Light is right : Ariel Atom II

[The IC]

well its looking really hot, this comp is gonna have some great entries at the end

dunno if its been mentioned, but your wheels arent entirely round

[LOST]

It looks really good. Very good job so far.

[tom120934]

Thanks guys !

Yes The IC you were right about the wheel not being perfectly round. I already saw it : here's the correction. Also little update : tire, Yokohama Advan A048. Sidewall is not bumped enough, but the thread is almost good.

About the contest, there are many great entries so far, and the car choices are really interesting.

[keithd203]

Incredible work Tom!!

[Johnas]

looking absolutely fabulous

[Silent][Moebius]

very nice, though maybe the tire tread looks a bit too round-ish on the edges?

[tom120934]

Thanks guys ! And yes, you were right Silent][Moebius, that's the reason why I've modeled a brand new version of the tire. Here is it.



I hesitate between modelling the sidewall inscriptions and using a simple bumpmap : has anyone a piece of advice for me ?

[Masakari987]

Really looking great there. Do you have any plans of posting blueprints of the orthographic views once your done?

Well, if you are going to model the sidewalls, be prepared to spend a while working on it. When I did the ones for my Murcielago it took me about 4 days to do. Although, most of that was just trying to figure out what they said. And it can be somewhat time consuming to get the right text (if Blender has a text tool). A bumpmap would be the quick and easy way, however. Modeled sideways can look slightly better IMO, but they can drastically increase the poly count (mine shot up by about 1 million polys once everything was duplicated).

[tom120934]

Thanks Masakari987, yes I will post orthographic views when done, if anyone is interested. Right now, I already published here a lowres 3D blueprint of the chassis.

About the sidewall, Blender does have a text tool, there's no problem about that. I've also get a high res pic of the sidewall, so I can read pretty well what's written on the tire. The problem is finding the right fonts !

About polycount, I'm today at 580651 quads with surface subdivision used as little as possible. Since I've bought a brand new computer (Core2Duo E6600 with 2GB of DDR2 PC6400 and GeForce 8600GT), I'm working fine with such a polycount. The previous system (Athlon XP1700, 512MB PC2700, GeForce 4MX) was sick when only thinking about such a model !

[Masakari987]

Well, I'm definitely interested in those prints I must have missed your 3D prints of the chassis. Checked it out the other day and they were pretty nice.

Yeah, finding the right fonts can be a bit of trial and error sometimes. When I couldn't find the right font, I would make some text in a similar font and then modify until it was very close to real text.

[tom120934]

Little update, as the contest ends in ~40days, I've to assume I'wll not get enough time to model completely the sidewall.

So here's (at least, for the contest timeframe) the definitive version of the tire.

[99GsTurbo]

wow tom, this is lookin amazing.

[Silent][Moebius]

looking better, though maybe at the deep end (you know what i mean ) it still seem to be a bit round. but if you don't feel like redoing it.... i wouldn't

[tom120934]

Thanks, 99GsTurbo and S][M.

But I must confess S][M that I didn't get you this time : do you mean in the depths of the thread ? Or the inside of the tire ? Please enlight me

[MAGFX]

render is a little dark and the depth of the tire as in the tread is a little off imo.

[tom120934]

Yes 300zx_9 I know the render is dark. It's done with Blender Internal, and I only have a limited experience with it, as I spent most of the past years playing only with YafRay.

So why didn't use YafRay for this one ? Because of the sidewall : I haven't played yet with UV texture with YafRay, that's the reason why the clay render above doesn't show the sidewall texture (picture rendered with YafRay as for my previous WIPs)

About the depth of the thread : I think it's not enough deep this time, but the previous version were too. Maybe something in the middle for the third version if there is one. Do you agree ?

[tom120934]

Update. After a small break, I resume working on it. Currently, I'm modeling the interior.

No new version for the tire, same depth as previous renders.

[Masakari987]

Yay, you're still work on it! Looks pretty nice man.

[Silent][Moebius]

very nice stuff. smooth and good, just 1 pinch around the air intakes of the 'nose'

[LOST]

Lookin' very good so far. Smooth and nicely detailed. Keep it goin'!