#28a Threedy Grand Prix - Vehicle

[BiG ToE-3DT]

Low Poly Mini Contest #28a
Subject – Threedy Grand Prix - Vehicle
ALL WIPS AND CONCEPTS ARE TO BE KEPT IN THIS THREAD.

Hello and welcome to another Threedy Grand Prix. This year’s race is guaranteed to be one you tell your grand kids about. We have vehicles from all over the universe. Last years reigning champ is back, and his vehicle looks to have been upgraded with what his pit boss told me will make anyone in front of him, pull over and possible quit. With technology like that under the hood, I can only imagine what everyone else is bringing to the table. I see a few hover vehicles in attendance, even a few old school tire cars have showed up from the planet Earth.

The weather is great and the course is just calling out to be driven on. My only question, whose vehicle will reign absolute?


Have Fun!

Judging: You will pick what you believe is the top 3 entries. 1st place gets 3 points, 2nd place 2 points, 3rd place 1 point. The person with the most points when the voting is over wins. Remember, if an entry does not fill the requirements, do not vote for them.


DUE DATE: February 15th, 5 weeks and a few days from today! 11:59 pm GMT - SUNDAY

Idea:
Create the ultimate race vehicle. It should be able to withstand grinding, dirty socks, gun fire, flipping over, rain, and teenage drivers.

Poly limit:
20,000 Tris Total. You can do whatever you want with these, just don’t get carried away and don’t exceed the 20,000 Tri Limit. Remember, the limit tells you where to stop, there is no minimum, so use as much of the limit as you see fit.

Textures:
(2) 2048 x 2048 textures. This means (2) 2048 for color, (2) 2048 for bump, (2) 2048 for normal, (2) 2048 opacity, so on and so forth. You can chop it up into whatever you want, but you still need to go all out in your texture.

Textures can be hand-painted or you can use photographic sources. Do what you do.

Pedestals/Stands:
You do not have to create one, but if you do, understand that there is no texture or tri limit. You can go as crazy as you want, or keep it as basic as possible.

Prizes: (only available with 6 or more final entries)

1st Place gets the following:
- 12-month subscription to the 2DCreative magazine
- 12-month subscription to the 3DCreative magazine

2nd Place gets the following:
- 12-month subscription to the 3DCreative magazine

3rd Place gets the following:
- 6-month subscription to the 3DCreative magazine

Final Pictures:

Required In The Final Post (1 post per entry):

- 1 x Winning pose shot. This image should consist of your vehicle in some sort of a awesome angle.

- 1 x Beauty shot of your vehicle. Feel free to put multiple angles of your vehicle or just one big version or your vehicle on this page. Even better, try to composite a nice art piece similar to the ones in the Winners' Gallery. Be careful how you do this though, simple is often better. It’s up to you.

- 1 x wire frame shot of your vehicle. Feel free to put multiple wire frame shots or just one big wire frame shot on this page. It is up to you. Must have polycount included.

- 1 x texture sheet that includes all your used sheets squeezed into "one" sheet.

- Concept Sheet (Only if you have one)

A Final Entry Thread will be up and waiting around the end of the third week/beginning of fourth week. Don’t forget to submit your work by posting it in the final thread.

Good luck everyone!
BiG ToE.

[Noodles]

w00t.

Now for the hardest part...coming up with a concept.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

hope you all don't mind, but I upped the count to match that of the environment comps. Basically, I'm treating the vehicle as an environment.

[Chung Wong]

hmmm, 20k sounds a lot more tempting than 10k...

[CaseyD2K]

WooHooo!!!! Thats a lot of tri's!! Let's rock this mutha'!!!

[lampshadehead]

This is going to be awesome. I like the sound of the 20K tri limit alot. That will give us a chance to do vehicle interior so we can actually put the driver in there!

[AutopsySoldier]

Big ToE Did you write the intro/story? It was good...I was actually a bit bummed when I was done reading cuz I wanted more...oh...yeah, and this comp sounds great! I'm in!

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

20,000 triangles is nothing to sneeze at. I bet you could hammer out a full motorcycle on that budget.

[McKronic]

20,000 triangles is nothing to sneeze at. I bet you could hammer out a full motorcycle on that budget.

Oh yah defiantly, there is a whole arsenal of vehicles that could be hammered out in very high detail it will be interesting to see what entries come out of this. Sounds like good practice for dominance war. I think I might get in on this one I haven't done a low poly comp since last dominance war.

[Buzzy]

I bet you could hammer out a full motorcycle on that budget.

That is exactly what I plan to do. I'm thinking of doing a gnarly chopper. I'll get some thumbnails posted soon.

[Tuss4]

Ive never done lowpoly before, anything I should know (tuts etc,..) before I join in?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

the only real thing you should know is, smoothing groups are your friend. Meshsmooth and turbosmooth, the enemy.

Also, as far as modeling goes, if your not using a normal map, then smaller details can pass in your textures, rather than modeling them. Example, if you do a tire, you can texture brake pads behind the wheel on a single plane which will take up 2 tris, instead modeling out the whole thing.

Also, we count our models in tris, instead of pollies.

[JonathanP]

Hello everyone! I am new member in 3d total. I am looking forward to this challenge. It sounds great and interesting. Good Luck

[FrZnChAoS]

Hopping in on the vehicle component. Not sure about the driver yet. Time depending.

[Tank[NL]]

hmm, this is gonna be a tough one. i suck at designing vehicles. hmm, inspiration just struck :)

[justus_jonas]

I´ve never tried low poly either, but this sounds very tempting. Plus there would be lot new stuff to learn. I´m already excited to see what you pros can produce.
Cheers

[tb1alexc]

I'm in, I'm pretty sure :D

[omnicypher]

im thinking about taking a ****** rocket/snow mobile design, and altering it with rockets, then adding a sexy blue alien chick as the driver, somthing like the singer from the fifth element riding a jet moto kinda bike. i might make some sketches soon.

[omnicypher]

quick 2 tone sketch of my concept:

[silverflame]

im thinking about taking a ****** rocket/snow mobile design, and altering it with rockets, then adding a sexy blue alien chick as the driver, somthing like the singer from the fifth element riding a jet moto kinda bike. i might make some sketches soon.

