[WIP] Akira Motorcycle

siega

Hi! Decided to challenge myself and model the motorcycle from Akira. Its my first time posting. I've been learning and practicing 3D modelling for a year now. I'll be posting progress reports to hopefuly get feedback from you guys and to keep myself in check. Currently trying to unwrap the UVs. I've also added a few small details.

Ashervisalis

Hey, there are things which should probably be done before you unwrap this guy. What are you making this for? This should probably be done in sub-d modeling if you're making vehicles, unless you're going for a low poly look.

siega

@Ashervisalis Im sort of going for a mix of 2D and realism so a high poly look. I'm not sure yet. I'm not familiar with Sub-d modelling but I did a quick google search so I kind of know what it is now. But would it be okay if you can explain it further? Does this mean I can add more polys on this?

Ashervisalis

Yeah, I can go into more detail. Sub-D stands for sub-divide. Let's say, for instance, you have a cylinder with 8 sides. For animation, or for creating a high poly bake for a game, 8 sides really doesn't look that round, or smooth. What you want to do, is use a smoothing option to round out this object so you can't see all the jagged polygons everywhere. You can either use Maya's Mesh > Smooth option, which permanently adds geo, or you can just press 3 on your keyboard, and that goes into a temporary smooth mode, which shows what your object will look like when you use the permanent smooth option (use the 1 key to return to normal). However, you'll notice not only did the cylinder's round parts smooth out, but the edges smoothed too, but you might not have wanted that! To prevent that, you can add edge loops or a bevel to these edges you want to be held at smoothing. This is essentially sub-d modeling. You should practice it on some more simple geo before you apply this technique to a motorcycle :P

You can get a free trial at Pluralsight and cancel before any charges happen, and zoom through this tutorial. It's the best tutorial I've done for sub-d modeling!

https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/tips-modeling-complex-shapes-2082

It may be a bit more advanced than you're comfortable with, but this is an excellent sub-d artist's topology;

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ynde5

siega

@Ashervisalis Oh thanks for explaining! Good thing I haven't unwrapped the model fully yet. I'll get into that and apply it to the motorbike slowly The tutorial looks very useful. It's always so lovely looking at hard surface models.

siega

Looked into Sub-D modelling . Im slowly remaking each parts of the bike. Realized I have a lot of work to do if I want to do this properly.