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WIP - BMX

Hey there everyone.

Thought I'd post some progress shots of one of my current projects.

I'm trying to improve my hard-surface skills, and I'm still intent on creating a game spec vehicle of some sort. After my pretty lame attempt at a motorcycle, I'm starting with something a little more straightforward.

So I thought I'd attempt a BMX. I'm not really into BMX'ing as such so if there's any technical aspects I've missed/got wrong then feel free to point them out!

Here's the high poly:

bmxrender1.jpg

bmxrender2.jpg

Replies

  • D4V1DC
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    D4V1DC polycounter lvl 18
    Nice bike texture that bad boy!
  • Mike Yevin
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    Mike Yevin polycounter lvl 11
    Not much of a BMX guy myself, but it looks like the sprocket for the pedals is too small. I understand there could probably be different sizes depending on what your looking to do, but I think for a BMX bike like that you'd want it to be just a tad bigger.

    Other than that it looks spot on man, great job :thumbup:
  • SHEPEIRO
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    SHEPEIRO polycounter lvl 17
    nice bike....shit tyre treads though...go on re-do them they stick out to me
  • MaD
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    MaD polycounter lvl 7
    Damm i miss my old bmx, anyway it looks nice. Rear brakes are a bit weird positioned. Most of the time they are at the other side. The plastics at the place you put the air in (dunno what's it called), could use some refinement. You could also add some foam protection bars :)
  • Tom Ellis
    Thanks for the replies!

    Mike- My thinking for the sprocket was that it's supposed to be a downhill/dirt style bike, from what I gathered from my research, I think the BMX's that have just one rear brake are designed for dirt jumping rather than street and not a lot of pedalling happens, hence the small sprocket and resulting higher gearing.

    Shepeiro - Lol, yeah the tyre tread does stand out as looking a bit crappy. I will try and find a better tread pattern. The bend modifier makes quick work of tyres so it shouldn't take long to change. I could just add it in the normals I guess but I wanted the high poly to look nice with the tread modelled.

    MaD - I assume you mean the dustcaps on the valves? They're gonna be dice when they're textured so hopefully look a little less dull than they do currently. With regards to the brakes, I think they're ok, the ref I looked at seems to show the brakes on the underside of the rear frame part. I know what you mean though, before I looked at ref I wouldve assumed they go above too. I'd never seen this type of brake that has two cables, but it appears they're pretty common on newer BMX's.

    I'll post some updates when I make the changes next week.

    Thanks again!
  • gsokol
    I used to be a bit of a bmx nut so I can help:


    Dirt jumpers dont usually have such small sprockets...a sprocket that small would typically be used for flatland because A) it stays out of the way when you are moving around on the bike and B) it makes it so you have to pedal more to move than with a larger sprocket..so it gives you more control over speed.

    Even when riding dirt trails, you will need to be able to pick up speed, when you are first taking off you will still need to pedal quickly even if its down hill and not all trails go constantly downhill....and having higher gearing means you cant get speed when you need it.

    Also, in dirt jumping, even though they dont use front brakes a lot, they sometimes still use a gyro on the neck so they can do barspins/xups/tailwhips and not worry about the brake line getting tangled with the frame.

    And yea, the brakes are pretty much always mounted on the top of the backend of the frame, not underneath.

    Seat is probably positioned too low. Even though you dont want to rack your nuts when you land..its typically higher (so the rider can pinch the seat between his knees) to do no handers and barspins.


    Thats all I have for you for now.
  • Asteric
    Was going to mention the gyro myself, even with a gyro, i still use front braked too, by running the brake cord down the center piece of the gyro. Also i agree with the seat thing, when i first had one mine was the height, and man did it hurt when i misjudged the how far i had to drop to hit the seat, or generally just trying to sit down.
  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
    Looks nice man. The tires really stand out, I'd redo them and look at some ref a bit more. Maybe just keep them for 2D even.
    Also I'd pick some cranks that look a bit more interesting, the shape stands out as a bit simplistic.
    I don't think you need gyro's though. Many people just run rear brakes without gyro, or even brakeless, you don't really see many gyro's.
  • Ghostscape
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    Ghostscape polycounter lvl 13
    yeah the tires look more like a car tire. The valve stems look huge compared to the ones on my bike (unless that's a bmx thing?)

    The pedals seem awfully square an uninteresting, aren't those typically given some neat teeth and shapes for better grip?

    I don't do the whole BMX thing but don't they typically do front/rear pegs on the axles for standing on for tricks, etc?
  • Tom Ellis
    Thanks for the replies everyone!

    Bad news on this project unfortunately... I just lost it all. I was in the process of moving some work over to another computer and figured a good/quick way to do it was to just stick it in my Dropbox and grab it from the other computer... like an absolute idiot I then cleared my work folder BEFORE it'd finished uploading to my Dropbox.

    So I pretty much lost the majority of my two most recent projects... which sucks... a lot. I've got some of the very early scene files still though and I do plan to redo it all. Having built it once it shouldn't be too much work and I can implement the suggested changes.

    I've taken it all on board, but with regards to the brakes, as I said, my first thought was that they are mounted on the upper side of the rear frame, but most of the ref I was looking at showed them mounted as I modelled them.

    Two pics from the first page of a Google search:

    Dk_Dayton_2007_Bmx_Bike.jpg

    bmx_bike.jpg


    The crank area definitely needs work though, and I agree about the pedals, they are a little uninteresting and there seems to be a whole lot of different designs I could take inspiration from.

    Thanks again everyone, I'll post version 2.0 when I get it modelled!
  • Racer445
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    Racer445 polycounter lvl 12
    check your autoback directories?
  • Tom Ellis
    Awww Racer whyyyy did you have to say that...

    The HDD is wiped now, that was the whole reason for moving (or not in this case >< ) work.

    But yes... there most likely would've been some recent scene files in there.

    It's no big deal, I'll make the next one better. Hopefully making the parts second time round should be quicker since I know how to approach them from last time.
  • Rock Bottom
    Nice model man but
    i am not much of a BMX person but as i know a BMX does not have that brake cable out of the tubes as i know the cables are all inside the tube ore something. Unless this bike is not intended for stunts
  • danshewan
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    danshewan polycounter lvl 8
    I know it matches the reference pretty closely, but the bars that connect the pedals to the frame look very much like primitives right now - maybe add some slight curvature to them to make them look a little more streamlined?

    Other than that, really nice so far. Can't wait to see it textured - maybe a really funky 70's-style paint job?
  • gsokol
    Thats a bummer..sorry to hear you have to start over.
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