Creepy that was my initial idea as well lol but i changed mine slightly and am doing a rugged male version with a big wheeled truck like thing..hopefully get some concepts together over the weekend

[CaseyD2K]

This is a pretty rockin turnout! I hope people stay this motivated through to the end!

[poopipe]

can I make my bike or does the lack of engine disqualify it?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

just add a banana seat and a bell, you should be fine.

[pogimonz]

just add a banana seat and a bell, you should be fine.

lol

great challenge! gonna get my hands dirty w/ this one..

anyway.. here's a quick 3d concept sketch.. I'm going for a mini hovering aircraft that has both defensive and offensive characteristics.

[omnicypher]

i worked on the concept a bit more. i think i will add more to the rear end (of the bike, of course :) ) this comp should be a good way to practice hard surface modelling. 340 tris, 640 tris, 1514 tris:

pogimonz: nice work so far, but it seems a little front heavy, maybe adding a tail could balance it out.

[BenniKImmel]

Wow, I actually have a concept for this comp I like, now I just gotta draw it on the computer and start modeling lol.

[Tetsuya]

Going with an Advent Children/Blassreitor style of Driver/Vehicle

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7045/motown3.png

http://bp2.blogger.com/_7gYNb3GSh4M/SCSXzlV2VxI/AAAAAAAAEBg/kU7ogeFHwVs/s400/04570b.jpg

[lampshadehead]

omnicypher: Jet Moto was an awesome game. A vehicle with that kind of inspiration will definately rock! Kudos to everyone for getting in on this one early and thinking hard about your concepts.

Here's a quick concept of a twisted metal style Smart car. I'm still tooling around with some other concepts as well :D

[BenniKImmel]

Im bouncing between 2 ideas, 1 is pretty much offense minded and the other is completely lacking any offense lol.

[Mr. Bluesummers-3DT]

I love the thumbs up, lampshadehead. Made me laugh. Looks like people are off to a good start!

[lampshadehead]

Thanks Guy BlueSummers! I aim to please :D

Here's my next concept. Based on a Porsche Carerra.

[FrZnChAoS]

thats pretty wicked.

[CaseyD2K]

I was looking for some tough looking vehicles on-line and I found this bad boy and it just screamed Twisted Metal to me!!!

http://www.ontoinfo.com/2007/06/10/monster-truck/

I'm not going to do this for my vehicle submission but I thought I should share some inspiration!

[vlad_flyzzz]

Hey, everybody. First post on the Threedy forums ( better later than never)...

I'm announcing my entry into this challenge, I'll be doing both driver and vehicle. I am going to post some concept sketches later today.

I have two questions, though:

If we're opting for a closed vehicle, is it mandatory to model the interior as well (if it's not that relevant to the overall design , of course) ?

If the vehicle and driver go hand in hand, do I have to post WIP shots in both threads, or is it ok if I keep things in one thread only and then post my images in the final entries threads for both categories?

Good luck, everybody, and looking forward to seeing your awesome work!

Cheers,
Vlad

[Cordero]

Hey! I decided to make both driver, and vehicle. my idea is about a swift racer, with less armor, but more speed. speed = motors. i've seen a motor in barcelona during the summer, i made a LOT of ref. pictures with my camera, so i can do all the little parts. i think it will eat all the tris given nicely. (if i can do all the 'changes' on the motor i want to)
so here is one pic, of the cycle i'm gonna make.

oh, yeah.. and my racer is from the sun planet.. i think it tells a lot about my idea... :)

[lampshadehead]

FrZnChAoS: Thanks! I may do that one, or I may decide to do something more road-warrior-y.. something more like Road Kill from twisted metal 2... still can't decide, lol

CaseyD2K: Awesome inspiration. That's one hardcore truck. I just looked at your profile on CGTalk and man, you have mad sketching skills! Really awesome work there.

vlad_flyzzz: Welcome aboard! As for modelling the interior of your vehicle, I'm sure that's up to you, it's your concept that you're realizing. About the WIPs, sorry I'm not qualified to answer that, but I'm sure a Mod will be more than happy to :)

I'm really leaning towards doing an Earth car.. or a tire car as the brief reads. It would be really cool to do an alien driver, but I just can't tear myself away from the Twisted Metal idea, lol.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

vlad_flyzzz: if no one will see the inside, then you dont need to model it. As for the wips, you need to post your vehicle wips in the vehicle wip thread, and your driver wips in the driver wip thread.

[CaseyD2K]

CaseyD2K: Awesome inspiration. That's one hardcore truck. I just looked at your profile on CGTalk and man, you have mad sketching skills! Really awesome work there...



Thanks!! 2D is more of my forte, which is why i am trying to beef up my 3D skills more lately!

[CaseyD2K]

Here is a compilation of my reference so far! I am going to try an Armored Monster Jeep a la Twisted Metal:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/CaseyD2k/MonsterJeep.jpg

Fortunately, I found a couple good front and side view pics as well so i can use those as the base for my orthos! I'm working on my driver right now as well and I hope to have him up either today or tomorrow.

[Oltskul]

iam in
but i will loose... so worth a shot :D

[Tuss4]

what I'm going to base my concept on witness the pwnage:

[vicban3d]

After skipping the last two comps I decided to participate in this one. My idea is an alien hover-board(Will probably also model an alien hover-boarder).
Progress so far:

[Darchand]

iam in
but i will loose... so worth a shot :D

Ah we all know there are no losers here...

Other than that whole part where people win thing. Other than that there are no losers.

[JonathanP]

Here is my concept! I will be using this automobile machine and use some corrections and tweaking...

[dhin]

cool ideas here is mine in acsii art ;)
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Or is it... hehehehe

[McKronic]

Hey Dhin is that a millennium falcon I see haha that would be insane if you pulled that off

[dhin]

yes, and I was joking, I would never do something so low as to try and copy the falcon, cause I'm sure I would never do it justice... but that isn't to say I may not draw heavily on it for inspiration... :D

[omegamista]

here's my concept. I plan on having it be a sleek looking hover sports car. where the weapons/gadgets pop out of panels. like the guns from the front wings and possibly rockets out top panel like in bond, or out of hull like a submarine, etc.

