of the wheel wells. Thank you for any help provided.



Attachments




https://skfb.ly/68uGv


Have you asked yourself the question? What are the advantages and disadvantages to redoing the whole vehicle and what are the advantages and disadvantages of retopologizing your current mesh?

These are important questions to ask and will help you decide clearly what your best option is for this particular task.
That being said, If this was my model I would first try to work the edge flow and see if i can achieve the result I want. If that doesnt work or begins to take an exccessive amount of time, then I would start over.

I’m sure many people have other ways of handling issues like this but that is what I have and continue to do to this day.
I will be interested to hear how others decide though.

Cheers
Polygobblerr

I think I might just try tweaking the mesh/edges some more and see if things start to click into place the way I am wanting. If that don’t seem to have any positive results then I will just start back over on the body. Thank you for the input I will put that to work and see how some edge flow works out. :slight_smile: Will continue to post updates as it progresses or digresses LOL

Ok After fiddling with the edge lines for a while (longer than I care to admit) I decided to just start from scratch again and that proved to be a lot quicker than fiddling with the edges. Mainly cause I am still pretty new to 3d modeling other than doing tutorials and such so I honestly wasn’t sure which would be quicker for me. So it was a learning experience. At this point now I can go into adding in the additional details and such and cleaning up the rounded look to it. Then add in all the finer details and hopefully call it done.


Just a latest update progress render of where the build is at now.


Still have some deforming issues in the topology along the roof/top of the car near the back window and top of driver door. Some issues around the fender area but other than that for a first time car modeling I am not too overly depressed about it. Still have more to add/fix on this but that’s why it is a work in progress.


Hey, good start you have there.
I think the overall shape looks good already.
Just try to get rid of the bumps by pushing around the vertices and checking the topology flow from different angles.
That can be very fustrating, but it will pay off at the end.
And dont forget to check back on reference images :wink:

Thank you for the kind words. Its by no means a front page work of art but I am happy so far with the progress, never realized how much goes into making a realistic looking car before till I started this. There is a ton of tweaking verts and edges that seems to never end and thats what has me all bamboozled at the moment. Which is why I went on to making other assets for the car like the honeycomb grill piece and the spoiler, might go on to make the side mirrors and fix the windows. Main problem I am having is when I added the edge loop to tighten up the subsurf around the door/window area it left a seam along the top of the roof that I just cant seem to get out no matter how I try and go about it. Maybe if I put in a separation between the two that will allow the edge loop to not carry up onto the roof. I have about 20+ images for references but I guess it comes with time thinking from a perspective environment to a orthographic view. And a quick question, is it best to turn the subsurf off to do the tweaks and add geometry then turn it back on and adjust from there?

Thats acutally different from situation to situation.

When creating the body of the car I have my subsurf turned on in object mode and off in edit mode.
So if I add a detail I just press TAB to get back to object mode and check what it looks like with subsurf on.
I find it easier to see which vertex is not lined up proberly with an unsubdivided mesh.

When doing for example the window sealing and chrome parts I have it turned on, to see, when there ist gap between sealing and body.
Because the parts might touch when they are not subdivided but, dont when subdiv is turned on.

But thats just personal preference.
Others for example just to the basic shape, and then apply the sudbiv modifier to be able to add further details and maintain the shape of the rest of the mesh.

Scalix once explained to me how he approaches modeling cars. His works are really impressive:
(you’ll find his workflow explained on page 2)

Thanks a lot for the info, never really thought about applying a subsurf mod to the mesh once the rough shape is laid out then work from there. Might try that route when I attempt another vehicle, little late to start this one over for a 3rd time LOL

Yes, was new for me too. Tried it on my current model, but I somehow don’t feel comfortable with it :smiley:

Few more updates on progress, the ghost driver can now see whats behind.