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[WIP] Bugatti Atlantic for Hum3d challenge 2020

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HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
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Hello everyone!

This year, I'm going to participate to the Humster3d challenge.
I already did it several years ago with this Peugeot 308.https://hum3d.com/challenges/quick-stop-in-front-of-the-night-shop/
And this time, same idea, I want to render all my scene into Marmoset Toolbag!



Start :

It was difficult to choose wich model to recreate. I hesitated a lot between a  2050 Ford Mustang concept car for or a Bugatti Atlantic...



In fact the Bugatti Atlantic has already started as a modeling exercice, with a possibility to be used on the Hum3d later... I wanted to try the concept car too, so I did a first modeling base on the model sheet I drawn before.
But time spends... And even if I started my 2050 concept car, it's far to be nice, and all parts needs to be redisigned with more refinment. Furthermore I still need to model a full 3d environment before the end of the contest...



Therefore I chose to push further the Bugatti because it's close to be enough good, and it's the only one which could be ready on time ! :) 
I will maybe finish the concept car after the challenge.. 


The car:

As previously mentionned, it was mainly a quick modeling exercice.
I wanted to try an as quick as possible pipeline to get good reflection in a "low poly" car (under 100 000 triangles usable in real time). The idea was not to be super accurate, but only get nice reflections of the whole environment like in curved mirror :) I'm not affraid to use a lot of triangles, my two purposes are speed and clean reflection, no matter how it's done.
The Bugatti design looked like perfect to try that. See how the environment is clearly visible in these two references images below :




The process :

I used both 3ds Max an Maya.
I'm usually a Maya user, but I can't stand the spline modeling in this software bacause I think it's not enough flexible.
So i did the part with splines into 3dsMax, and I edited my polygons into Maya.

In 3ds Max :
1. Create a "reflection mesh" with a spline cage, and ignore all the details like junction of panels, glass, and so on.
2. Use an HDRI image as a reflection and check permanently how are the reflection ( I try to get curvy reflection, i try to avoid polygonals broken reflections). The relax modifier help to do that, but it breaks the shape too ! > It's important to realign the silhouette if the relax modifier is used or edited
3 The poly count is not too high, and I can go back in my surface modifier to change the resolution at any moment 
4. I use splines draw in the 2d view to generate polystrips and I use the conform to project them on an instance of my reflection mesh (This is not accurate too, see by example the top of the door projected on the roof, this section is really wider than the same strip underneah)
> I have now all i need to start to connect all polygons !
> All is based on splines, So,I still can change my resolution of polygons at this stage in regard of my polycount or if I need to creata an LOD later
So, I edit a last the splines resolutions of my different strips to get enough definition in the curved parts


Then render test into Marmoset Toolbag :


In Maya:

In 3ds Max all was editable and flexible, but now I reimported my meshes, I can't edit these features. 
Therefore it is important to go as far as possible with 3ds Max before to switch to Maya where i do destructive and non-editable operations.

1. I delete overlaped polygones of the body to link my strips to the body. I do an append between two polygons, then a Fill hole, and then a triangulate.
2. Obviously it's disgusting :D But no matter we will correct that later. At this stage I connect all my strips to the body, and i do all my extrusions (to create the body sheet thickness, the glasses boundaries, and so on).It's quite easy to add edge loops because my strips only uses quads. The shading is not important here, only the poly flow in the strips.
3. I imported my first reflection cage too (Locked normals), and I apply a reflective custom cgfx shader. It's not pbr, it's only a mapping of a cubemap for visualisation.
4. I use the transfert attribute to copy the normal vectors from the "reflection mesh" to the "connected mesh". Bingo, my reflections are now the same, but i lost all my bevel shading, so I need to simply unlock the notmals of these edge loops.
5. I get perfectly continuous reflection between all my panels, even between glasses and the painted part ! It was quick and it works on a mid polycount objective 
6 > I'm really happy even it's not super accurate, I don't work with a manufacturer licence this time. :)



Marmoset Toolbag: 

And this is the result I got :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UrQOKGpYSE
Now I need to add some details like, the hinges, the handles, the wipers, the tail lights, the fill cap and so on.


Detailing:

And this is the result into Marmoset Toolbag with the extra elements :



The idea to develop :

This Bugatti have a specific story. In fact only 4 of this model where produced! But, one of them has completely disapear : "La noire". It's called la noire, because on the four car's serie it was the only painted in black. This story is  quite mysterious and maybe enough interesting to create a deep picture. Therefore I started with this idea.
After reading the story, i noticed that my model is not exact, because it's a 3d reproduction of a reproduction. :D So, I need to tweak some details later to match how La noire is went out the factory.
Now, the real challenge will be the environment !




