BMW Progress/Problems
polycounter lvl 3
Latest Update: April 8, 2015
Original Post:
Hello, I modeled a BMW 6-series E63. However, it is not smooth and I feel its a mess to work with. I'm starting from scratch and will post the results here. I'm planning to model, texture, and light in marmoset. I'm new to 3ds Max and have been using edge modeling. I will post here everyday. I would like help on catching any problems especially bumps that show from the spec highlight. Thanks!
These are my references: http://i.imgur.com/aX6bDw3.jpg
Original Post:
Hello, I modeled a BMW 6-series E63. However, it is not smooth and I feel its a mess to work with. I'm starting from scratch and will post the results here. I'm planning to model, texture, and light in marmoset. I'm new to 3ds Max and have been using edge modeling. I will post here everyday. I would like help on catching any problems especially bumps that show from the spec highlight. Thanks!
These are my references: http://i.imgur.com/aX6bDw3.jpg
Replies
Block everything. Then model everything. Then texture everything.
Try to lay off adding chamfers/guide wires and giving it a final smooth over until your base for the exterior shell is complete.
Also remember to optimize your initial smooth. If you have to add any edges, be sure to use tools such as edge constraint so you don't ruin the curvature.
Also, try to keep your stacks intact, so you can reference your initial geometry.
I recently constructed a base mesh myself for a lambo using this method, which you can find here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147265
This video explains what Dan was talking about just there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87I8FpXn3Yc&feature=youtu.be
Break down into sections sounds appealing. This is the hood of the car.
I started with a box shape made from a spline -> convert to editable poly -> then subdiv for the rest. This is one object, subdivided and with a symmetry mod, no smoothing. Now that I look at it the horizontal edges should curve in tandem with the top and bottom edge of the hood, correct?
@Joltya the video on turbosmooth is good and clears up what I should do when smoothing for later.
@BeardyDan thats a good looking car, thanks for the link.
Let me know if this is a logical way to go. As for connecting the parts is it simply welding edges?
Or using the bridge tool. Also, it seems obvious, but don't connect everything. i.e. the door needs to be it's own piece, as well as the hood, etc.
Use curves to 'sketch' the main lines of the whole car. When you then model the parts you can snap your vertices to the curve to get the correct shape.
To do so properly you will also need additional pictures from different angles to be able to see how it bends.
I dug up my old truck to show how few curves are actually needed
and a lambo I made using the same method
Subscribing to this for later-
Both the hood and fender are independent parts as shown in blue and green respectively. This is a bit of combination of what has been said earlier about setting up curves, outlining the car, as CandyStripes05 said making a surface.
My concerns are:
- This method I've worked out seems very messy. This must be wrong.
- In model #1 at the red circle, why is the surface curving there and not lofting straight over from one point to another. Is one of the Bezier handles doing that? Following that flaw there is an unwanted indentation across the entire fender.
- There is a gap towards the bottom where I did not loft. Lofting would create a surface in #3 that I do not want.
- I found the 3ds Max 'Tesselation Method' for the surface but I'm not sure how to lower the tessellation to how the hood is.
As said before, I've lost my trail.
@BeardyDan I'll head back to the hood and try to post another update tonight with better topo according to your drawings.
@CandyStripes05 very nice models btw
for that problem you could always break the curve into two parts and then continue lofting or which ever method you are using without having geo running the entire length of the old curve
Looking at the car I knew there must be 3 main planes as shown in #3. I noticed a cross hatch like pattern was not the way to go as you can see in 1 and 2. The polys should be in a continuous flow. This helped later in #4 when refining the slopes.
I want to 'nitpick', is it okay to put edges shown in #4? I feel more res could help with smoothing. But is that sorta thing left for smooth modifiers later?
In #4b, facets are shown. Probably something I don't have to worry about but I know in Maya I can simply soften the normals. 3ds have something like that?
@CandyStripes05 Thanks for the info pic. I've worked with NURBS and curves in Maya so all of that looks familiar to me. I think my problem is figuring out the procedure in 3ds. However, I've never rebuilt a curve for even spacing. I noticed that in your first posted image as well. I'll try curves/NURBS again on another section. See what happens.
Also, I may post parts from my previous attempt at this BMW model.These parts are like the wheel, side mirror, parts not part of the main body. I'd like to know if my topo looks correct.
--'Seems' Between Car Parts--
How do I create the 'seem' between car parts? Last time I attempted this car I modeled the entire exterior, minus lights and windows, as one object; then separated each section, the fender, bumper etc., into elements; used a shell modifier to add thickness and was able to get the seems. I don't know if I should do that again or not.
--Edge Flow Image--
In the 'Edge Flow' image there are two areas. The first is a concern if I were to begin connecting parts, I need to have the same edges. Would adding edges be correct? Do I need to connect the car parts even? The second is just a question on correct topology. The ridge from the hood fades down in the A-pillar of the car. Is that topology okay there?
--Smoothing--
I'd like to smooth the hood and trunk. I'm guessing some of the parts of the car do not need turbo smooth. Maybe just a smoothing modifier. I'm sure its a trial and error to see how it all plays out. What is a good procedure to go through when trying smoothing techniques?