[omnicypher]

i realized its a very good idea to start with a frame before adding body pieces. i approached it like an artist, rather than an engineer, and now im trying to cram structural support inside a fiberglass shell, which isnt easy without proper planning. heres where im at: 2336tris

[Buzzy]

i realized its a very good idea to start with a frame before adding body pieces.

That is a very good tip omni. I found this out the hard way on the last game I worked on. I recommend everyone approach their vehicle more like an engineer than an artist.

[lampshadehead]

CaseyD2K: I think it was mentioned before but this is an awesome page for ortho references on tons of different cars and vehicles, etc. http://www.the-blueprints.com

JonathanP: That's a wicked reference image. :D

omnicypher and Buzzy: Thanks for the tips about the frame. That will definately help out alot.

[Warlock 279]

omnicypher -

pogimonz - Looks cool, Omni's right tho, needs some balance, a tail would be pretty cool, maybe even a Comanche style tail rotor.

Tetsuya - Those are pretty wicked bikes, I just watched FF:AC the other night. Looks like you've got a pretty cool design so far.

lampshadehead - Now there's the first smart car I ever liked. I like the kill tally on the side. The Porsche concept isn't quite as novel as your smart, but I think it could still turn out pretty sweet. Might want to consider a hard top tho, convertibles don't necessarily offer the most protection.

CaseyD2K - That's an awesome looking truck. Certainly good inspiration for those looking.

vlad_flyzzz - Welcome aboard! :)

CaseyD2K - Nice collection there, looks like you've got your idea rolling.

Tuss4 - There ya go, that's the ticket! Can't wait to see what you come up with that as your jumping off point.

vicban3d - Good to see you back in the fray. Looks like a nice start. Could probably smooth those prong out in the front if you wanted to, should have the polys to do it.

JonathanP - Thats a nice starting point. Looks like we're going to have quite a nice selection of bikes in the end.

dhin - LOL. Should be interesting to see what you do come up with then taking inspiration from the Falcon.

omegamista - Looks solid, I like it. :)


Buzzy's made a really good point. Make sure you mock up a driver/rider at least, even if you're not doing that portion of the contest, it can be simple just some blocks with the right proportions and stick it in the cockpit/driver's seat/saddle whatever your vehicle's got so you get the controls/etc down right [unless you plan to completely tint the windows and have no interior]. Probably especially important for you guys doing the bikes. I've made that mistake before and wound up with controls that didn't fit.




Usually I'm more for the muscle cars, but I was feeling a little more exotic this time around, so I've got this so far. Just couldn't get away from the traditional wheeled car.

[VersionThirst]

Hopefully I can actually put the time in to finish this one. Here's my start.

The idea is that the back tires are run by some magnetic force and the front 'disks' are some anti-gravity devices. Their is a big gun on the front and the driver lays on their stomach to drive.

The problem right now is that the driver will be thrown around and get hurt. Other than putting in some basic straps and buckles, any suggestions on how to restrain the driver?

I'll be adding more and more detail with the rest of my polys. References also below.

[Darchand]

I am going rat rod style. Pretty much what you see here with some basic changes.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

yeah, I'm thinking hot rod is the way to go. Straight up mobster, with a chopped roof, big tires, and a naked lady painted on the hood.

[CaseyD2K]

After skipping the last two comps I decided to participate in this one. My idea is an alien hover-board(Will probably also model an alien hover-boarder).
Progress so far:

I can totally picture the beauty shot with some sweet Glow maps! I'm lookin forward to this bad boy!

[CaseyD2K]

Omnicypher - That space bike is no joke! You are puttin that thing together pretty quick!

And Darchand, that Rat Rod is an awesome idea!!!

[Novian]

Awesome awesome stuff here guys.

Omni, VersionThirst, and Warlock: Especially looking foward to your entires so far!

Keep up the good work guys.

Cheers~

[TonyClifton]

I like to join this challenge, and I hope I can finish this time...my concept is a skull based Hot Rod, with a classic look/ paint.

[dhin]

Cool skull rod... I'm digging it, great style there Tony.

[nik_t]

Hi Everybody,
I really liked the current Low-Poly Chall theme, so I will give a shot here as it suits my a few non organic modeling skills.

I see many awsome concepts and approaches so far, keep it up guys. I especially enjoy the wheel driven mobiles.

Here is my sketch and startup. The point is a combination of Oldschool FormulaBolid Look with the Harrier's Jet Flight capabilities.
The Purple Components are just for the power source/units visualisation matter.
Also the wheels will go into lower Poly.

C&c welcomed.
Nik

[Darchand]

nik_t: Very nice concepting, I am assuming you drew all of that up. I like the cross of a jet fighter and a formula car.

omegamista: A simple but clean design. I will need to see more on this one before I can make up my mind. Should be interesting I am sure there are lots of details you can add to it.

Warlock 279: That is a very clean silhouette. Seeing how nice all of your other stuff has come out I can hardly wait to see this one.

Version Thirst: That is slick looking and would be so cool to have (except in the wind). One way to restrain the driver is to rework the top part where it locks down over his/her shoulders. You could also add, if anyone asks, air bags that inflate to better stabilize him.

omnicypher: you are right it is hard to approach these things as an engineer instead of an artist. I imagine mine might be a pain because the majority of it is a frame with parts exposed.

TonyClifton: That thing is going to look wicked. I love the concept sketch. Should be fun to see finished. GL

CaseyD2K: The jeep should be cool looking. I am picturing something raised up and able to go where ever it wants. There are a lot of good things you can do with this one.

vicban3d: I was wondering where you were the last couple of competitions. Your Rhino in the last one you were in was very nicely done of course it would have been nice to see more. Hope to see more from your model soon.

JonathanP: Some one around my school drives one of those things. Looks bizzard on the roads but I swear some day I will have a lawn mower that looks just like it :)

Tetsuya: That bike is nuts. I would say I hope you pull it off but I would like a shot at winning. Oh well good luck anyways.

lampshadehead: I wanted to do a Geo-metro like that smart car. That is a fun porcsh to. Gives me the idea if you did like a giant SUV with 25 inch spokes and all that. With that concept you could call it Bling Bling Bang. Keep the fun concepts rolling

[JanJaap]

Hmm, nobody mentioned the batpod (http://www.firstshowing.net/img/darkknight-batpod4.jpg) or the tumbler (http://fc95.deviantart.com/fs18/f/2007/204/a/9/Batmobile___The_Tumbler_Street_by_artist_tortured. jpg) which are, imo, the personification of this challenge

[Oltskul]

iam stucked with concept :D

[Buzzy]

iam stucked with concept :D

Just use your avatar!