Thank you for reading !
I hop you will have questions and advices about the process or the environment creation ! It's always a pleasure ti discuss and share ideas :)

All the best in your projects


Replies

  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Nice! and good luck with the challenge.

    I'm familiar with a not too dissimilar conventional subd cage approach that also focuses upon class A optimized surfacing alongside mitigating reflective artifacts which personally as someone interested in automotive workflows was quite an eye opener, it must be said.

    "Now, the real challenge will be the environment !"
       
    Indeed, can totally relate there.
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Exactly, you are right !
    I saw this tutorial several month ago, but I didn't try it at thas time. But it was a revelation and I liked the idea to work with the reflection first.
    The reason is because I modeled a lot of car with polygons, and I spent always my last week to correct all reflection, vertices by vertices, tweaking normal by normal > it's was long and boring, a real nightmare !
    So here, I didn't want to push as far as Ali Ismail did on his example.
    I needed a rough technique that i could apply in a production context for a video game model. :)
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi there,
    I did some progress about the environment this last week.
    I decided to reproduce the Bugatti castle, next to the factory.
    Firstly, I choosed this environment because Bugatti cars are commonly taken in picture in front of the "chateau Saint-jean".
    Secondly, it exist good quality pictures of this castle, and it helps a lot.

    Process :
    1. I crossed a sky view and a good reference picture of the front view

    2 I Start to model directly on this retaked picture (I removed the little trees, and some anoying shadows on the side I mapped my polygons). The idea is to reproduce the deph of the different elements.


    On the picture underneath, I finished to "extrude" the sides and on the middle, but the entrance door and the window above are still flat:


    And here is the entrance door, the balcony and the center window with a bit of volume:



    At the moment, I'm not really sure about my view angle and the ambient lighting, but I have to progress to be ready on time. :D
    I'm quite sure it's possible to do nice things with this beautiful castle :p


    Thank you for reading, don't hesitate to ask question or to give advices.
    See you to the next update !

  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi there,

    This last week I gardened a bit :D
    After to add t he balcony and some guardrail at the windows, the main front view of the castle without the roof is enough for my renders, so I started to improve the garden look.
    I added some grass, some dead leaves, some branch lying on the ground, a bit of weed and dandelions. :)
    I improved too the driveway of the house, because it was really flat. I redo my mesh with dense quads, then scult it a bit and finally add some tesselation and displacement to pop out the peebles. I linked  the car by adding some white dust on the tires.
    I started to improve the car too by modeling really low poly parts of the front suspension, and I reproduced the typical wheel camber in front (Back wheels are still WIP)

    Now the baddest thing of the scene is definitively the bush in front of the castle. I have to improve that :D

    I tried an old picture effect too, and I'm quite happy with that kind of render, so I will probably continue in this way... 

    Thank you for reading, don't hesitate to ask question or to give advices.
    See you to the next update !



  • teodar23
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    teodar23 sublime tool
    Very nice!
    Those bushes need some love and you're done.
  • Quasar
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    Quasar polycounter lvl 19
    The two things that I immediately noticed: 
    The reflections on the car just doesn't seem right, like it's a completely different environment or they are too dark. I would expect to see gravel and grass reflected off the bottom of the car. 

    Might be a perspective issue, but the other thing I noticed is that the blades of grass are too large. I would scale them down about 30%
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Quasar  Thank you very much for these comments :)
    - firstly about the reflection:  I don't really paid attention at the reflection for now. Mainly because I use a cube map wich is totally different of the environment. It's quite nice to try different moods / lightings. The reason is that Marmosset 3 can't really do real reflection, only aproximation mixed with the choosen sky dome. I wanted to push the environment as far as possible before to try to match reflection, because it means that I probably need to create a 360 cubmap of my scene and then reuse it as the sky dome > it's a bit tricky, so i prefer to do that at the end.

    -  And about the grass... I saw so much other things to improve that I don't noticed it ! haha > I will change that ! thank you :)
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hello everyone ! I improved a lot of things last week, so it's time for an update !

    Firstly, I redo the bushes. I'm not super happy with that, but it's not too bad anymore. I will maybe improve that later.



    The other big update is the car in itself. Because it was firstly a speed modeling exercice and a pipeline try, there were a lot of accuracy lack. So I redo :
    - the front wings
    - the shape of the radiator
    - I continued to improve the front of the frame and the suspensions
    - I capped the back wheels
    - I improved the grids texture
    - I redo the tires pattern with the real one of this period
    - Because I capped the back wings and redo the front wings, I had to rebake the reflection, so I improved it a bit at the same time :)


    Now it remains only some minor modification on the car and on the environment. So I'm quite confident for the next :)


    Thank you for reading, and see you for the next update :)
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Not sure if it's the DOF shot or my dodgy eyesight but your pebble driveway looks to be more like a collection of small stones/rocks, also similarly the grass is not too scale, either?!

