1978 Ford XC Falcon/Cobra

[Augh]

Greetlings strange people hock:

So, I kinda recieved this email out of the blue reminding me that I am a dead beat member :lol: So, since the buck has been passed to me (why, I don't even know, I think simply because I have an inactive account. I'd certainly hope so...) I figured I'd flash some racy pics about the place. And why not.

Teh sauce:


Teh real beef:


Teh backstory:
I originally signed up on my abortive blueprint hunt, I never did find any, so just decided to model the thing from my sheaf of 450 or so reference pictures. I love this car. Having never 'met' one face to face, I have had to guess here and there, a lot. I did manage to find the blueprint today that a number of people have been making MM2 Interceptors from, but I'm thinking I'll pass on that one... it's kinda shaky and a little distorted. As a result there are more than a dab of XA and XB Falcon in here - the car is intended as a base car for my GTA Pursuit Special (Mad Max of course!).
The car started life as a GTA:Vice City 'Sabre', a sedan similar to a Mustang or possibly Chevelle (to my amateur eye), but has been sufficiently alterated that here and now, I have no idea what is left of the original car, only that it's downward of 150 polys to my best count (I intend to rebuild those, and any remaining GTA textures are gone asap). That would be polys that haven't been rebuilt, remapped, and retextured, just one or two of the three. I'm tempted to consider it scratch, but make up your own mind.
Oh yeah, that's an important point... this is a functional vehicle for the Grand Theft Auto series of games, so it has conventions worked in there which might seem odd otherwise, that is also why it isn't some grotesque polycount. It currently weighs in at around 8.5k for all in-game parts. There are GTA mods out there with like 50k polys, but I really don't see the point making something so slick and high poly, that it sticks out like a sore thumb in the lower poly game environ. Myriad inaccuracies are a combination of my screwing up or not paying attention (most), my preferring to make it look x or y way (some), and GTA or low poly technicalities (few). So I'm babbling as ever, I'll cut to the meat and potatoes.

Made in: Zanoza Zmodeler 1.07b (manual style baby!), Adobe Photoshop (textures)
Started: Two months ago? I have really no idea
Previous experience: None whatsoever
Until completion: Estimated 80% done

So yeah, it's a lot of fun learning to 3d model and texture, and I'm finding it easier than the other things that I am clearly not cut out to do, so that's nice/reassuring. It also utterly rules to see your own hard work charging down the street mowing down executives, it's truly a spiritual reward. Selah.

So anyways, enjoy, ask whatever wants asked, and I'll try to remember to drop in with fresh updates

[tommy9286]

looks great, especially for a first try

[NightEye]

Looks really nice, especially for a first try!
Just needs some normals, but that'll come

[Augh]

Oop, too late to edit into the first post then

Found an in-game pic with at least a kindof shot of the back, although the taillights are 'flooding' the rear panel/lines texturing;


Muhahaha, those damned normals! :wink: I shall prevail, eventually >_<

[Dutchy]

I love your model, I love the car and I love your avatar.
Great work in doing the car justice. My brother used to own an XB Falcon which I drove quite a bit - not a cobra, but still a great car none the less.

Obiously because it's for a game, it is tending to be a bit square in some places, but still it's looking great.

Cheers

[Augh]

Crazy flattery... hehe thanks! ops:

Man, I would kill to get at any Falcon, and my favourite is the XB (well, maybe the XB GT, heheh), you be lucky lucky
I kinda ended up doing the Cobra through a combination of the model's own will, and it being the 'uber-falcon' I'm sure there will be endless spinoffs once I have the base frame down pat (woohoo!), I must do a stock XB GT or terrible things will happen, at least to some poor fool somewhere.

And the most important... the 'Vice Interceptor'

Just got Max up and running at long last, so I'm gonna see if I can't just get a render, any render (however basic and effectless/untuned) to work with the materials intact. If someone can tell me easily how to preserve my tga/bmp textures exporting to 3ds, or to easily rebuild them without manually assigning, please do go right ahead I been messing around with the model some more, and also some wierd evil hybrid mess version which is halfway 'Interceptored'...

I can find things on raytracing, and bumpmapping, and baking, and all sorts that aren't my boring ol' photoshopped efforts

And mesh-smooth is insane hehe wtf!

EDIT: Doesn't seem to want to let me add more than one picture, and while I could go through the arduous task of using img tags, that would just be silly. So you just get wheels for now. Vroom vroom etc. hock:

[irloading]

good, now that youve shown a pic of the cobra, maybe you could add a bit of detail to the front bumper? like those square-hole thingies...

[Augh]

Muahhaha, there you are

Yeah, I've been patently ducking the issue re; vents. :x (god, I love that smiley, it's so... crotchety :lol: )
I got to stand up to it, and not run away anymore :x (another excuse to use The Smiley)

Haha I think I really screwed up, and used all of my rookie's luck modelling the original nosecone, I started trying to rebuild it last night and, well, I'm not going into that >_<

But I guess you've set the menu for today Vents! The vents will be done at last, yes.

I don't know what the hell to do about this ugly wing bork though, ugh. How the deuce do I deal with that O_O
EDIT: Fixed it with some moving vertices and after smoothing in flatshade mode... here is updated pic.
Hrm, manual img it is... *shakes fist at attach thinger*

By the way, those normals are just a conspiracy to keep everyone meek, honestly...

EDIT: Quick flash of how the eventual consummation of this project is shaping up;

[pwbull09]

when this is done i want it

[Augh]

Eek, bad timing.

I just posted at the community where I'm keeping my technical updates/original WIP. The car is very very solid, the car is nearly finished, the car is plagued by technical bugs of a gta-sourced nature, which cause my computer to fatally crash. While thousands of people are viewing my WIP over there and bug reports etc, noone ever posts, and those who do are my friends, who don't know the answer, supporting me and keeping me determined... I feel like I'm letting them down badly. But, yeah, this error is severely scary just because it's the tip of an iceberg that I was barely able to cope with. Between GTA flakiness, Zmod errors, not really knowing how to use any other prog (self taught at zmod inside the last 3 months, while making this), and the lack of active members in the GTA community who aren't just posers or waiting to not contribute to San Andreas, I've run out of fuel

I want to keep going, I really want to keep going. Just keep watching, I'll get there even if I have to back up my whole HD, install just those progs, and destruction test them personally. That would however take years, hopefully I'll get helped.

Btw smcars specific question here; if I'm not supposed to double post, but noone posts for days at a time, how do I post update pictures? I mean what is the acceptable normal ettiquette, I can edit them in but it's going to be 10+ edits per post...

Cheers!

EDIT: The car's being looked at by a third party as we speak. Hopefully something will turn up. In the meantime, here is some music.

Dah, da-dah, da-da-da-da-da-dah. Da-dah, da-dah, etc.
Soon as I have her running again I'll throw some in-game shots in here, didn't give any update pics yet, oops!