[TonyClifton]

Just use your avatar!

huahuahauhauhauhauhau

[FrZnChAoS]

should get a concept finally figured out/ posted up later tonight.

[W.D.L.]

Wow, great start everyone. Only a few days into the comp. and already a great deal of variety!

[nik_t]

Very nice concepting, I am assuming you drew all of that up. I like the cross of a jet fighter and a formula car.

Thanx Darchand, yes those are my efforts, but as far as I loose the perspective and proportions on blank sheets I pencil-drew my sketches on background of Draft Mesh modeled via attached Maserati 250F reference.

Sorry for this rookie question, but wanted to be sure. Does Material Shaders, such like Metal or Glass for instance work with Low-Poly modeling/rendering. Or only textured, specular/bump/diff/normal materials meet the Low-Poly Idea?

Really sweet projects starting here, let's see them rolling.

[Buzzy]

you can't use fancy glass or car paint materials. Just texture maps. However, you would be allowed to use any realtime shader you could find. Might I recommend THESE (http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=63244) :)
(please note also that realtime shaders DO NOT render...you would need to do some sort of screen grab. If you want to do nice renders, just stick to a standard material)

[nik_t]

you can't use fancy glass or car paint materials. Just texture maps. However, you would be allowed to use any realtime shader you could find. Might I recommend THESE (http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=63244) :)
(please note also that realtime shaders DO NOT render...you would need to do some sort of screen grab. If you want to do nice renders, just stick to a standard material)

Nice, thank you Buzzy, those shaders are really great share. I will definitely play with them - here or later on.

[Oltskul]

Just use your avatar!
not bad idea :D
I was watching Johny English, and I have to admit, that i love his Aston MArtin DB7..
So this one is DB9 :D
with some puding :D
Ill call it "Mrdolet" :D (czech speaking people will know, Slovak maybe.. :D)

130827
LINK - better size (http://www.oltskul.com/stufff/AM.jpg)
hope you will like it :)

[tb1alexc]

Looking good folks! Here's mine in block form, will be slowly adding details as I go...

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/760/gp1iw1.png

Good luck to everyone!

[Warlock 279]

VersionThirst - Hubless wheels are certainly doable. As for your driver, I can't think of anything, check out the new Batman movies, see how he's restrained in the prone position in the Tumbler perhaps. Overall all its looking pretty sweet.

Darchand - Cool ref. Should be sweet seeing some hot rods in here. Thanks, glad you liked my recent stuff. :)

BiG ToE-3DT -You give us all the freedom to make any kinda of vehicle we want, and most of us end up putting wheels on 'em. Go figure.

TonyClifton - Wicked. Looks good so far. If you have the extra polys towards then end, I'd consider another loop around those back tires, I'm thinking that ridge in the middle now, might show up awkwardly in the silhouette, so it could maybe do with another loop.

nik_t - That's pretty cool looking. I like the mix of the old styling with the modern tech that you've got.

Oltskul - Awesome mock-up should be pretty awesomw once you get it into 3D as well.

tb1alexc - Nice to see someone doing a 6 wheeled design. I'm not sure I follow what you're doing with the thing on the back, but I'm sure that will be cleared up as the piece progresses. Nice start.


So we've got hot rods against bikes then [with a handful of miscellaneous vehicles]? With all the hot rods someone needs to do a Rat Fink like creature as a driver.

[Buzzy]

haha! Rat Fink! Way to dig into the backlog of pop culture!

[Oltskul]

warlock280-1: Ill Do my best :D

[lampshadehead]

Man, I'm realizing how tough it is to model a vehile now, lol. Maybe I'll just have to do like a cow with a propeller or something...

I've just started making the different panels, like the door panels, front bumper etc. Is that a good way to do it or am I going to run into problems? Also, How can I get an idea of the correct poly distribution when making this beast?

[McKronic]

For my entry im going to be attempting the epoch from chrono trigger. There isn't a whole lot of reference so I will get to use my imagination to finish off the rest. Here's the ref image I made up in photoshop and the start of my model so far.

[Chung Wong]

Chrono trigger was a awesome game so I'll be looking forwards to your entry.

Anyways, I not sure how to go about this vehicle comp, all my instincts tell me to build a high poly model then convert it to a low poly one, that way, I have something to bake out as well, but it seems everyone is just going to build a low poly model and texture that. Anyhow, I think I'll make a racer first so that I know it will fit into the vehicle. Should start tomorrow me thinks.

[nik_t]

Thank you Warlack.


...I've just started making the different panels, like the door panels, front bumper etc. Is that a good way to do it or am I going to run into problems? Also, How can I get an idea of the correct poly distribution when making this beast?

lampshadehead: If you have good reference -front/top/side view -then you can try the Polymodeling, if not and also trying to improvise on shape during modeling then going with Boxmodeling should be easier. I mean getting the most basic overall shape and tweaking it, (extruding, cutting and beveling panels) gives a better control on mesh. Check one of Car Modeling tutorials submitted on 3DT.

Oltskul - that is great concept, i like the Dark Green Tone.

tb1alexc - I like it, looks pretty much like Interstate 76 Piranha - That has been one classy game.

[lampshadehead]

Thanks nik_t that's good advice. Sorry about the noob-like move, I totally should have gone to the tuts first.

[omnicypher]

versionthirst: wow! amazing model and design so far. as for keeping your driver secure, you could always use somthing like a roller coaster shoulder/lap bar, or you could just give the driver some extra arms to hold on :). it looks fast, but it also looks like it might do a backflip while driving. maybe you could add a spoiler/inverted wing to keep the nose down like an F1 racer.

lately ive had alot of essays and art homework to do for school, but ive been squeezing in time to study jet engines, aerodynamics, and vehicle frames, and with this knowledge i will probably start over with mechanical details first, then slap on the body work that i already started making. and to keep my driver secure, i will probably add a seat belt that keeps her stomach to the seat and her back arched. if done right, it should end up quite sexy. maybe ill get started on some organics soon...