    Which really negates from my perspective, a ton of work already spent on the car, making it seem more like a 'toy' sat in this scene.  
  • teodar23
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    teodar23 sublime tool
    Looks solid. My only complaint is that paint specular. The glossy-ness of the specular doesnt match the reflection. It should be a lot more "tight" meaning a smaller specular dot.

  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    sacboi said:
    Not sure if it's the DOF shot or my dodgy eyesight but your pebble driveway looks to be more like a collection of small stones/rocks, also similarly the grass is not too scale, either?!

    Which really negates from my perspective, a ton of work already spent on the car, making it seem more like a 'toy' sat in this scene.  
    It's really interesting. I saw too much time my scene so I can't have a fresh eye on these things anymore ^^ Thank you
    I think you spotted two things combined : the DOF probably reinforces the toy effect, It's probably too strong for the kind of lens I used, i will look at this :)
    And secondly, yes, my peebles are really spiky due to a too strong displacement amount for now :D 
    And you are right, I'm shame , but I dind't still changed the scale of the grass. I spent all my time in the car haha. I promess, it's on my to do list :D
    For all of these things, a finest tunning is planned after choosing my final point of view
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    teodar23 said:
    Looks solid. My only complaint is that paint specular. The glossy-ness of the specular doesnt match the reflection. It should be a lot more "tight" meaning a smaller specular dot.

    Thank you! I think i found the reference I needed!

     In fact the car is so polished that the specular spot of the sun is not really more bigger than a 1 cm wide circle. 
    So yes, you are right ! It's totally too rough on my paint material.
     :p
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi there !

     It's time for a new update.
     Good news, the car can be called done! I improved a new couple of things like :
    - underneath of the car, by modeling some stuff like the exhaust
    - add some bolts here and there
    - add the hood fixing with the springs 
    - I placed the headlights down to match my specific reference of "la voiture noire" wich is a unique model
    - In the same idea, I added the little rounded opening in the lateral window
    - and finally, I completede the chromuim plate on the back wing






    I adapted the specular spot size of the car paint material. Thanks teodar23 ! ^^ 
    I finally improved the grass and the pebbles too of the driveway as sugested by sacboi ! Thanks to his notification it's really beter now ! :p

    So, I think I have now all elements to create my render, it's now time to fine tunning and tweak what I already have. Find the suitable ambiance, the consistent lighting, and the good shot. ^^

    But a remaining problem leave. It' is that the reflexions are not consistent...
    The best way is probably to solve that with the rtx capabilities of UE4 or the brand new TB4. ^^
    I will maybe pursure with these experimentations... :p

    See you soon for the next update
    Don't hesitate to critic, comment and discuss !

    All the best in your projects
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi there,

    It's time for a new update.
    Last week I worked on the reflections.
    As previously mentionned, the reflection in the car didn't matched the environment, and the result was an unconsistent image...
    Therefore i tried the raytracing of the Toolbag 4 demo. It helps a lot to fix the car in its environment, it's a good news.
    The bad news are:
    - my detail shader didn't worked anymore, i had to redo some textures
    - the tesselation have to be activated in each meshes instead of the material
    - my old computer is sooooooooo slow with rtx on... so, unfortunately it's not so spontaneous than into toolbag 3 any more. (I probably need a new computer with an rtx card if I want to continue in this way further :D)
    You can see a comparison underneath : (tb3 on the left, and tb4 on the right)



    And, finally I chose the camera angle I want to push for the final render :


    The next update will probably be my final image !

    Thank you for reading !
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi there,

    I'm almost done with the contest !
    I tried different moods into TB4, and I'm quite happy with these two one, so I wanted to share it. Now, I just need to make an older picture and will be finish !




    Finally, I share too my environment, because it's still funny to see that all is fake :D


    All the best in your projects!
    See you !
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi everyone !

    As a conclusion of this topic, I'm quite proud to share with you the final render of the Bugatti ! :p
    And futhermore,  it's done on time :)

    You can read a bit more about the story of the car directly on the contest page here https://hum3d.com/challenges/the-last-picture-of-la-voiture-noire/

    (I'm currently preparing an arstation page with different views, i will probably share them here when they will be finished)

    I hope you like it !

    See you  soon!
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi there,

    Little update today, I did an arstation page with more screenshots and two web viewer to see the model! ;)
    https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L3Ov3K

    I hope you like it !

    All the best in your projects !
  • HiernauxNicolas
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    HiernauxNicolas polycounter lvl 10
    Hi there, 
    A little update to announce that i got two special prices! :p
    I'm quite proud and It's a really nice conclusion for this project ! :)
    See you soon, and I wish you lot of success for your projects !

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