Lamborghini Cala prototype

[Xoliul]

Allrighty, so our next school assignment is to model a highpoly car. Pretty cool, but I've never done a highpoly car before. Still, i'm really aiming for perfection with this one, so I would like everybody to point out anything they see, preferably with a lot of drawing on my wireframes! They also want us to make a "tuned" and "dirty" version, so i'm gonna have my work with this. Plus, I'm thinking of remaking

this video

with a class mate who's doing an XJ220.

I attached my start, the front end with which I'm not really happy yet, especially at the outside corners and around the bottom of the lights I think polyflow isn't that good. Also, I'l really wondering, as I'm new to this; how do I handle body lines ? Do i model the entire thing solidly, having edges rund along those lines to detach it once the body is all smooth and finished. Or do I detach as soon as possible (to a seperate mesh ?) and tweak the parts towards each other ?

[Catlin]

Mesh looks fine mate,just try and avoid close lines.

[99GsTurbo]

I was waiting to see someone do this car. I will keep my eye in this project

[feral1]

looking good mate keep it up

[Xoliul]

Thanks guys, but I was hoping for a lot more harsh crits, guess I'll have to model some more progress for that
But could anybody just tell me what their technique is for creating the body lines and why they use it, because I really don't know if I should detach the hood and bumper already.

[Xoliul]

Some progress, side is still very WIP. I spent several hours on refining the front even more.

[pedro.malheiro]

looking good. nice model

[Masakari987]

Wow, a Cala. Not a car ya hear about often. I remember driving this in NFS2.

Anyway, the model is coming along nicely.

[LOST]

Lookin' very good. Really nicely modeled and great choice of car, cause I haven't seen any Lamborghini Cala model yet.
Keep it goin'!

[Xoliul]

Some more work, so crit away guys!

[blake_spector]

very nice, again - great choice of car

[DJP]

it's getting along nicely. I like that yellow render. Good to see updates. Did you use any blueprints for this?

[Xoliul]

Thanks guys. The yellow render isn't that great I think though, because of the awfull Catmull Rom AA. Don't know why my 3D teachers are all such fans of it...
And no, no blueprints at all and I can tell ya it's hardddd!
Reminds me, my proportions are all done on sight, but when I compare my model's proportions to the real car's dimensions, mine are only correct when I measure it without side mirrors. So does anybody know if usually car side mirrors are included when measuring its width ?

[DJP]

no. sidemirrors aren't included. i used to forget that before. so now what i do sometimes is cut the blueprints including sidemirrors

[Xoliul]

Great, thanks for that! Means my model's width is only 3cm off

[The IC]

looking nice so far Xoliul i think the yellow render looks good myself, the reflections flow nicely along the panels from what i can see...im not really sure what catmull-rom filter is supposed to be for, but i find that it makes nicer high res renders than other filters (i sometimes do 3507x2480 pics for print)

and nice choice picking a car that isnt modelled terrbily often

[Xoliul]

Thanks IC! Catmull Rom is just an Anti Aliasing algorithm that makes for crisper, sharper renders, but unfortunately also tends to leave more jagged edges than I like (clearly visible at the front of the hood). I use it for WIP renders as I want to show the model as clear as possible. For final renders I prefer VrayLanczos or Mitchell-Netravali, but for such huge print resolutions like you do Catmull Rom might be better.
Also, would you mind if I call on you for some rendering tips once I reach that stage? I still think your RX-7 renders are some of the most realistic I've ever seen and you're also using Vray for those.

[The IC]

yeah, sure, once you get the model mostly done i can give some help...vray sun is a bit of an oddball thing, it doesnt work *quite* like i expect my camera to work in real life...the sky turns out different colours and saturations etc. than a real photo using the same settings so im still experimenting myself

[EuropaCar]

haha just read through this.. no one has answered your initial question concerning body seams?
i use zmodeler so my method probably won't matter (but i do leave body lines out and fill them in later)

anyway, for not having prints, it looks awesome
i'm having trouble even doing an interior because they're not included in my prints

as for crits i'm sure you already know where your mesh could use work

[Xoliul]

Here's the result of another day's work. I fixed the corners of the wheelarches, and did a lot more work on the back. I also modelled the rearlights (took several hours of fixing the reults of the shell modifier, crappy thing) and part of the inside of the rearlights.

I've been testing some materials for those rearlights, weird stuff. I really don't get what's going on inside those. There's the red plastic cover, underneath it, close to the glass there's the fixture which is some sort of metal with a strange falloff. You can see in the refpics I attached how it gets very dark and purplish in some areas, defnitely not the average rearlights. I haven't done the bump/displacemap on the inside of the two lenses however. But does anybody have some advanced material tips for this one?