[FrZnChAoS]

Heres my concept I came up with. I jokingly named it Electric Rodeo. As the vehicle and the creature kind of emulate a cowboy on a bull. The vehicle uses electric tow cable flesh hooks which are through all the key parts of the creature. Sending electricity through the different combinations of the cables makes him run and lean/attack in different ways. This is all powered by a electric sphere at the center of the craft. The tow cables scale in length, so when the creature is in full motion the craft is kinda hovering above it, like the little drawing in the top right.

The craft is armed with an electric burst cannon and missle pods under each of the wings. Im toying with the idea of it having extra flesh hooks to drop behind kinda mario kart style with the bananas.

Havent really came up with any driver concept. Not sure I will have time to wrap it all up.

[omnicypher]

ive built most of a jet engine at about 7000 triangles, and i still have to model the fuel injection piping and electrical wires. this is mostly a prototype, and probably will not be used in the final design directly, as it would better fit a 747 rather than a bike, but im learning what i need to know to build what i want. im still not sure where i will put the fuel tank, and i might eventually put on adjustable vertical takeoff ducted thrusters, like on a harrier jet. heres what i got:

[FrZnChAoS]

Started roughing out the model.

[vlad_flyzzz]

Great start entries, everybody!

lampshadehead: Since this is a lowpoly vehicle, I think the best approach for modelling it is just as any other lowpoly model: box or poly modelling. Building it with panels and is good if you're trying to do an exact, working replica of the vehicle, imho. Just stick with blocking out the general shape and then you can detach parts later and add details as you see fit...

FrZnChAoS: Hydralisk carriage for the win! I love the concept.

Anyway, here's my 3D sketch. I'll post detailed info about the vehicle, driver and the competition later in the challenge. It's still in its rough form and it's subject to a lot of tweaks.

Cheers!

[tb1alexc]

Been pushing polies around for the last 15-20 minutes and here's what I've got so far...

http://i40.tinypic.com/w8q5om.png

Everyone elses concepts are looking really great, keep up the good work guys!

[katana]

Man, talk about a death race! It was nice to see all the bikes, but all the ideas are excellent. I'm not sure if I'll be able to participate, but I'm sick at home today, so who knows.

[Oltskul]

So, here is my WIP:
Its pretty f*c*e*-up this far :D
but its only fisrts moments of work :D
130854 :D
I think, you dont like it :D
I not handy at modeling of cars.. or anything else :D

[TonyClifton]

looking good, oltskul!

[roel]

Hi all,
hopefully I will have time to finish this comp. I'm thinking about a big fat exagerated space spitfire. Will work on a decent concept first.

[Novian]

lampshadehead: Makes sense to me to model the car in panels. Thats the way they make real cars. Plus that will help out alot when it comes time to break the model up for unwrapping. Looks good, keep it up!

FrZnChAoS: Awesome concept man. Reminds me of some of the best parsts of the Zerg from Star Craft a little. I love how you showeed the progress. For my next set of works I think I am going to have to borrow and modify that idea.

Oltskul: Looking good so far. No worries about not being good at car modeling. Thats why they call it a challenge. :) I learn more and more with each challenge. It's a great tool to refine your skills. Looking foward to seeing more.

Cheers all~

[grindill]

Not sure if I'm going to have the time to enter this comp but here's my idea anyways. I was thinking a big ol' futuristic limousine on hoverpads. It would have lots of various hatches and ports that missile launchers, flame throwers, machine guns, spikes, smoke bombs, oil slicks, etc. etc. would come out of, but it would all fold back inside so that it would look innocent in normal mode. If I have time to get to the driver, it would be a combination of a robot driver and, of course, the big, fat-cat millionaire who sits in the back lighting stogies with $100 bills. So, that's my concept. Hope I get a chance to work it up.

[Oltskul]

Iam chalanging myself with progress:
130870
still shi*ty :D

[tb1alexc]

Looking good Oltskul!

Here's a little (10 / 15 mins) more progress on my monster...

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4290/gp3ud6.png

I've not even passed 3K tris yet... even with completley unoptimized wheels :xx:. So i think I may be having the rare dilemma of having too many verts to play with! I'm sure I'll fit them in. I'm thinking of reworking the truck to be battered and old, with pieces falling off, so that should be fun.

Peace out!

[Buzzy]

So i think I may be having the rare dilemma of having too many verts to play with!

I've noticed that too. I was working on mine and I'm only around 4k or something....I might be able to keep it under 10k without alot of effort...I could almost make 2 vehicles with 20k

[Oltskul]

tbonealecx: thnx, your is realy cool too!
10000tris?

iam around 600 tris :D:Dnow :D

and this is realy,realy cool refference!!
http://www.astonmartin.com/configurator/db9coupe.asp?td=ER&x=11&y=10 (IE required :( )

[lampshadehead]

Oltskul: Looking good! That looks really great for being so low poly. You're definately getting the shape down, then you can tweak it alot easier.

tb1alexc: That beast is looking mean. I wouldn't want to stop in front of that guy.

More:

[Warlock 279]

haha! Rat Fink! Way to dig into the backlog of pop culture! ...You can't go wrong with a nod to the right pop culture icon can ya? He'd be a win either way, the people that aren't in the know, will appreciate him because he's pretty darn cool, and the people that are in the know will appreciate him because he's Rat Fink.

If no-one does him this time around, perhaps I'll have to, sometime down the road have a go at a RF driven hot-rod.

lampshadehead - Panel by panel isn't a bad approach, you may find it easier to keep it smooth tho, if you model the entire body at once, as well as even out the poly distribution. The only thing you need to be careful with, is keeping a row of verts on any panel seam that you want to break apart. Looks like you're making good progress which ever method you're using, so keep going.

McKronic - Looking good so far.

FrZnChAoS - That's pretty wicked. Shouldn't have any problems using up the full 20k with that. Looks like you're off to a good start with the model as well.

omnicypher - That's a nice looking engine, if not just a touch over-modeled. ;P

vlad_flyzzz - Lookgs good. I like the folding wheels. Needs a big thrust engine of some sort in there somewhere.

tb1alexc - That's starting to be one mean looking truck.

Oltskul - Not bad, looks like you've got the general shape down, now you just need to get into the detailing and refine it as you go.



