nissan 350z (yet another one)

[sky^sp]

hi y'all

as i said in my WIP Bugatti T32 thread, i've picked up working on an old project of mine - a nissan 350z. this is actually my 2nd car i'm trying to finish after getting stuck with the bugatti for the time being (lack of memory issue).
i started working on that car sometime last summer. well it actually was only a single day of work, but anyway. back then i wanted to try splinemodelling, but it went bad, because i didn't think before i started. more like "hey let's do some splines, align them in 3d and then use the surface modifier". meeep, BAD IDEA. turns out i've used way to many vertexes with no connecting splines and 4-sided polys weren't anywhere in my head (or on the screen for that matter). so back then i had a splinecage, not too detailed anyway, but i was kinda proud of it - something that resembled a car, if you strained your imagination, lol.
i then started some halfassed tries of polymodelling, but didn't really succeed and moved on to another yet unfinished project started around that time - a jaguar xjr5 - and let this "project" rest. besides this nissan, the bugatti and that jaguar, there was a porsche 917 - that has the tube-frame and nothing else and a lancia beta monte carlo turbo that i started working on during breaks at work about a month ago.

i know this model isn't up to par, but feel free to criticize and comment anyway. to me these models are guinea pigs that i use to learn things about modelling, not necissarily meant to be 95% accurate or something. but they beat working on tables or plain boxes by quite something...

ok, cut the blabla, here's a few pics.
first up, the original splinecage from about 9 months ago, then a wireframe (notice it is really bad ) and another render of two of what it is looks like right now. i know the last render with black on black doesn't really cut it, but as i said i'm using these cars to practice. and lights and materials are what i'm trying on this one. also the black on black stuff looks kinda hot.
the headlight is off - i know. see above, the section about lightning




bla, now tear it apart

[Micke™]

looks really good so far. but imho you could minimize the ammount of polys on it.

keep it up

[wdcstudios]

thats looking pretty good

[sky^sp]

yea, i know about the polys. i slowly learn to accept that meshsmooth is your friend and that 8 polys can define a wheelarch sufficiently and give superb results. somehow i almost automatically add polys where they aren't really necessary - and then running into a prob with a three-sided poly and adding yet another batch of polys.
but that's why i come here and check out the wires of other peoples cars (like that opel signum - awesome!) to see how they solved the same problems i am facing from time to time. same kinda thing happend back in the early 90's when i was a demoscene pixel artist. using the full 256 colors when they became available and sucking at it. later on forcing myself to use 32c max, i ended up mostly using only about 20 colors and the pics were way better.. oh well. back to the car ,)

the windows in the last pic are remains of an earlier try, that i abandoned because for some reason i got artifacts inside the windows. same thing happens with the headlight, but you only see it when the render is zoomed in on it all the way.
anyway, this car is going to be 'riced' later on and i have started working on that in between, but thought it better to finish the actual basic shape before trying to fit different body parts to a body that is still changing.

[Micke™]

me saying that you use way to many polys dont necessary mean its bad. i usually use as many polys i need to create something and when im finished i look over it again and see if i can make it any more efficient. so dont bother at the ammount of polys at first, just make your piece/detail and when your finished look over it and see if you can make it better.

[Dennispls]

its because of the splines his polycount is too high
i tried splines with 3dmax before but didnt like the outcome

in lightwave on the other hand splining works great and if setup correctly they can give you a nice polyflow

[Hawktoey]

You sound allot like me! I have an Audi A2, Toyota Tundra, DAF Bus, and a VW Karman Ghia all sitting on my drive. The A2 has the body almost done but it looks like do-do! Probably scrap it. The tundra prints need re-done as they are off, the DAF Bus has only three views and google has no refernce pics, the Ghia is a slow process as I am messing with new body designs. I haven't tried splines in Max, and don't think I want to yet. Your model here looks like it's coming along nicely though! Keep us posted on this project!

[NYRngrs24]

sky^sp

how did u make that black paint..and teh render..i like it..could you tell me how you did it?

