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2013 Ford Police Interceptor | WIP Vehicle Project

Progress as of last post:


Original post:
This project is to create a 2013 Ford Police Interceptor suited for usage in games like the Forza Horizon series, that includes body, interior, and mechanical components.

This means that car will need to be LOD'ed to match the scaling detail used by cars in the Forza games; from the up-close details used in ForzaVista, to the multiple racers in a single race. A twist on this project, inline with the Forza target, is to make it viable for usage in instances like pursuits in older Need for Speed games.

All in all, the car is aimed to be around 60,000 triangles; either 60K with body, wheels, components in 3rd person, or 40K in an interior view. With LODs coming into play where needed.

Vehicle being used is specifically the 2013 Ford Taurus with a Police Interceptor package. This model year has a distinctly different front bumper, head lights, and rear lights.


So far, I have completed the car body to a sufficient amount that the additional police equipment can be placed onto the body, and materials can be played around with to create the look of the car.

The body at this point weighs in at 38,000 triangles, which could mean some required optimisation of edge flow later on, but it'll depend on how the rest of the car comes out. If the additional body elements push the body over the target, this may have to become LOD 0 and be the mesh desired for a ForzaVista situation.


Here's a few images of the body in Marmoset with a few basic materials to distinguish different parts.


Here's something I've already put some time into; an allow, tyre tread, brake disc, and brake caliper all come together with materials created using Substance Designer.


If anyone has any feedback, advice, or critique with this project, please post! I'm going over this project myself as I work on it, but just self critique can be a bit of a vaccum. It's alright to body shame this car!

Replies

  • Le Mans Racer
    A quick update on the police interceptor project:
    • Added police gubbins
    • Created a livery based on the early concept model of the interceptor
    • Created a livery based on a fictional town
    • Added two licence plates based on either livery




    Also, here's an explosion of the wheel meshes.


    Please comment if you have any feedback with this project so far; doesn't matter if it's negative, positive, or you want to why or how I did something.
  • Le Mans Racer
  • Martijn
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    Martijn vertex
    looks awesome dude! but how did you model those brakes? 
  • Le Mans Racer
    Martijn said:
    looks awesome dude! but how did you model those brakes? 
    Hi, Martin!

    I modelled the brakes by creating a high-poly mesh that I edge looped and turbosmoothed to make an nice base to bake using xNormal. After baking the high-poly details, I took the normal into Quixel and added various details to the brake disc. This method allows me to have the curved edges of the high-poly, and create various different hole or etching arrangements for different types of brake disc, without having to create a new high-poly for each disc type.



    Overlapping some sections of the geometry in the UV also gives me greater detail across an area at the expense of repetition, this can be seen with each quarter of the brake disc. I also mirrored the brake caliper and brake pad to save UV space as these areas won't need a lot of detail in the grand scheme of the project.


  • Martijn
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    Martijn vertex
    Wow, nice explanation. i really love how detailed the brakes still are because of the normalmap! 
  • Le Mans Racer
    Headlight and taillight!


  • gfelton
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    gfelton polycounter lvl 6
    Fantastic work dude, love seeing the progress! :)
  • Martijn
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    Martijn vertex
    that looks really nice :open_mouth:
  • Le Mans Racer
    Police equipment, and another fan livery from a day when there wasn't enough time left to make a dent in the interior, but I still wanted to do something. In fact, it kind of reflects a little of the intentions for the project that were outlined in the OP.

  • Le Mans Racer
  • Martijn
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    Martijn vertex
    it just looks so on point! keep up bro, but how much poly's is this badboy know whit interior?
  • Le Mans Racer
    Thanks, Martjin  ;)

    So far, the interior is 27,000 triangles, but this is fine as it's meant to be rendered in place of the car when viewed from the inside. The exterior; body, wheels, and equipment adds up to just over 54,000 triangles. I'm close to my target of 60,000, but I'll be doing a pass later to cull some triangles; the wheels are more expansive then they should be.

    Your comment also made me realise that I've not posted any wireframes of the Taurus. 


  • Le Mans Racer
    I saw today that Polycount had a Patreon page for funding the site's servers, and help Andrew towards improving the site even further. I immediatley created an account and made a pledge, as I believe Polycount is an important part of myself becoming a 3D artist and bringing so many others together.

    As a small piece of my appreciation to everyone working on the site, and because I never got the chance to leave a Greentooth easter egg, here's a Polycount licence plate.

  • PHarrod
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    PHarrod null
    Hi, I just thought I'd pop in with a bit of feedback, as I look at this kind of thing a lot. 
    The poly counts you're aiming for are actually quite low. A ForzaVista model is more like 500,000 tris, but that includes interior, engine, etc. NFS in game models are a little higher than your exterior target, so don't be afraid to up it 20-30%.