You'll all find some use for your 20k, especially if you're doing an interior.

[Oltskul]

Iam going to cry:((((((((
files are somehow corrupted :(((((
130884

luckyly iam saving to new files, but last five files are fu**ed!!!!!!!!!!!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

how many of your files are corrupted. Hopefully you didn't loose too much work.

Also, try merging your model from the last file you saved out into a brand new file. That works sometimes.

[Oltskul]

how many of your files are corrupted. Hopefully you didn't loose too much work.

Also, try merging your model from the last file you saved out into a brand new file. That works sometimes.

thanx for advice ;) Ill try tomorrow, now Iam quite pissed of...

It about 5 files of 36... I am used to it, to save incrementaly.. I don´t why...
I was working, i don´t know how long, minimalized max to desktop and played D2 for a while.. And it wad fu***d

[Ghost-D]

Hey, Oltskul!
Sorry to hear your model went this bad. Anyway, you can´t even imagine how shocked was I to read those words in you picture on this international forum.:haha: Feels like home.

[McKronic]

frznchaos: sick concept dude, can't wait to see this textured make sure it's all wet and slimy haha

tb1alexc: looking pretty badass man not bad for 15min

lampshadehead: looking good so far it will nice to see iit when all the geo is filled it.

Oltskul: hope you can figure out whats going on with your files I wish I could help but im not sure whats going on..

Here's a quick update, I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on this but its coming along. I think I might start the cockpit soon and the wings.

[Tuss4]

just playing around in max, I figure Im going to make a roll cage, with a spline/sweep modifier, then play around with this mofo, hopefully I should get a desirable result before Feb 15th.

[Warlock 279]

grindill - That's sounds awesome, I really like the thought you've put into it. I'm looking forward to seeing you getting started on it.

Oltskul - That sucks dude. S'pose that's the price we pay for having the undo key. While your physical drawing/painting/sculpture, there's no undoing a mistake, but it wont likely explode on ya either; in the digital world, we've got that undo button, but there's always a chance you'll open your file and find its turned inside out on ya. :( Hope you get back up and going soon enough. :)

McKronic - Looks good, keep goin'.

Tuss4 - Nice start on the cage; that's one aspect of mine I'm not looking forward to modeling.




My "exotic" car died a horrible death [read as "went to the recycling bin"]. So I'm working on a muscle car now [based off the new Challenge body style], works better with the driver I have in mind. 2500 tris so far for the body.

[Tires/wheels are just place holder, I pilfered them off a Mustang I never finished, I'll replace them with the appropriate wheels later]

[Buzzy]

Everyone's entries are looking good so far!

Here's my little reference sheet. I'm going to make a gnarly, kitted-out chopper. The radial engine bikes are the pinnacle of badness....however I just put them in as inspiration. I don't actually plan on doing a radial engine. But, man do they look cool!

[lampshadehead]

Warlock 279: Thanks for the suggestions and comments :D That muscle car is looking awesome. I'll have to keep practicing til I can model a car that well :)

Tuss4: Great cage and very smart to start with teh cage and build from it. Can't wait to see more.

Buzzy: Great inspiration sheet. I'm excited to see how it comes out. I know you can pull it off. With a bike design I'm going to expect to see a badass driver as well :D

[FrZnChAoS]

Warlock: Nice, crisp modeling as usual.

Oltskul: Great start. Be careful to really smooth out your segments before you get to many segments running through. Will help you keep the body nice.

vlad_flyzzz: Looks cool, I like the wheel suspension system and how it folds up.

tb1alexc: Looks pretty sweet so far. Will be a pretty wicked monster truck.

More progress. Decided to keep going with my progress sheets for the duration of the modeling for this project. Will have transparent workflow lol.

[VersionThirst]

Great stuff so far!

FrZnChAoS - Great model so far, can't wait to see the vehicle that it tows. What's the round piece of polys that appears near the bottom in panel 17?

Buzzy - Hope your model can do your awesome reference photos justice.

Warlock 279 - Can't go wrong with a classic earth muscle car. Any plans for an interior?

tb1alexc - Seems pretty tough so far, but the front 'shovel' part seems a little flimsy. Maybe thickening it up, or adding supports might help.

vlad_flyzzz - Very clean, I like the retractable wings and wheels.

omnicypher - Thanks for the help, I added the front spoiler and found references for securing the driver too. Your engine is coming along nice, 20,000 tris are a lot to play with so can't wait to see the detail you put in.

TonyClifton - I really like the skull so far, but it would be cool to see a hint of the nose like on the sketch, seems a little too squashed.


Here's my finished model, I'm going to start on the fun task of unwrapping it next. I also rigged up the harness system to open and close. (hydraulics & all) It has a shoulder restraint that clips into the back restraint, and ankle restraints. There are controls on the dash to steer and fire the gun.

[FrZnChAoS]

VersionThirst: Looks great. I would use your 1300 extra triangles to smooth out your main chassis a bit more. Unless your going for a harder edge look. Love the detailed interior.

[McKronic]

Warlock - Thanks dude, your model is looking awesome so far, can't wait to see what you do to it next.

I've been trying to design some seats but im having a little bit of trouble. I don't really know the in's and outs of designing a good seat. Here's what I have so far if anyone has an ideas I would love to hear em lol.

EDIT: Blocked out most of the model with rough shapes to get a feel for the volume of the ship.

[vlad_flyzzz]

Great progress everybody!

Here's my updated vehicle, still in its concept form. Some things are already finished modelling, and I've only reached 5000 tris so far.. in TOTAL... A long way to go...

[Novian]

Great work so far guys.

Warlock: Beautiful work, like we expect anything less.

Question for you, are you using smoothing groups at this stage to better define the crease down the ledgth of the body panel and for the seperation between the windows and the body? Or are you just stacking edges close together? Whatever you are doing it looks great. Whats the secret eh? :)

Buzzy: Can't wait to see what wicked sick bike you can churn out. Then just for kicks make a nice desktop render of your Dealer riding it. (complete with bandana of course). :)

VersionThirst: Your model is looking much better with all the additions. Honestly I think the driver looks uncomfortable but definatly more secure. Just a thought what about adding petals where his feet are? Perhaps those could control the left and right pitch and then he just points the gun where he wants to go.