[sky^sp]

ok, replying from the bottom up

NYRngrs24

the black paint? i'm not going to give it away outright because that really does help no one. it is better for you to learn to make it yourself - it really is. i was annoyed, everytime i read something along those lines, though i knew it to be true (and it is). you'll eventually figure the details out by yourself through testing, rendering and again testing and rendering... i spent almost an entire day fiddling with all sorts of colors and paints - and i still don't get every color to look right.
it is no "black art" that has to be kept secret from everybody else, it is rather easy once you figured it out. and once you did and have, (maybe) for the first time, generated a render that looks really cool (if only to you), you'll feel a great sense of pride and accomplishment - something that won't happen if you just downloaded a carpaint and put it on your car, because everyone can d/l and load a material out of a matlib...

so here's some basics - from my current grasp of things (which may or may not be on the spot).
you need to consider a few things (this is 3dsmax talk, because i don't know jack about other renderers):

a)
you want reflections on your car (/object) off the scenery around? what would be the best idea to get that? probably RAYTRAC(E)ing . but raytracing on its own probably doesn't cut it, so maybe we need some way, to reduce / influence the strength of those reflections... say a FALLOFF. using falloff opens further possibilities, methods off the falloff - i use FRESNEL, because to me that's what looks best. please note that this ^ is not necessarily the order of building your material in max. but with that you have the items i used in my reflections slot. play around with it.

b)
you need a basic color - that's the responsibility of the diffuse slot. so what goes here?
some people already mentioned around here that the typical color of your car (in the real world) is made of particles of paint. the mixture of those particles defines the shade of the color. if the carpaint industry would work with what we computer jocks have, they'd be using only 3 colors (r, g, b). but the realworld doesn't work like that. they take maybe a few dark blue particles and add some silvery particles to it to mix a dark blue metallic paint. - wait, that's what we do aswell. MIX!
so then the particles of the paint are not necessiarily the same size (hint hint) and they are not uniformly distributed... how would you do that? think NOISE. so there you have the basics of the diffuse slot.

you'll notice you have quite a bunch of parameters to deal with.. mix amount, the mixing curve, and of course the parameters of the noise, with to colors for each noise element... think of it as the colorrange of particles of a particular color...

c)
so there remains one item off MY black color to be made... the specular slot. this may or may not be necessary. for this black i've used another straightforward falloff there, but with other colors i didn't use anything in the specular slot. here i used it to tweak the highlights somewhat.. but on other carpaints, like greyish/silverish tones i didn't use it at all.


so there you have my basic material ... note that i consider myself a beginner with all of this, so my explanations may not be entirely correct, if at all (if so, someone PLEASE someone correct me where i'm wrong). this is how i figured it out - doesn't mean it's right, just works for me, lol.

ok, so that was the material side of things. renderwise, well there's even less to say. the car, well you see it yourself. above the car (just outside the picture) is a really wide and long box, that has a standard material that has selfillumination enabled and the corresponding color set to 255, 255, 255 (yay, white). that's it. i've not used any hdri-image on this last render. the pic was rendered using brazil, but for all it is worth, the standard scanline renderer of 3dsmax (i'm using max6 btw) can achieve the very same result - it just takes a little longer.
there is NO active skylight in the scene. the only lightsources are that lightbox, 2 white spots of varying intensity for the headlights, 2 red spots of varying intensity for the taillights and one orange spot for the rear indicator.
besides that i only change some imagesampling parameters for brazil to aliase the borders - when rendering with the scanline renderer i just click render and am done with it.

i do use a skylight when working on the objects though, because i don't want to flick off all of the spots when i'm working to get the lighting back to default (if i wouldn't use that skylight, my whole screen would be dark for quick testrenders, actually is because i hide all the other lightsources while working)

i hope all of this doesn't sound like i'm talking down on someone, i just want to give some pointers, so people have to figure it out and thus learn by doing (which is everything i ever did. i cannot learn by reading it in a book or something, i have to try it myself).


next..


Hawktoey

well i know. about a year back i started all these and got frustrated real fast seeing as i couldn't keep up with what people around here posted. so i was always quick to take on a new project and try it. it all started with the porsche 917 - which still is to be my masterpiece (i hope) . so before i pick up on it, i gotta pick up some skills along the way - that's what these cars are for.. guinea pigs as i called them some posts above.
also, something that kinda bothers me (but at the same time doesn't). i've always had this strange feature of stopping to do something (drawing or in this case modelling) for a longer period, like half a year, then taking it up again and already being better than before without further practice. maybe that's what happened here, lol. anyway, my idea is to still finish all of my started cars. the bugatti being first in line, this one second, maybe the jaguar next (having played it in virtual lm's nice mod for f1 challenge 99-02 just yesterday). the lancia is a project i will continue to do only at work, trying lower poly count for once, as that rig is about 1/3 or 1/4 of the speed of my main pc at home.
anyway, what got me back to modelling was basically the 917 jille is doing right now. when i'm sufficiently pleased with my modelling skills, i'll get back to it and finish it (promise! i don't like unfinished projects, but occasionally they happen anyway).

