DeLorean time machine WIP

Nerdicon3000

Hey all, just hoping to get some critiques and possibly some advice on my DeLorean as this is the first car for me. I have just finished blocking most of the major things in and need some fresh eyes to tell me if anything is to far out of proportion. I know I have a lot of modelling left to do but I want to know if I have the sizes right as I am doing this all my eye, all the blueprints of this car are way off. 

Plus for all the people with experience modelling cars, How to I go about retop and UV's? would I put the interior, engine parts and exterior on different maps? What is a good polycount for for a game ready vehicle?

And also does anyone know of an easy way to model wireing? I kind of have a rough idea but it is kind of time consuming.

Ashervisalis

Hey, this is looking sick!! My biggest critique so far is the depth of the ridges vary as you go along. They should be more constant.

I've only done cars for animation, but I've read a few times on here that people just make high poly models of the cars and stick them in the game that way. If it's a car focused game, you could probably just make the car more or less the same amount of polys as a main character (ie. over 100k really). If its for your portfolio, don't worry too much about polycount, just make the car look rad af. If you want to use a lower poly version of the car, I would suggest keeping a copy of the car before you add bevels/holding edges, and before subdividing (the silhouette shouldn't change much on smoothing; all the round meshes should already be made with a decent amount of geo). I've not UV'd or textured a car for a game before, so I can't really help with your UV question. I'd assume you could keep all the painted metal on one map, all the various exterior parts on another, interior on another. You could mirror UVs for stuff like the tires to save on UV density.

Nerdicon3000

Thanks for the advice man. I have a lot of modelling to go and to be honest I'm not really looking forward to the retop on this thing But I will keep a copy like you said, should speed things up a bit.

Skinner3D

Modeling wiring as in displaying the wireframes? That is completely dependent on your modeling software. Some have it native and some need a plugin. 
For example in Blender, it is an object modifier. In lightwave I used a plugin that changed every polygon to another surface, then turned on render lines between surface borders.

Nerdicon3000

Ohh no sorry not wireframes, like cables and stuff. The Delorean has heaps of connectors and wires and stuff and I can model them but it takes a long time. Just hoping someone new a quick way in Maya. I know it 3ds max you can do it pretty quick but I can't really find an easy way in Maya.

teodar23

I think that the normal flow of hi to low poly doesnt apply for car modeling. Unless you want to do something really low poly, like a car for a RTS or something where the camera is really far away. So dont bother with retopo just make it mid to high poly. Of course you can still use that workflow for stuff that is small and has a lot of detail, like tires.
About the wires, doesnt maya have splines? If no just create a strip of polys on the car, extrude it with the same height as the width of the strip and subdivide it once. That would give you a 8 sided cable.

Nerdicon3000

I don't have an issue with modelling wires, it's just how many there are and how chaotic they are that will be difficult to model. I just want to know if there's a faster way to model them.

There's even more in the interior and underneath. It's good to know I wont have to go crazy with the retop though.

GrevSev

Extruding cylinders alone a curve is the quickest way to tackle the wires. 

lluc21

If you're aiming at a AAA racing game poly budget (Forza, Dirt, Gran Turismo...) it is easily over 200k counting interior. The workflow usually doesn't involve retopo, unless you're given a CAD model to work from. 

This probably varies from person to person, but my usual workflow is to start from a blockout and add details and roundness in stages to the whole vehicle. I don't usually work with subdivision as it usually adds a lot of polygons where you don't really need them.

Ashervisalis

I'll second extruding along a curve to make wires. I will also add that, if you want a curve to follow the existing geo, sometimes selecting the base mesh's edge, and going convert > mesh edge to curve, is a great way of getting a curve which is almost identical to the mesh you want it on. If you dont want your wires to follow the same edge flow as your base mesh, you could "Make Live" the base mesh, and use Quad Draw to draw a row of polygons where you want the wires to be, and then convert an edge of that row of polygons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSue2dFrp7Q

This is a script I use for cables and wires, it makes it a little easier, but it's not really required, it'll just shave a little time off. I'd recommend leaving the wires to very last, because editing their position could be annoying if you end up making major changes to your car mesh.

sacboi

Also when time permits, look up LODs (level of detail) and how they're implemented in car games.

Nerdicon3000

Wow thanks everyone! I was using the extrude along curve but was hoping there was a trick way to make it super easy but I guess you can't make it much easier. I found a cool free plugin called maya bonus tools which makes it a little quicker, just auto turns a curve into a tube and you pick how many sides and segments. I also like the edge to curve, that will save me heaps of time! I will also take a look at that script too thanks.

Nerdicon3000

Ok so I didn't get much done over Christmas but I did work on the wheels and the wire mesh on the front bumper.

Nerdicon3000

Front almost done, time to move to the back

Nerdicon3000

Experimenting with wires a bit. Just gonna put some cable ties around them and see what it looks like after. Any critiques would be welcomed. Finally found some good reference picks of the original car so should be going heaps quicker from here on.

Ashervisalis

Nice! I should add to my previous post: If you've made a wire, and you want to resize it, instead of needing to recreate a larger cylinder in order to extrude it along a curve, you can just highlight all the vertices of the wire, and use Transform Component. This will allow you to push all the verts on their Y axis, therefor making the wire thicker.

Nerdicon3000

Ohh WOW Ashervisalis Thanks so much man you have just saved me so much time! Not just for wires but for other stuff as well. 

Nerdicon3000

Well I'm about half way there, got to fix up some topology and work on the engine bay. Should be fun!

Ashervisalis

Looking great!! Can you show some wireframe?

Nerdicon3000

Not the best Pics but not great at wireframes yet. Still a fair bit in low poly as I havent started them yet. Probably too much on the wheels but I really wanted to have a go at Poly modelling everything. 

Ashervisalis

Sick!!

Nerdicon3000

Got a bit more done. Didn't realize how much stuff there was to model on this thing. Heaps to go!