Smoothing a car without any modifier?

[DaBeast]

Hi all, i'm just new in here.


I registered in here because something bothers me some time. I'm trying to find a way to smooth my car's model, without using any smooth modifier like meshsmooth or turbosmooth (wich adds extra polygons). Well, i'm making cars some time now (all for modding purpose (GTA San Andreas)) and i know how i need to do all the things like modeling it and texturing it. I even got Johannes (FlashG that is) a video explaining how to do SA style reflections (hi maty, dont know if you remember me, i'm 'Jos116' on GTAForums.com).

Anyways, when i'm making a mesh, for example the boot is always bumpy. It just doesnt look good without a meshsmooth. Now i'm doing a model, needed to meshsmooth it, and it already had 11k (no interiour yet). My aim is fully SA style cars with a bit more polygons (not like 30k or so, aiming for 7K -10K for the full car.

Pics of the car i'm doing:




I know it looks like its smiling, so i fixed it. No fancy renders tho:

Headlights and boot fixed.



I'd be verry thankfull if someone would explain it to me a bit.

Thanks in advance,
DaBeast

[Johnas]

Yea I still remember that, thanks for it

Your car is looking quite cartoonish atm. We could also help much better if you would show wireframe screenies.

[DaBeast]

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/2200/51485092um4.jpg
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5210/14220140lc1.jpg
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/6513/90364043xl9.jpg

I never get my cars look smooth enough, for example, check out this car (was in PPT on gtaforums.com, not mine) He made this without any smoothing modifiers.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8348/793982gc5.jpg
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/5315/793987ba2.jpg

Imo, its silksmooth (for a lowpoly model).

Edit: pics too big

[multimediaman]

are you saying you have issues with your cars showing many creases where there should be a smooth surface? or are you saying that you can never get rid of jagged edges which make the car look like it's got too low of a face count?

[DaBeast]

Creases?


Anyways, i mean that its just too bumpy without a smooth.


I mean, when i make my mesh with blueprints (i realy cant make cars without) i always make the verry basic half-shape (symetry-ed later) and then cut it in places where detail is needed. However, it gets all messy.

Vertecies are sometimes much or slichtly missplaced, and not allignd to the other. Thats sometimes hard to see and a big job to put them all correctly to make the mesh look smooth. With a meshsmooth, it doesnt matter if some verticies are slichtly missplaced (the big missplaced ones can easyly be traced and fixed)

In short, i cant get the bumps out (it has nothing to do with smoothing groups).

Thanks in advance

[ColdFlame]

well some of your rows and columns of polygons are too close to eachother and they are not following the surface flow most of the time which could be the reason of your problem i think.to fix that use less polies or just spread them with equal or almost equal distances so you can have a well balanced mesh.a row or column of polygons dont have to follow the whole body in the same shape( for example on the front windshield you can just weld those close rows of edges and make em just one line ).i could write more stuff but i gotta go and sleep now.have fun modelling!

[Johnas]

You use too much polygons, thats why you get bumps in the mesh. How I usually model my cars is, that I make very basic mesh first and when I got the basic shape modelled, I start to add more polies and details. I added couple pics of my Scamp what I mean