Joltya posted this earlier about using two turbo smooths so there's no newly created distortion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87I8FpXn3Yc&feature=youtu.be
--NURBS/Curves--
Is there a way to get a corner out of a point or CV curve, Instead of curved angles? Once creating a surface, it always ends up as tris, how do I make it quads? I'd like to use NURBS but it's been tricky. So far it's only edge modeling.
A lot of questions. I will try to look for some answers online. Thanks for any answers/suggestions.
#1 is unsmoothed, #2 is smoothed with wireframe, #3 is smoothed no wireframe.
The red circle on #3 shows the light picking up a vertical edge. This must mean I need more divisions in that curve of the car, correct?
Do I need to bevel edges? I'm looking at this car as if it were to be in a game. Do games bevel all edges, the edges where faces are at 90 degrees per say? I have some edges near the license plate area that should be beveled if it comes to that.
I feel like I don't need a normal map for this car...not sure.
Not sure if you have to bevel edges, for normal maps it would be better I guess.
Not all edges get beveled, because not all edges need beveled. In your case for this example, it will most likely be beneficial to add them.
In your image, the issue for #3 I think is probably caused by the extra edge on that corner visible in #2. See if you can weld those verts together so there is just one line coming up from the exhaust cutout in the bumper.
Here's the front bumper,
Having some smoothing problems. There's a few things I need to tackle with smoothing and I'm still working on the model.
One is the diagonal shading indicated by the black circles. How do I get rid of this? It appears in many places. Some are very subtle. Is it because the points of the quads are not coplanar? How do I make the points coplanar. 'View Align' and 'Make Planar' aren't the right tool.
One thing I want to add is, you should have some kind of polygon budget/goal in mind. It determines how you handle certain things (the higher your budget the more complex).
I'd advice not to go too high: aim for like 6000ish tri's for the body. It gets way harder the higher your budget is, so don't over do it the first time
edit; also don't model the separate panels as separate parts. Model them connected, you can always cut them apart later. Just leave edges where you want the cut to be. It's definitely easier to model the body as one object.
@JordanN I never thought of a video. I'll look that up.
Here is my base mesh of the body. How does it look?
I've talked to a few people and I'm told getting a normal map from a high poly mesh will help with the smoothing on my low poly here. I'm thinking of using smoothing groups and turbo smooth. There's a few places I need to fix some geometry for the turbo smooth.
Jerry your progress is awesome and I love the wireframe.
I would like to pinch in the discussion with my model. I dont want too much attention on this since its not my post, but just a quick tip of what I should do with it would be nice!
So, I have this car (Fiat dino coupe) in ZBrush, I made the base in 3Ds Max and continued in ZBrush and I dont know what should I do with it next so I can get it textured.
I think this is looking much better, one thing I would suggest would be adding some divisions along the door at some point, for the sake of it being more "authentic" you'd want those polys there for damage morphs.
One thing I think you should also do is apply a cubemap to this mesh to make sure the geometry is good for reflections, as pinching reflections are pretty ugly.
Also, remember to use the "Turn" function in max to check the how the mesh triangulates, ideally you want every poly to triangulate in the same direction, this will help resolve some shading issues.
@BeardyDan Thanks for the suggestions. I went ahead and added more edges on the door, added a indentation for the handle, and made my own cube map. I will definitely look into the Turn function.
I'm still working on the hi poly, working with the smoothing groups and supporting edges. Spots like on the bottom of the headlight area have bumps.
I also brought in some other parts of the car as you can see. The grill on the bottom will be replaced with a curved plane and a texture made in photoshop.
Cube Map!
First time making a cube map. I followed Mik2121 tutorial. He uses Nvidia Texture Tools and Xoliul Shader.
Mik2121 tutorial: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqMmjBSWByw
Nvidia Texture Tools: https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop
Xoliul Shader2: http://viewportshader.com/
For the images of the cube map I used an Android App, Google Camera, and took pictures in a field using the spherical camera option.
Google Camera: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.GoogleCamera&hl=en
The last thing I did in the cube map process was enable the Gamma/LUT in Customize-->Preference-->Gamma and LUT tab--> check the 'Enable Gamma/LUT'. For me I dropped it from the default 2.2 to 1.6 or something. The Xoliul shader disables it when installing.
I'll try to post later today.
I've been working on other parts of the car and will soon have a complete car. I do not understand the texturing process. How do I begin to create shaders for the car with it ending up in marmoset 2? Can someone point me to an in depth tutorial for creating shaders/textures for cars?
Woops, I said that wrong. I sort of ran my sentences together in that last post.
Fixed last post...
Separate the car into its parts > UV map the low poly > bake normals (and an AO map?)
1) How do I create the look of separate parts of the car using or not using turbo smooth. The correct edges are split with the body as one object made up of several elements (3ds max). I can use turbo smooth as I have done in #1, then place supporting edges to refine the parts, make the gaps smaller. However, more geometry is added. I do not want the extra polys.
2) Do I need to unwrap parts of the low poly that will have no textures and only shaders (spec, gloss, color)? Currently two parts of the car will have normal maps, the body and tires. These two parts will be unwrapped.
