Car

Mr. Bean

Hi,

I'm working on a car. I'm modeling it for a video game, so I can't use Sub-D modifiers, and I need to keep the poly count down. I'm basing it on a Volvo 440, but it is meant to be generic, so it can deviate from the references a some. By now I've gotten far into it, but I took renders as I went. Cod4 is my main reference. I will be giving it an interior if I can.

Here are the pics:


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I'd like to hear your comments and critique.

Thanks

OrganizedChaos

What kind of poly limit are you shooting for with this? I saw you mentioned you're trying to keep it down, but I can't tell by how much. By just taking a brief look I saw a ton of polys that could be cut. You might also want to use the tag for your images

Mr. Bean

Well, I was thinking maybe 2-3k polys. As I said, Call of Duty 4 is my main ref, so I'm aiming for the same amount of polys and detail as the cars in Cod4. If you think I should get rid of some polys, then I'd be interested in which ones you were thinking.

I added some side view mirrors and an exhaust pipe. I think, other than possibly removing some polys if you think I should, that it's basically ready for an interior.

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Mr. Bean

Update: Cut and removed a lot of edges.

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Love to hear your comments and critique.

Bruno Afonseca

I don't think it'd hurt shooting for 5-7k tris. You can always make lods later.
Windows look too deep and you still have a lot of polies on the back, which looks almost flat from this angle. Still, you're making quite a bit of progress here, keep it up.

Valandar

Are you going to make damage versions, too, or rely on the engine?

3Drobbo

hey buddy, I think fonfa is right and you should just aim for under 8,000 ish if you want COD4 detail.

The car is getting there, i believe you need to look at some more images of you chosen car, a volvo i believe and really start to add in detail where needed to get the correct shape. Eg, windows not being perfectly square, but having slighly rounded corners. This will make it really look believeable and nicer. Reference is gonna be your best friend here, so check out my site to get some ideas on how to approach looking at and for reference.
http://robertdukes.com/tutorials_reference_01.htm

Sorry im plugging my own site , but i believe you just need to add in more detail where needed to get the shape up to scratch.

Other wise good work keep it up and dont loose focus!

Mr. Bean

fonfa: Thanks for the tips, I think that 7k is probably the highest poly count I'd go for. It only has 1,031 polys currently, so it would be difficult to get it higher than 7k (the interior will probably really help increase the poly count and detail).

Valandar: Although I'm creating it to be a game model, and Cod4 is my main reference, I'm not going to actually put it into the engine.

3Drobbo: Hey, thanks for the great tips. I looked at the link you gave, very helpful. I also looked at your portfolio; you have a lot of really great models in there, especially the 1897 Winchester Shotgun. I have quite a few references, so I'll check those a little closer.

Thanks a lot for the tips everybody.

dolemite

EDIT ***


Sorry about that useless comment, I was drunk posting.



I think it's a cool model. I would like to see more details around the tires maybe.

Mr. Bean

Maybe I'll detail the tires a little more, but in most games I have seen, the detail in the tires is completely in the diffuse map.

I've tried starting the interior. But it's going awfully, with a lot of problems. I'm really not worried at all about making the interior simple objects, like the steering wheel and seats, but I need to have an interior to work with. It was a little awkward, trying to move around inside the cramped interior, but the real problem is I have no idea what to do, plus I wasn't sure how to make the bottom not get in the way of the wheel wells.

I couldn't resist trying a shell modifier, but that caused horrible smoothing issues on the exterior, although the interior did come out nicely. So I scratched that idea. Then I tried to do the only other method I've heard of; I tried extruding edges inward. But that's not really working. I checked for tutorials but didn't find any that included interior modeling. It's not like it's going to be super detailed, and I doubt it would be seen much anyway if it was in a game, but I need to have some sort of interior space to work in.

Any tips would be great.

Mr. Bean

After much trial and error, here's what I've got. Still changes to make, but I should start texturing soon.

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dolemite

The modeling looks really solid. However the polyflow seems of uneven. You have all those details on the stearing wheel, the handle, etc. and then the tires are just cylinders.


http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/902593/call-of-duty-4-modern-warfare/images/call-of-duty-4-modern-warfare-20070613080809402.html


Im trying to find a better screeny, but it looks like the model does extrude in for the hubcap on that car in MW. Maybe I'm wrong tho.

There are some extra faces on that mirror on the side that arent helping the sillouette. Maybe make the stearing wheel less detailed as well.


good work mayn! keep it up!

Mr. Bean

I took a close look in MW, and I've seen that some cars don't extrude in, while some do. So that's why you saw it and I didn't; we were both right.

I also fixed the topology of the side view mirrors.

I'm unwrapping the car (Very, very difficult work), and it's slowly progressing, but I've got a couple questions.

First of all, is it okay to have two separate texture maps: one for the exterior, one for the interior of the car? I'm worried I'll have trouble maintaining good resolution for the textures if there's too much information in the UV layout.

And speaking of resolution, what would be a good resolution for the final diffuse? 1024? Or something much larger like 2048?

Thanks,
- Mr. B