    The mesh looks pretty tidy but there are some things to look for. Your rear wireframe has a pretty telling highlight running over the top. Showing you should probably turn some edges. 
    The B pillar is super straight, it's never like this in reality on modern cars, there should be around 4 horizontal divisions there.
    Another area to be careful is the A pillar on the interior, they tend to need more divisions, this will be large in the players view, it should be a smooth curve. Also the rubber seals in this area are soft/rounded, not squared off. 
    I'm not convinced the shape of the lower half of the front bumper is correctly shaped, but that could be the camera.
    I like the way you've constructed the lights, the result is pretty good from what I can see.
  • Le Mans Racer
    Thanks, PHarrod for your feedback, and it's been a big help :)
    • You're absolutely right about the B pillar and the windows; that's certainly a big miss by myself.
    • The A pillar of the interior is something I'm aware of, and as you point out there should be a few more loops to help smooth it out, but I'm hoping to leave that until I have the entire interior complete. This is mostly so I can break the car up once all of the mesh work is finished and have a nice separation of an interior LOD and an exterior LOD.
    • I might drop the ForzaVista aspect of the project, as I know they'd have the CAD data for a lot of cars to work down from compared to myself working up from photo reference. Then again, I might make it more of a superficial pass; I'm kind of determined to make a damage state with some interesting aspects to look at as panels fall off. I'd like to keep a nice balance through LODs between a nice looking player car, an enjoyable interior experience, and a reusable A.I. car, but doesn't fall in between.
    • I've not gotten to adding the rubber seals or the more interesting between panel bits yet, but I agree.
    • You were right about the lower-half of the front bumper. I think it could do with a little bit of pulling in at the base to continue the curve from the wheel arch, the base air intake needs a bit more curving, the light might need to pushed out further along the bottom to closer meet the wheel arch, and the grille might bit a bit too tall along its base.

    • The reflection issue is partly down to that I've not bothered with it yet, but that's really because I've been hoping for feedback with regard to the mesh before I got to work turning edges and aligning the vertex normals to create a nice sleek body. Another problem is one that you pointed out with one of the methods I was hoping to use; the rear trunk normals were altered using a weighted normal script, but I didn't turn all of the edges to keep a flow. That same script was used on the rear bumper as well, but if you've got any further advice towards this I would be appreciative.


    I'll make sure to work towards a better reflection for the body, and I hope you'll come back swinging with what I put up. Again, cheers PHarrod :wink:
  • PHarrod
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    PHarrod null
    That's good to see you've been able to identify the problems with the bumper shape. Looks like you've got the right eye for these things.
    Using a chrome surface is excellent.

    Locked normals are an art in themselves and how to tackle them can depend on the tools/scripts you are using and the game engine you're going into. I've worked with virtually all normals locked and just the minimum of chamfers. shutlines. Then I know Forza doesn't use them. A good high poly (game) mesh can look good without them but yes, having CAD to trace is a big help.
    If you can locate some CAD for a car, it would be a good exercise to trace it as it can also suggest better topology flow.

    Be prepared to use a few more loops at the transition between the windscreen and the roof, it's a profile that can suffer from being lower poly that it should be. 

    The tyre sidewall also looks a little flat, I'd add a loop, or adjust the existing ones.

    Good damage is a good challenge. I'm interested to see how that turns out.
  • Le Mans Racer
    Sorry, it's been a while since my last post with this project, but I've been working some additional scene assets to help bring the whole thing together.

    Here's a quick update with comparisons of the old body, tyres, and front bumper against the new ones. I've worked on giving the pillars and doors more of a curve to match the flow of the body.


    I've also been working towards additional assets for the interior, alongside correcting the reflections and critique brought forward by you awesome people that have been posting, and I think it's getting close to a finished mesh stage for the interior.

    It'll hopefully be a good point to present with a nice body and interior as I work through the underside, engine bay, and the bit I'm most looking for to - damage!

    It has been a while since my last post, but if any you reading have any critique for me or questions with regards to the model or my workflow, please post!
  • Le Mans Racer
    The "It's been a while and forgot I had committed myself to updating my Polycount thread" thread bump. I've been working mostly on the interior, and correcting a fair amount of line flows, since the last update.

    Here's a few shots with all of the basic materials I'd like to use, I say basic for the rubbish, scratchy plastic car materials that aren't really interesting but really do make the interior an interior with them in. I'm going to add more interest to the laptop, camera, seats, and general police equipment stuff to make it look more used.

    The seats are something I'm looking forward to doing. I think they'll look good with some two-tone fabric and stitching.




    After the interior, I'm going to start on the second to last part of the project; mechanical components. That will be the engine, any panels that can come off, suspension, underside, practically the rest of the exterior that isn't the body.

    The last part will be a damage pass. I've been using scrap auction sites for reference, as it being a police car there were a lot of them to look through, and they're proving very useful for reference with underside components as well as how to go about making a car look damaged the way it would in a crash.

    As always, I'm open to any feedback, critique, or any questions about this project. Any feedback, I'll work into any post; any critique, I'll respond to by trying to get as much of you as I can; and any questions, I'll try and give you as much as I can to answer it.

    Thanks and happy 2018! ;)
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