Some select renders of my Andrietta GTX concept originally designed in Blender. This is the first time I’ve started using artificial intelligence to enhance my renders during the finishing process. I used Topaz Labs “Gigapixel” to upscale my renders, “AI Denoiser” and “AI Sharpen” tools to refine and sharpen the images.
The design process for this car was a new “hybrid workflow” evolution for me now that I work within a structured industrial design studio incorporating Rhino 7. The real purpose of this project is to keep pushing on the integration of Blender into a professional industrial design environment. Blender keeps gaining traction in the automotive design space and product design space, I see it so much more than just a gaming and asset creation tool.
Much like my past work, I developed the rough model by creating my curve networks and “sculpting” in Blender 3.0. Blender continues to be a way for me to get a good idea of how surfacing complexities can be approached as the project developed.
Somewhat similar to my workflow over the last few years. Except now, that starter work is imported into Rhino as FBX and refined in Nurbs. Basically meant to be a demonstration to some of my design colleagues on how Blender and software like Rhino can work together in the design development process. Blender continues to be a phenomenal ideation tool for its speed and concepting tools. Something that’s become a lot more accepted amongst the industrial design community over other CAD software.
A little more about this process please:
Why this choice of software?
What part of the process in which software?
Do you port the model back and forth repeatedly?
As an architect using Blender, I often collaborate with others using Rhino, I’m interested in a workflow for the information exchange
Why this choice of software?
It’s a combination of 1) what we use in my day job at Brunswick (Rhino is huge in the boat industry), 2) Rhino seems to be one of the best-suited tools for a transition from Blender. Very intuitive for rapid product design and development in a NURBS setting, 3) one of the most cost-effective licenses compared to other NURBS software and 4) was the software that best catered to my workflow in Blender.
What part of the process in which software?
Blender I use in early model development to rapidly mold and develop my form factors with it’s subsurf tools (process explained in older articles). I use blender as “digital sculpting” and then Rhino becomes my final medium to remodel and detail my CAD data started in blender with the industrial rigidity of NURBs surfaces. Something blender isn’t designed to do.
Do you port the model back and forth repeatedly?
Not really. Once the model leaves blender, it doesn’t come back as the NURBS workflow in blender isn’t robust enough to support constant passing back and forth of IGES or STEP files. like I do between Rhino and other software like Alias, Solidworks, NX, CATIA, Fusion, etc.
Basically the weak point of Blender in an industrial setting is the robustness of working with industrial CAD file formats. I know there are converters out there, but having tried some of them, they always seem to destroy the built in data that is written into IGES or STEP files, which is important in the design process. Surface trim history in particular is a big one: if I cant untrim surfaces during rework and design revisions, the program is useless to me in an industrial setting.
Blender is great at rapid ideation, it handles FBX files back and forth to Rhino very well, but when it comes to controlled and specific detailed revisions, it suffers greatly in an industrial design setting. Rhino just becomes faster for me at that point. STEP and IGES files are more non-destructive where as blender files are pretty much destructive once they leave the blender file format for the most part.
That added benefit to Blender is that if I do bring the model back as an FBX file, I can use it for presentations, animations and quick graphic uses to demonstrate what the product can do. Essentially where blender lacks as a prime industrial design modeler, it makes up for in it’s wide media toolset within a 3D space.
Love the renders!
I’ve worked in Rhino for a while (though on Simple POS designs only) and I get what you mean regarding the NURBS workflow -it’s like a different world but it’s a lot less flexible and convenient for freeform shapes and quick ideation for sure.
Having a better integration would be super beneficial for Blender, and I guess much easier to achieve than implementing proper NURBS in Blender.
Seeing Blender used in this area at this level is super exciting.
Great times ahead.
I’m curious that now industrial design programs are starting to use blender a lot more exclusively for product design and development if there will eventually be a push to make it more ID friendly. I’d love to be one of the guys to help pave the way if it ever came up.
I would love to see blender go beyond the game and move production houses.
