This is my second attempt on car modeling. I modeled the different pieces as diferent meshes and i was very carefull with the topology, trying not to make messy edges or too many tris (there are just a few in the entire scene). In some places the edges might look messy, that’s because i still haven’t joined all the separate meshes.
The mesh for the interior is not completed yet and i’m also not happy with the headlights. I used an UV mapped image (that i draw myself in Photoshop) as a bump map but i don’t like the outcome. If someone knows how to make the headlights look better (a better image perhaps?) please tell me.
Also you can notice that the color is significantly different around the smiley. That is because i used an UV mapped image with alpha and i don’t know why it turned out that way, nor how to fix it. Any other suggestions on how to make this render look better (including lighting, materials, modeling) are welcome.
im not sure if this would work (i’ve never done it myself) but you could make the smiley picture a premultiplied png file with a transparent background.
-theblenderboy
what’s a premultiplied png file?
Here is my lighting setup. I used a skydome with a low energy for smooth and soft shadows one spot light for a higlight from the side and another one on the same location with a higher energy but with “Only shadow” turned on to cast the shadow beneath the car. The sphere like object is used for the background.
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If the smiley is black and white coloured you should put the alpha and calculated alpha on from the texture settings, and maby negative alpha also (coz your smiley is black). that should make only the black part visible…
That furry looking thingy would look better with particles instead of bumpmap IMO…
Handy little car BTW, nice look 
That fury looking thing is suposed to be a sponge-like material. i guess i’ve set the nor value too high.
Thanks for the replies, i’ll make some changes and be back with some updates soon.
Ok here’s an update on the sponge material. Hope it looks better now. I still can’t fix the smiley… I think i’ll ask for help on the forums.
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sorry im not great with terminology. but in blender, if you render with “premul” on and “RGBA”, it adds an alpha value (which you need a transparency-supporting file type for, png for example).
it’d probably be unreasonable to recreate the smiley in blender, so see if you can edit your smiley pic in an image editor so everything’s transparent except for the black smiley face lines. then save as a png and you can try to UV map it.
sponge material looks great, except it looks smooth up at the top. is it supposed to be like that?
-theblenderboy
“premul” and “RGBA” didn’t work, i’ve tried two formats for the image a .psd with complete transparency (not black and white) and a .png (this one when saved makes the transparent pixels white…) and none of them worked.
i don’t know why the sponge looks smooth at the top… might be because of the lighting…?
Where can i post my .blend file and my image so others can take a look at them?
Any advice on how to make the headlights better?
hmmm. oh well just an idea i thought might work. maybe you could try using the transparency-supported image as a texture. no idea how that would work.
are you using a ramp shader for the sponge? i have no idea. maybe check to make sure it’s applied to the whole mesh :rolleyes:
sorry for having no idea. 
-theblenderboy
OK i solved the smiley thing.
I tried another method for lighting, HDRI. I am asuming that Yafray is needed for this to work (at least that’s what i’ve read around here).
Anyway, i don’t know if i’ve mentioned but the car is not one object, instead it’s divided into several diferent objects.
If the main part of the car (the biggest part of the body-the sides, front and back) is included in the render it wont render it. When i check the console for errors it says that it “can’t find Yafray, are you sure it’s in PATH” or something like that…
But if i render the rest of the objects without the main part, it renders just fine. I also checked if the path to Yafray is included to the “Path” system variable.
Where should i ask these questions? I think that “Focused critique” isn’t the best place to ask this but i don’t know where.
no, blender internal supports hdri now. which is good cuz i don’t know how to use yafray.
-theblenderboy
Remeber that yafray support a more limited number of formats for textures (TGA and JPG) and that alphamapping is supported but not in Raytransp mode but in ztransp mode.
Ok here’s the update. HDRI lighting, yafray render, took 4 hours…
I still need to work on those headlights, but this render looks a lot better than the previous ones. I’m also setting a scene for this car, just to complete the picture. I don’t want to leave it in mid air. I’m planning to make a beach scene. For now i have a big rock, with some plants on it, I need to make the sky, water and sand next.
I’m sorry for the double post, but the forum doesn’t seem to show that there are new posts on a thread if i only edit my last post.
C&C please!
how long did it take you to modell it?
Here is a close up of the tree.
I made two more rocks and i think they complete the basic rocks-on-the-beach scene. Now i need to make the water and sand.
C&C please.
why dont you answer my question???
not trying to be mean just asking
ARABIAN KNIGHT I answered your question in the WIP forum. Anyway here it is again:
It took me 3 days for the body of the car. The rest i modeled in 1 day.