Real World Racer : Citroën C5 Coupé DTM

[metabadger]

OK Tom, I'm not going to tell you how perfect everything is so far. Perfection means you'll never get better. So all I can do is get down and dirty in an extremely anal way. So I dug down deep, really, really deep. Turned on my evil nasty side and thought I would give you the kind of crits I like to get. Here goes.

1/The roll thickness (lip) on the rear fender may appear a teeeny eeeny bit better if it were to match the front fender.

2/Your roll cage is popping through the roof.

3/The mid-hip contour line "appears" to get a tad funky where the door meets the front fender.

4/Your curbing ( this one comes from really really really really deep ) is a little flat.

There I'm all done. Now I feel all nasty inside. How do critics live with themselves.


An awesome job so far Tom.

Metabadger

[tom120934]

Thanks for replies !

OldDog, glad you like.

smoker, thanks. I guess it's not a matter of software, but I can't really compare as I almost never used anything else (except 3ds max 2.5 for a few months about 10 years ago The only thing I can say is : I'll never compare my work to professional, because I never counted time I've spent on my projects, so maybe I (or Blender) need 10x more time than the average guy.

spindl, thanks ! I'm quite fan of the Libre Software thing, so using Blender is just a fully natural choice for me. That and the fact I discovered it a loooong time ago (10 years) And as CG is just a hobby, I don't want to spend hundreds of $/€ into a CG software. And as I don't want to do warez, Blender is almost the only option left

metabadger, thanks for critics. I really value them so don't be ashamed of being dirty I will study your points carefully, please stay tuned.

Little update, I'm quite happy to present the following render : it's no big deal but it shows I solved the issue I was facing and which was preventing me to render properly my model and my scene. Needed hours of chat with Yafaray team, thanks to _bert and DarkTide !

The scene below is the first step of a more large scene I'll start. Thanks advan for the inspiration !

[darth carth]

looks great, but something that immediatly caught my attention were the white lines on the ground, in the corners they make a sharp turn, instead of a smooth cornered one... that or you're trying to give the impression that the guy who painted them was a drunk

oh and as for the intakes, they are ussualy a fair bit smaller then that... I'd rather go for a smaller venturi-like intake in the same place...

Also, if you'd move the engine a bit more forward then you'd create more room in the back for all you're suspension/gearbox/diff stuff, you'd also get a better centre of gravity since at the moment you're engine is almost right ontop of the rearwheels making this almost a RR drivetrain instead of a MR. By doing this you could also move the exhausts to the side which to me is a very distingt feature on DTM cars (just think of all the spitting flames you'll be seeing )

that last point is purely a suggestion, ofcourse you're completly free about this... it's just an advice

other then that... amazing model and scene...

[tom120934]

Thank for comment, darth_carth. Lot of ideas you've got there.

I took a look at moving the engine forward, but I can't unless I do a major redraw of my frame. And I don't have enough time, obviously, within the contest timeframe. So I'll stick with gearbox ahead of engine. I don't even know if I will have enough time for more underwear details...

About the sharp corner in the track, it was just a temporary scene : the track surface wasn't subdivided, so deformation of the texture wasn't smooth. Will fix it easily, thanks for noticing !

I know about air intake, but I really like the idea of big openings. I will also add fuel cap there, so I need room.

Here's an update on wheel, some textures.

[tom120934]

Yet another update, suspensions and shaders. Here's my first carbon fiber shader ever

[chris912]

Tom the carbon fiber looks great oh and the brake caliper is fantastic, one of a kind
keep up the good work man

[advan]

Wow, they need to make a real life version of this

[tom120934]

Thanks guys. I'm glad you like the really hightech calliper, chris912

Here's another render of the car, no update since previous post. I just improved some quality settings for lighting, so render time exploded : more than 3 hours \o/

[rcat]

Looking fantastic Tom.
One thing you might want to consider is the placement of the car on the track. I would guess it would be straightening that S bend and be hugging close to the inner track in the picture. ( The left hand side if you were sitting in the drivers seat)

[chris20]

Tom. Looks great as usual. But I think I like your black wheels better. Very tuff.

More than 3 hours a render hurts.

[tom120934]

Thanks for replies.

rcat, the track was just WIP, so the placement of the car. Thanks for pointing it anyways.

chris20, glad you like. I rendered black wheels with higher quality settings, please see below. About render time, it doesn't matter that much : it took 3 hours on a E6600 at stock frequency (2.4GHz) and I plan to use a dual Xeon at 2.66GHz, that is, 8 cores. I guess it will be enough

I'm a bit sad to confess I have no other choice but to almost drop the project. I'm far too late for the deadline, and still much to do : scene, headlights, rearlights, interior, front suspensions, engine, gearbox... If I can free some hours until friday, I will try to model some headlights and rearlights to achieve some renders, with the previous scene.

I would need another couple of weeks to finish it, and we won't postpone the contest deadline for my own personal concerns of course

Good luck to every other contenders !

[Astr0s]

a bit sad to hear that tom because i really looked forward to seeing your final renders by the end of this contest, but better later than never (assuming youre going to finish this ). Had some difficulties myself but i think i can make it.

Render looks nice as always, really liking the CF there

[metabadger]

Tom, I read your last post and could feel your dissapointment. Still got some time. Pick a shot angle. Finish only the visible geometry. A good studio shot will still get this awesome model over the finish line.

"git er dun"

Metabadger

[Arthur Dent]

Very impressive work - car and track.

[chris20]

Thats no good Tom. I agree with metabadger, you could just do what needs to be done. Maybe darken off the windows. Seems a shame not to enter this.

[midoo55]

man you still canm make it , you need just to tent the windows and cover back like aith tenet too if you not going to do light's for now and there you go you finished the visable area of the car , and render it in studio you have from previuose work you have and there you are have a main look of the car at the moment

good luck my friend

[tom120934]

Thanks for all your support ! It really motivated me to indeed post some renders, even if the model is far from being completed. I already posted them : http://www.smcars.net/forums/contest...tml#post232887.

I haven't decided yet if I should drop the project or not. What I'm sure is, doing full mechanical details really turned me on So I think my next project will be some a TomSullivan-like, or something like this GT40 (Ford GT40 1965 LeMans - CGCars)

I still have my LP640 Roadster and my DB9 to deal with, but I'm not sure if I will be able to find all the pics and the schemas such a project will require.

So I may go for a Lotus Super Seven, using all the fantastic (re)build projects you can find on the net. E.g : 2 french projects I've found this week : 707 : SEVEN 604 V6 and Reconstruction d'une 7 HPC

Another lead is, design my own car from scratch, with as many details as I can, like the job I've done on this C5. Maybe I'll stick to this one. But creating without ref is harder, because you've to imagine all the small details that make the whole model looking good.

What do you think ?