Sauber Mercedes C9

[smoker]

It's great to have a chance to post in this site my actual WIP: a Sauber Mercedes C9 wich ran at Lemans back in 1989; I have some time working in it, still trying to find time to finish details.

Please check the attached pics. Right now, I'm having an issue with mental ray and a strange spot on the roof. Any advice of the possible causes are welcome, as well any crit and comment.

Cheers, Joe

[Johnas]

Welcome to SMC

Nice work sofar, modeling job looks fantastic. Can't say whats causing that spot, never played with Mental Ray :/

[LOST]

Great work so far. Lookin' really smooth.

[smoker]

Thanks guys!

A wire of the model. As you can see, there are very few polys. Also a render from other camera angle (is an old one with test tires). the spot appeared this time on the hood, so I think it has to be with mental ray settings, or lightning setup.

[sky^sp]

uh, either i'm totally losing it these days or i don't see the spot you refer to.
could you highlight it for me? i don't see anything wrong in any of these pics.
what particular pic are you referring to?

[smoker]

Oh, sorry sky^sp,

I call it spot, but it may be some kind of "artifact" generated by mental ray, bad geometry or bad lightning setup, just haven't figured it out yet. I increased the values on the Final Gather and GI options, only to increase the render time, because the issue remains.

Regards, Joe.

[smoker]

Hi all,

Have not worked on this one for a long time. Just to say I installed max 9 SP2 wich fixed some issues with mental ray and the artifact goes away. Also re-done the front to fix the shape (it was to hard on the front lights wich was an error). C&C wellcome.

[Zachary]

nice one, though tires should be slicks (without any kind of tire treads)
aswell area where "tire tread" is seems to be too round.

[LOST]

Change those tires and this one will look very good.

[smoker]

Thanks guys. I'll fix those tires (altought I have some ref pics with treaded tires, guess for rain)


I found some time last night, and started adding some decals. Unfortunatelly, I'm missing something, because I can't get the decals to be applied in just one side.

I'm using composite maps, with .tiff images as decals, and using the alpha channel of the .tiff to get transparency.

It does not seems to make a difference if I apply the UVW Map modifier after or before the simetry modifier on the object stack.

It is specially anoying in the "MICHELIN" decal, wich gets applied at both sides of the engine cover (back side of the car)

I am also wandering why the black color on the decals get so reflective when seen from high camera angles. I would like it to be mate, not reflective.

I'll continue with the mapping, until some help comes

Any help will be greatly appreciated.