Hello guys!
I have decided to stop my other WIP for a while, and move onto this BMW.
I lacked some good quality reference photos for the hako, and as I had this BMW for a weekend I took some good photos. Originally I thought I would finish the hako, but oh my gosh I couldn’t resist modelling this beautiful BMW!
Again the goal is to go as detailed as possible (something like Rogper’s Opel ;)) and produce some, hopefuly, high quality renders.
Anyho, started a bit differently this time and done a cage with bezier curves.
you’re really lucky that you’ve had a chance to take your own photos…it is really useful in my opinion because you can take pictures of some details ;)…I wish you a lot of patience
a koukám že si slovák takže hodně štěstí
A spline cage is something I’ve never considered before. It looks complex, how long did it take you to create?
There’s a BMW dealership that is walking distance from my house if you need any more reference photos.
Well I started off by looking for images. That took me around 2 days, I looked at forums, walkaround videos and took screenshots, also there is a video of how is this 3series manufactured, took screens from that also
The cage than took me around 3 days to do and I can highly recommend it! I´ll from now on never model anything without a cage first. It´s far more accurate than using blueprints and the curves are a lot smoother, takes some time in the beginning but it´s worth it
bohy: Vďaka
GrandeP: Thank you a lot, I might need your help
Moving on, I started modelling the hood, and a quickie render also:
Looks good; imo though, you’re doing detailing too early. Get the full, very basic shape done, then progress from there; but, if it works for you, then I’ll shut up.
Ha, Yes I was going to take a camera to local dealership, then saw the car I wanted; it wasn’t an M6, but it was the wipers I wanted, and they are more generic - a 640 iirc.
Well, in my limited experience there’s a fine line between too much initial detail and too little. In the end I’ve found that the real trick is to plan ahead and shape the topology accordingly - I did this on the Audi A5 (which I’m in the process of re-working to add overlooked details) and it really helped, especially with the headlights and taillights. With my previous (and first) car model, the Golf GTI, I spent more time re-modeling panels from scratch than I should have, because of poor topology. …I’m babbling now, so I’ll stop :o
Anyway, looks great so far! Looking forward to seeing the rest come together :yes: (Good idea with the bezier cage too, I’ll have to try that out sometime)
How can a cage be more accurate if it’s created from the blueprints? Or am I missing a trick somewhere?
I don’t use cages however I do use real life images of the car and draw an imaginary mesh in a program like Paint.NET just to get an idea of how the mesh should look. You can’t guarantee it’ll work but it has helped me when I’ve been stuck!
Well from my understanding, if you outline it with the curve-cage beforehand, you can tweak it more easily and make the shape more accurate, without having to deal with dozens of vertices and polygons. Then you use the cage as a reference for the mesh itself.
EDIT-P.S. On a side note (and maybe an interesting one), so far I’ve never pre-outlined the mesh in GIMP or any image program, and although I should probably do that on my next model, I tend to “see” in my mind how the topology should look, and thankfully I’m able to retain that image long enough to outline it in Blender.
@PhilippeM - True. I do it in three stages; First a very basic shape; then add some geometry to better define that shape, and then finally more detail. Some details are left until after applying a sub-surf at level one.
I also find myself remodelling sections from scratch - getting much less frequent now. Sometimes I find it useful to get a good shape, without bothering about geometry; it’s a bit like doing a 3d drawing and I then know what I need.
Many people on the old days used this very same method.
I also usually do the outlines previously to see the overhaul shape/aspect, but I do them using polygon edges because that way I can use them right away to fill the faces. Good luck!
GrandeP: The cage is imo much better. Sometimes the blueprints don´t match, eg. I had this problem on the bmw, the side view of the front didn´t match with the top view. With the cage you avoid this problem as you have complete model, not only separate views, before actually modelling.
Also you can adjust the lines perfectly and they are mostly super smooth.
And for me the biggest advantage is the “unlimited” resolution. Let´s say you are using blueprints, there is a certain thickness of the line which increases as you zoom closer. Now what often happened to me as I layed down the vertices, was that as i zoomed closer (because i wanted it to be as accurate as possible) the line on bp grew thicker and thicker and i didnt know where to put the vertices, on the top of the line? in the middle? at the bottom? And now with the cage as you zoom in the thickness of the curve remains and you can place your vertices much accurately.
Now I´m going to seriously start modelling just the basic shape and see how it works. Next challenge for me is texturing as I have never done this before. Fingers crossed.
And guys, car modellers, i want your opinion. I´d like to sell this model on 3Dexport or similar, do you think it is legal to sell models that are based on actual cars? It is my work, I understand, but don´t I somehow steal someones work?
@sauraedron: Yes cage, was made from bezier curves. I started with a big plane as the hood, with edges kind of matching those on cage, and proceduraly subdivided it and modeled it to form the hood.
Well, AFAIK there’s no real problem with selling a model of an existing car. Just browse 3DExport and you’ll find hundreds of them There is probably some obscure rule somewhere about it, but I doubt BMW or Audi or Ford would be interested in taking the time to sue 10 to 15-years worth of 3D artists who’d been selling 3d replicas of their models, lol
I’m actually planning the same with my Audi A5 - the only thing I’m concerned about is the conversion to 3dsMax format and OBJ. The seem to be the mostly widely used formats, and I don’t know how well Blender 2.6 exports objects (or how it does it)
Yeah, I actually got that idea from your thread Was also concerned about the conversionm, I might download the free student version of Max and will see how it´ll look when exported from Blender.
…Some more updates here:
I tried the “start with a basic topo and do the details then” technique, but ended up with an ugly front bumper… I guess this is not for me. So I deleted it and started with my curve based wireframe, to give me the idea of how to flow will look like on the front bumper
this model is coming out nice, and i like th use of the spline cage…this is something im sure to be invistagating soon, good work so far and cant wait to see results!
There is probably some obscure rule somewhere about it, but I doubt BMW or Audi or Ford would be interested in taking the time to sue 10 to 15-years worth of 3D artists who’d been selling 3d replicas of their models, lol
Maybe because we “feel” the extra work that’s been put into getting the proper shape and so on?