Petrol/Blood Unfinished Entry - WIP

4bidn

Original thread can be found here:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136410

I want to complete this piece for my portfolio. I am still learning how to do hard surface modeling in Zbrush. Mostly what I have learned is what NOT to do and what doesn't work. A lot of more work to do on this. Comments and crits welcome.

Mood boards:



Current:


Old:

BARDLER

You have a lot of lumpyness on the body and some pinching in the sharp edges coming off the rounder shapes. Can you show some wires?

On a side note, I like the body shape design but the window shapes, size, and placements do not make much sense and fit the body very well in my opinion.

4bidn

@Bardler Thanks for your comments and I totally agree.

Yeah, there is lots of waviness to the mesh. Working in DynaMesh seemed like a good idea, as it was the best way for me to preserve the polygroups. ZRemesher tends to clean it up some, but with twisting to the edgeloops. And I am staying in DynaMesh so I can still do cuts and such.

The concept of the car is of armored sports car. One with a core or cab that would be heavy steel with thick glass panels and the hood and trunk being lightweight composite armor. Theory being to offer the driver the most protection and save weight on the other shit. The two styles, of race car meets armored car I had trouble combining seamlessly. One or the other seems out of place, so I just decided to move forward and complete it anyhow.


Oh!, those hood vents are shit, I am going to replace those. That happened from scaling.

Wires:

BARDLER

Zbrush is not really going to give you clean results with a model like that. I think sculpting the basic shapes for prototyping and designing is fine but the final model should be a sub-d model. Use your sculpt as it is and retopo over it by hand to get the clean curves, smooth shapes, and sharp edges you want. You will have much more control, you wont get that lumpiness, and the final results will be much better.

ScottHoneycutt

BARDLER wrote: »

Zbrush is not really going to give you clean results with a model like that. I think sculpting the basic shapes for prototyping and designing is fine but the final model should be a sub-d model. Use your sculpt as it is and retopo over it by hand to get the clean curves, smooth shapes, and sharp edges you want. You will have much more control, you wont get that lumpiness, and the final results will be much better.

+1. There are all kinds of things to practice sculpting, but at this point its more like going against the software's strengths just because. Remember the "art" is the goal, which software you use is only a means to getting there.

BeardyDan

I think you need to properly re-work the design of this before going any further. At the moment there doesn't seem to be much consideration in to what the vehicles purpose is. Is it supposed to be an armoured car, or a sports car? I can't tell. At the moment it looks like you're trying to combine the two styles by hash-bashing elements together and I don't think the end result is going to work. For example you have an armoured door and windscreen clashing with smooth, rounded surfaces and the type of spoiler I'd expect to see on a track racer. I would look at how other IP's have handled this, notably Batman:



In this example here you can see that the Batmobile is fully armoured, it's consistent, there's no clash in its design. The sports car element is relegated to the silhouette and layout of the car , whilst also retaining the hard angles you'd normally associate with an armoured vehicle. The car looks like it can take a punch, whilst also being speedy.

I recommend removing the curvy sports cars from your reference and instead use cars such as the Egoista and Aventador. Also look at other military hardware such as fighter jets to give you an idea of how something can look armoured but also sleek.

I'm not too keen on the airless tyres either. I understand their purpose, but they make the vehicle look weak.

Also, recommend not using Zbrush.

4bidn

@ BARDLER and ScottMichaelH, thanks guys for the sound advice. I need to learn how to properly Sub-d. I have access to both 3Ds Max and Maya, so I am going to explore those routes.

@ BeardyDan Thank you for your honest and fair crit. Changing the cab, specifically the windows will make the car better looking and more consistent. I'll go with a simpler and cleaner look. I'll remove some of the hood to expose armor under it. Now, I'll say the hood and rear is just there for aerodynamics. Retaining the curved shapes should help to define what is and what isn't armored.

Using the batmobile and lambos for ref would be a drastic departure from this design. Both being refined, sophisticated vehicles and the most expensive feats of engineering money can buy. I love the batmobile, especially the Michael Keaton one. For a different car, this would be a excellent direction.

I am going for an unrefined creation. I'll block it out enough to make that clearer.

BeardyDan

Right I get ya, do you think that the state of the art military equipment is good inspiration to draw from? I'm not so sure, you say "unrefined armoured sportscar" and I immediately think this (granted this is a horribly cliche example, but you see where I'm going hopefully).

4bidn

@Beardy Dan, Good point about the military stuff. Yeah, all the stuff in Elysium was pretty damn cool.

Small update, I am still trting figure out the best solution for edge flow where the windows meet the doors.

KMiklas

The car's design looks like Colani meets Mad Max, then jump into Carmageddon to rape an Alfa 4C.

Can't wait to see more!

DWalker

The problem with the current canopy design is that it has very limited fields of view, especially to the front. This isn't as important for military vehicles, which don't tend to move or maneuver quickly (as a general rule), and can shrug off impacts from such piddling objects as a solid brick wall. Even so, most modern military transport vehicles have visibility similar to their civilian counterparts, only with VERY thick glass.

As an experiment, do a render from the driver's eye position, looking straight ahead, and overlay that onto a first-person scene from any driving game. Could you really play like that?

4bidn

@ KMiklas and DWalker thank you for your comments.

Some updates:



Seeing how things look in zBrush.

4bidn

Front Suspension.



These For the front tires. I am going to remove the seam between the sidewall and tread. I am going to use the knobby tires for the rear.

4bidn

New better knobby and seamless front tires.

4bidn