FrZnChAoS: Looking good. He's comming along quick. Again thats a really cool method to see the progress like that. Keep up the good work.

vlad_flyzzz: I love your design. Its flexable to many different needs. My only crit is that the second joint on the "wings" moves impossibly from Speed to Hover Mode. I know you are still in concept phase too so just a note. Other than that it looks great. If you have time/tris I'd love to see a cockpit on that badboy.

Thats all for now. Keep it going guys it's exciting to see progress so much, so fast.

Cheers~

[TonyClifton]

VersionThirst and Warlock 279, the 3D image just worked as a blocked out sketch, actually I will go for a convertable version and open the skull´s top...and then work on a monstrous engine coming out of the nose, kind a like that.

I like the muscle car idea!

Buzzy, the bike refs are awesome! Rat Fink would like it!

[Buzzy]

Began blocking in the bike. I'm pretty happy with the shape and general proportions so far. As you can tell, I started cleaning up the rear clip already.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

ignore my post in the driver thread, you just answered my question

[Oltskul]

Poopie´s: HeavyArmoredBike :D
Omnicypher: Looks little bit uncomfortible, but sporty.
Tetsuya: Great koncept.
Tuss4: PWN3D
Vicban3D: realy unusaly vehicle. But looks little bit like Wall-e :D
JohnatanP: I hope, tha this will become a model
Omegamista: Starwars Lamborghiny :D
Warlock 279: realy good loping racer!
VersionThirst: Interresting
Darchand: I don´t know chat to think about this:D
TonyKlifton: Realy OltSkull Hot Rot : D Freak Idea :D
Nik_t : realy great!! Great base!
Lampshadehead: quite inpropocial idea, but awesome!
McKronic: I don´t know chat to expect
FrZnChAoS: :D
vlad_flyzzz: looks like a probe on Mars, very fragile
tb1alexc: Locomotive on the Wheel :D Massive!
Warlock no2: bit more agresive var :D
Buzzy: hellyeah!
Oltskul: sucks

[Oltskul]

and here is some progress of mrdolet:
130924

[tb1alexc]

Looking great guys!

Well.. I have some bad news for those of you that liked my truck. It just wasn't working, and the mesh was like a spiders web, plus it strayed a long way from my initial vision. So, it was back to the drawing board... 30 minutes later, and after a day of brainstorming, I have this beauty:

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/242/gp4zb3.png

[Darchand]

<---------- My 100th post

tb1alexc: nice work on that new model. I was really liking that truck though

Oltskul: good to see you didn't lose too much work. I think we all have had those problems.

I wanted to post this even though it isn't going to be my entry. This is a concept for a turn of the century car that I never got to finish but still kinda fun none the less.

[lampshadehead]

Darchand: That things a beast. With a tommy gun it'd definately have a fair chance at winning the grand prix. Too bad you started it before the comp. You could just remodel it from scratch though :D I'm sure your real entry will be just as awesome.

[Warlock 279]

Buzzy - Nice collection of reference there. Models looking good so far, I love the raked out front end. Novian's right, you need to do a render for kicks in of your Death Dealer on it.

lampshadehead - Thanks. :) Cars aren't so bad, characters are more challenging I think.

FrZnChAoS - Thanks. Should interesting to watch yours progress with all the steps. Definitely coming along well, and starting to look pretty cool.

VersionThirst - Yep, the interior should get the full work up, roll cage, etc, tri limit permitting of course.

You vehicles looking pretty good. I think you could clean it up some and smooth out some things yet tho like FrZnChAoS suggested before you get too far into mapping it. For instance, I think you've got an extra loop on the inside of the wheels, I'm not sure you'd be able to notice a difference, with or without it once you get either a normal or a bump map on there, since its not a curve that will show in the silhouette at all, and I think the top arch over the cockpit could use an extra segment or two, as that will stand out very clearly in the silhouette. Stuff like that, you've got the tris, might as well use 'em.

McKronic - Thanks. You mock up looks good. The seat reminds me a bit more of a captains chair on the bridge of a large vessel more so than the pilots seat in a cockpit, I think it works alright tho.

vlad_flyzzz - That's looking sweet. I really dig the hexagons in the wings, as well as the various modes.

Novian - Secrets? No secret really, just a matter of being careful with my edges. LW doesn't have smoothing groups, or anything really even remotely similar unfortunately. The only way to do it is to actually unweld the mesh along the edges you want to be sharp, which is what I did in post #106 so it looked a little nicer. That creates two different vertex normals since there's now two verts there tho they share the same XYZ space, that's all smoothing groups really do, at least from what I've read about them.

In the top half of the below image here, you can see what it looks like if I don't unweld any of the edges. I highlighted some of the smoothing issues I'll need to address when I do my final clean up, but that's a ways off yet. And budget depending, I'll probably add some small bevels to some of the edges as well to refine the smoothing even more in places.

Right now the whole mesh is set to smooth anything less than 30 degrees, so its just a matter of making sure I have angles sharper than that to break the smoothing. Example, the blue lines on the hood; on the actual car the angle is much lower, well below my smoothing threshold, so I took some artistic license and adjusted their angle/height so that they'd work. I made some other design tweaks as well for the sake of getting it to smooth properly.

In the bottom half of the attached image, each color would be equivalent to a smoothing group, so its just a matter of selecting by color, cutting and pasting back the geometry to break the smoothing along the edges. In the end I should have it sorted so that I don't have to unweld anything and it'll still smooth properly. Hope that makes sense.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w303/Warlock279/Mini%20Tutorials/Warlock279-GPxCarDEMO_01.jpg

TonyClifton - Ah, convertible, gotcha, sounds good.

Oltskul - Good to see you're back up and going then. Looks like you've caught back up to where you were easily enough.

tb1alexc - While I was liking your other truck, I think this one's better yet.

Darchand - Congrats on your 100th. That looks pretty good. Could certainly be interesting to see something along those lines done for this challenge.

[McKronic]

Warlock - Thanks ! I went ahead and modified the design a little bit, the head rest might be a little too high poly.

Still trying to work out the mechanics of the cockpit, the dash is blocked out though still need to do the final modeling on all of this stuff im going vrazy trying to figure this all out but i'll get it.