Dennispls

yea, definately. i was inspired by the great honda nsx raybrig tutorial out there and went mad with splines and vertexes. but as i said, i just did so without thinking, and i am still suffering (kinda) the consequences.
some time ago i finally let go of the splinecage and started redoing parts of the body just by the blueprints, that are not 100% perfectly aligned, but pretty close anyway. i don't know how often i did the side area with the door by now, but it surely was in excess of 3 times (not that i am satisfied with this one, but it will have to do for now).


Mickeâ„¢

i think you're right. i'll go and finish the body and then revisit it to see where i can save a few polys. the front hood is already down to about 1/2 or 3/4 of the polys in the shot above.
what i need sooner or later is the ultimate guide to getting rid of threesided polys, because every time i encounter one, my gears come to a grinding halt, like someone put a stick in my spokes . on the front hood i could manage that by detaching the hood into a separate object, thus having only 1 additional poly. but around the wheelarches, especially in the rear area, c-column and all, i spent hours just looking at the surrounding "poly-architecture" and thinking how to get rid of that 3-sider without doing something really stupid like creating another 20 polys that go all the way from that (former threesided) poly to the outer edge of the part...
aaahhhh learning

oh, hm no new pic since i didn't do stuff yesterday (had to play the protoype c mod for f1 99-02). but i've attached a pic of the carpaints i went through that one day (mentioned above) when i fiddled with all those materials. in hindsight one day seems awfully long, but it was well worth it, same with the day i spent on the lights, lol. the order of the paintschemes isn't necessarily the one i did them in. also notice that the car depicted is an earlier version - the one i mentioned as "trying to rice it" (wider wheelarches, wheelvents, general parts of the astra dtm coupe) hehe...
plus a bad version of the rim i wanted to put on that car.. 250k polys smoothed (whoa way to many) .. will redo it and try to keep it below 100k polys (no bolts, as the booling went really really bad). it is also way to smooth in areas - that's another thing i'm working on, getting to know where to add the tiny chamfer that keeps the edge sharp. also anyway up for a petition of "having chamfer as a modifier in the stack" ? really annoying if you made a bad chamfer some time before and have to fix it later on...

[NYRngrs24]

thanks

[sky^sp]

np,

smallish update.. just did the sidemirror plus some new carpaint.. gold (well i did yellow and red as well, but let's not bust the budget on pics here..)

also found something odd. the spots i use for the head- & taillights are fine when displayed, but what happens when i enable "pointlights" in the brazil lumaserver settings is that all my colors go to hell. even with the selfilluminated box floating above they turn to black (which looks exactly like my black paint, but it isn't the same of course). anyway, the attached pic is done disabling the said "pointlights" options in the lumaserver, thus no bright headlights. is there a way to get to render the pointlights (as in the other pics) and the car colored correctly at the same time? (btw same thing happens using the scanline renderer).. grrr thought i had it figured.. ah .. back to learning something i thought i had down - if rudimentary)...

so do i have to make them area lights? like circular and be done with it? because enabling area lights didn't barf my colors - but then again i didn't yet have an arealight in there... how do you guys simulate headlights, with what type of light?

anyway.. regarding that gold carpaint. it is a raytrace material using 2 falloffs, one each in diffuse and reflection, plus a noise as submaterial (guess of what slot )

[Hawktoey]

Looks nice! Gold....noise added in the (I'm going on a limb here) noise slot.

As far as the lights. I am not sure if there is a clear cover over your lights, but if there is this may or may not help your problem. Select the headlight glass and right click on it, click properties, and disable cast shadows. I know sometimes when I model a room with wall mount lights I have to do this to the cover if it's a glass material to get the right look.

[Lit3d]

From where did you got the blueprints?






please excuse my bad english

[Dennispls]

please ask these question in a pm or try your own brain and use the search function