Since car modelling can be a topology headache at times I thought I’d open up a thread where people can post their car modelling issues and hopefully I and other members of the forum can post suggestions for fixes. I will also use this thread to show the WIP of a BMW M3 (E92) and I aim to make it high poly (1-2 million polygons on the body alone).
This is not a thread to compete with Tyrant Monkey’s thread but one to sit alongside it, because with this one you can model any car and you’re not just limited to 30 or so.
How do you end up with that many polys, even if you collapse one sub-d modifier and than add another at level 2 without counting silly things like grills, rims and tires I can’t see you getting past 200 000 polys. I am guessing I will have to follow to find out…I have been experimenting nothing worth showing though but I can’t recall ever getting over 500 000 polys for the body I don’t think it even got past 100 000
1000 base.
4000- collapse(new base).
64000- derived face count.
To be honest I have no idea lol, however I’ve been lurking around cg-cars and smcars and the poly count for the numerous bodies that I’ve seen have been in the 4 million mark. I have no idea what they’re doing to get that many polys!!
Looks like they model virtually every detail and rely very little on normal/displacement maps. I don’t know that it’s really worth it for some of that detail, but definitely some good looking models. This BMW for example.
@xrg I think he worked on that car for years the original thread is at cg-cars and I doubt the polycount for the body alone is in the 2-3 million poly mark for the base mesh that GrandPe is talking about. Wheels and grills can push it up but for that bmw the body I would estimate 5000-10000 for the base mesh I don’t think levente used the applying level-1 Sub-D technique IIRC. Here is the cg-cars thread
2 million for just the body without CAD data sounds a bit undo able to me if it is hand modelled.
@GrandPe to get that high poly model the basics I have figured is to first build a base mesh, 3dmax guys use smoothing groups to break up the mesh into hard edges but for blender I think creasing works as well you than apply a level one sub-d modifier and than its a task of cleaning up and cutting detail. I have seen some guys cut detail with boolens but I have not really experimented with those. another way would be to use surface projection to cut the detail in.
I can’t show what I have been working on because it sucks and I don’t know if I want to share my methods I think for that kind of stuff you should make your own way. Go with what works for you. Wires that are highly subdivided can be hard to learn from especially on the details side because its not easy to figure out how the detail is cut into the mesh etc.
Ah, I missed the “body alone” part. That’s a cool thread, thanks.
I don’t think I have the patience to model things on that level of detail. I can’t imagine spending years on one thing. Especially when it’s “just a car” at the end of the day. Even the CG Cookie car modeling tutorials Jonathan has way more faces than I prefer to deal with while editing. I usually block large simple shapes and then work out detail - it’s how I paint too so seems logical to me I guess.
I don’t know if I’m using the base mesh/level 1 subdivision method correctly or not (or even at all) but this the base mesh of the M3 bumper as it stands at the moment. Some areas admittedly need pulled out to get it flat/curved but I’m getting there. Not bad for an hours work on the part of a car that I think is a right headache!
