Lee Greatorex Photo/3D blog

Here's a bit more progress on the Car




As you can see I've nearly finished the base model. I'm going to be altering it and making space for the doors after it is done. I'm also currently working on the inner areas such as windosills and an area for the bonnet to rest. (For the rubber and metal Window fix they will be modelled separately so just added a little geometry so the body has no sharp edges).

After a few days off and on of modelling (I work full time so until my weekend I only have an hour or so a night) I decided to mirror the geometry and take a little test render. Here is the result.




For this I tried out the Mental Ray car shader. Usually I build my own shaders and materials but have heard good things about the shader. I think after some more tweaking it will look ok for the body at least. Also instead of creating my own environment sphere I tried the Mental Ray HDRI image based lighting option in the render settings. I think I prefer having control over my own environment/reflection map and I still prefer creating my own light setups.

I added a little negative light inside the body just so the emphasis was on the exterior for now.
Overall I'm generally happy so far but can't wait till I start adding the details to it to break up the model.

After the base model is done I'm going to do bonnet/boot then start working on windows, lights and doors.

Currently I'm modelling a car (Alpine Renault 1600 SC) in Maya. I'm doing this to get back in to the habit of modelling and having a manageable project I can do on my laptop (my is still not ready yet).

I gave up on the outdated tutorials for box looking cars as I wanted particularly to do this car. It has a little character and also has a lot of nice fluid lines and contours.

I'm poly modelling it from reference (2d blueprints and I made some reference curves to so I can flesh it out/ keep the contours).

This is the first attempt at modelling a car and I'm finding it quite challenging but fun. I'm currently getting the basic body down, then going to work on other parts such as bonnet, trunk and windows. After that I'll redo the door and add lights and bumpers. Finally I'll start working on the interior (a very simple chair , wheel, dashboard) as well as tyres/wheels.

Here's my work in progress so far;

Here are some of the sketches from my sketchbook. I've just cropped some of them and put them on 1 big page. Varying styles. A lot of it is just character work / study but some doodles are related to my 3D work (such as the street/ market scenes).



Below is a quick painting I did of the Goblin (top right in the sketchdump). I've always found Orc/Goblin skin tones a bit easier to build up, I think mainly because when I first started painting models they were the first I gave a go and simple Highlighting techniques worked. Ugly characters are easier to draw/paint as well! You get a little more leeway. The next one I'm going to try is the girl with the Goggles (steampunk esque). Anyway enjoy!




PS for those that haven't had a look head on over to the new Digital Tutors site. Now all of their tutorials are online and ready to learn with a monthly subscription. I think it's an excellent idea and as soon as I get payment sorted I'll be signing up for 6 months straight away!