Thanks!
ie. all black trim can stack together
But I'm sure there is a way better way, like taking the time to unwrap everything but that does take up a lot of space. Maybe a 2nd smaller uv map for the odds and ends. I'm sure someone else can chime in with a better suggestion.
As for the different panels you can either leave the body as one mesh and let your normal map work it's magic (if you never plan on having the doors open) or you can leave a small gap and just extrude in for a 90 degree edge. It'll be enough for the light to catch and show the different panels, and it won't kill your poly count
I'd recommend option 2
1) Click on the edge where I wish the groove or gap to be formed
2) Click chamfer for about .5 with two new edges on either side of the original.
3) Click extrude with a value of -1.0.
When using chamfer and extrude around corners it became a bit messy but I was able to clean it up.
Does this mean going thru each tri and making it go say top left to bottom right? What if there are edge loops making a circle? I'm guessing this step isn't critical since there might be a few differences in the mesh?
@CandyStripes05 Didn't see your last message there until now. That's good. Should go quicker then with the UV's.
make sure you flip the uv's of the mirrored geo so the textures on it aren't reversed which allows you to use letters and numbers
(pretty obvious, but just wanted to mention it to be safe)
@CandyStripes05 Thanks for the UV image. I noticed you did not stack any UV's?
Is it okay to stack mirrored UV's on the original if the texture will be the same? I'm thinking of putting a stripe down the side so the hood, top, and trunk will need separate spaces of course. The fenders could stack though, correct? Or is this more needless work for little benefit of optimization.
Stripe example (one side is different): http://i.imgur.com/TqzJNtZ.jpg
Side Decal Example (would be same on both sides): http://i.imgur.com/hYUIVLz.jpg
UV's have been split based on smoothing groups.
I wouldn't stack your sides or even do the half hood like you have, id make those all separate and position them similar to the googled image I posted earlier. This way if you wanted to change the texture down the road you can and you can get a better flow for different stripes if they are laid out like that. Also I can't imagine and game company stacking uv's on car panels unless it is a really low rez project.
Oh and if you wanted to add dirt, scratches etc you could without them being obviously mirrored
When you do uv map your car and you have both sides mapped to the same set of uv's, make sure you flip the one sides uv's vertically and hold shift (at least in maya) to move them up on the map without them moving left or right. This way you can do the same for your texture in photoshop to line everything up in seconds, texture the one half group everything flip it and slide it up. Then make any small changes needed.
Here is the UV map of the car body. How does it look? I of course still have to get the other parts in there. How do the UV clusters look?
This is a screen grab so I can show the selected red UV's. Those are the UV's I decided to stack. The selection contains UV's for parts on the bottom of the body, the gaps between the car parts, and the extruded areas where the brake lights and head lights cover up.
I'm following the smoothing groups I set up earlier. The geometry between the car parts is sort of a pain to make UV's for. Maybe I should of let a normal map take care of that, oh well.
do you mean the extruded edges in between all the different panels? you could always overlap those uv's right on top of the edge of the panel it came from
I ended up deleting all the extruded edges I had done because in the end they weren't all that beneficial compared to increased tri count
but I did a quick remodel to show you what I mean:
top two images are my door with it's uv's without the added geo in between panels
bottom two images are the door with the added faces and the uv's of the added faces flipped over on top the panel, done so in a way that it does not increase the size of my uv island and take up more room - also if you had a stripe on the door or anything, it would continue smoothly around the bend of the corner
Also, I did some normal map tests. There are a few problems. Not too sure how to fix some of them. This is done in 3ds max.
I know the red areas on the rendered image above mean a ray mischeck. However, increasing the cage size does not change the mischeck. Maybe the cage selection is overlapping those areas?
A side note, why does 3ds Max not show normal maps in viewport? I have on realistic mode, and 'show materials in viewport'. It shows a flawed normal map. When rendered its fine, I thought I had more problems at first when only looking at the viewport:
Again, this is all 3ds max above. I tried xNormal, mostly the same results but a bit better. The roof didn't have any artifacts as I have shown above.
Any guidance as to how to solve the artifacts?
I would also add more geometry to your low poly to get smoother curves. You have some edges that are still a little too faceted. That should help with your bakes as well since the low poly will match the high poly a little bit better.
Take a read through this thread if you haven't already.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154
and
http://artforgames.com/infotuts/guide-bevels/
Hope this helps!
@EarthQuake I started using xNormal since I was getting better results from default settings. I didn't know those settings were there in marmoset. That helps.
Things are going well. I will try to finish fixing the normal map tomorrow and post it. Should be feasible and exciting. Might be a noob statement but I didn't know I needed smoothing groups on the high poly. That fixed some problems for the normal map...
However, below I have the low poly mesh in marmoset without a normal map and using smoothing groups...um...I don't see why I need a normal map. This can save me some real headaches. I think at my skill level working on simpler objects for normal maps can help me more so. I will need normal maps for the tire treads, no doubt. Does this make sense?
Can you specify which hard edges those are? I get confused sometimes when and where to chamfer.
the higher polycount was both easier and better looking