[FrZnChAoS]

More updates. :)

[lampshadehead]

Don't have time to comment much right now, I'm heading off to bed.. Everyone is doing awesome!!

Here's some more progress and some mock up of the weapons and whatnot.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

don't want to see Warlock make an earth car all by himself, so, think I may blend a few of these ideas together.

[VersionThirst]

Warlock 279 - Thanks for the help and advice. I went ahead and got rid of unnecessary tris, and added some to places that needed more.

Novian - Went ahead and added pedals for steering, not so viewable on this latest screen grab, but they're in there.

Latest (and maybe final) model.

[Joseph Pomeisl]

I'm also in with an earth car; wait'll you see the junker...

[Buzzy]

Warlock - Looking awesome so far. Nice classic muscle car lines. Lightwave? I can tell your from the Boro...I don't think anyone else in the world still uses LW. :)

FrZnChAoS - Crazy. Cool, but crazy. Looks really awesome so far.

VersionThirst - Very rad so far. I don't think the wheel/hover combo would actually be practical but it looks neato. Perhaps it would have been better to reverse it and put the hover in the rear. Awesome model though.

lampshadehead - hahaha. wicked. Looks great, but I would have probably box-modelled it rather than try to piece together seperate body panels.

McKronic - Very nice. I think the seats look rather uncomfortable though. For a vehicle I would imagine they would be more reclined. Looks like something from the Jetsons.


I've been laying out all the piping for the engine. Can you say "Intercooled Twin Turbo?"

[CaseyD2K]

This comp is going to be a little complicated balancing both the driver and the Vehicle but if I keep the motivated pace I have been going, I might luck out and finish both!

Had some free time today during my lunch break so i worked on this little tidbit. Once I have the whole shape blocked out i'm going to go back in and adjust the proportions and try to make it look more fierce. I tell you what though, 20,000 triangles is a lot to work with! I'm still a ways off from being done but i'm only looking at about 2500 so far.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/CaseyD2k/Jeep_Screen.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/CaseyD2k/Jeep_WIP_.jpg

Everyone's entries are looking pretty sweet so far! I'm lovin that smart car Lampeshadehead!

[McKronic]

Added in back grill, finished wings, added details to the console.

[Oltskul]

great progress everyone!
Iam realy use to save to new file in few minutes :) thats great advantage. but on the other hand, if it is larger project, it is growing large on HDD...

[Beriadan]

Hi all! It has been a wile seens I have last post. But I was very buisy with some stuff. So today I've saw the new threedy and it was a nice surprise. I have been working on somthin similar in the past week for a project at the university. My topic is a book cover and I've choosed to go with "The moons of Jupiter". I have to do it in photo shop but I've went for 3d that I'm going to render and develop in photo shop. So coz the topic is similar I'm going to post it nad if I have time I'm going to do something special for dis threedy challenge!

[Beriadan]

and there is another one I allmost forgot:

[Novian]

Warlock: Yeah that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain. So how do you like Lightwave?

FrZnChAoS: Looking great man. It's really comming along nicely. :)

Cheers~!

[Orrin Hogan]

WOW!! I've been snowboarding in vermont the last 4 days so I see I've missed a lot, I'm going to have some catching up to do! ....I'm in!!!!!! I'm thinking either some sort of Hot rod Cop, or futuristic ****** rocket!

[FrZnChAoS]

lampshadehead: reminds me of one of those smart cars armed to the teeth.

versionthirst: looks like you evened out your poly distribution through your model, looks great.

buzzy: that engine looks pretty complicated in its simple stages, will be wicked when you refine everything.

caseyD2k: Looks solid, do you plan on doing the interior/ back cab as a separate mesh? Could be a nightmare to have to keep that many segments running smoothly through when your trying to get the intial shape down.

mckronic: do we get a 3d vid with the end of time music playing?

-------------

At this point im kind of in the fine detail stages. So the updates after this will be spaced out so noticeable progress can even be seen. Decided to change the ships main gun and rocket launcher since there style was kinda lame. Modeled the flesh hook and placed the vehicle in the last panel to get ready to run the electric cables through. Getting close to zbrush time :).

Oh and 100th post :P

[Buzzy]

FrZnChAoS - Hey this is looking really cool. Any chance we could get some bigger close-up images so we can see it better?

[nik_t]

Wow, big progress since I had posted lately. It's good to see those polys turning V-Engines monsters, didn't really expect that many wheel rides. i like them all. Also Fantastic works like FrZnChAoS really kicks one's brain.
VersionThirst also, awesome design. Wouldn't feel relaxed to ride one, though.

Oltskul I'm glad you did make it to get back on track - get this BondToy ready ;]

I'am suffering the lack of time so still in the basic phase, also having problem with complicating my project ;] luckly the driver's skeleton fitted into the cockpit, so still chance it will be driven. Just added the Front nonaxis suspension rotable, front section horizontal thrust ducts and intakes. I am stack with wings shape and main thrust nozzle, so any ideas welcomed.

Lucky loops and smooth polys to all.
nik

PS as I was always wondering and I see it in attached pic - Can anyone tell the rookie what does/is/means the bounding box around unselected GreenFrontSuspension shape? It is a parent to the tires - could it be Parent marker? thx

[omnicypher]

Nik T: ive had that unselected bounding box glitch before, i dont know if it means anything, but if you copy the object, and delete the original, it might get rid of it. or you could just remodel the part, it is only 28 tris after all.

Mckronic: nice dashboard, the whole concept is really comming together.

FrZnChAoS: interesting design, i cant wait to see how it will be textured.

beriadan: i almost forgot aerodynamics arent important in space, but you could use some giant rockets, or maybe even a solar sail, and the planets atmosphere could use a few more layers to get more of a fade effect.

CaseyD2K: cool truck, the wheels seem a little too round on the corners, but tire tread might fix that up. also the door would smooth better if you modeled it more like a grid, rather than having all the edges meet at the center.

Buzzy: nice engine, those twin turbos look sweet! i have to make some piping myself, and i was wondering how you did them. it seems like when i use a bend modifier, it pinches my cylinder, and i was thinking a spline might work, but i havent tried it yet.

warlock: sweet mustang, maybe you could try ditching the ancient wheels for some hover mechanisms, like the back to the future delorean.

as for me, ive been real sick lately, and i havent had time to work on this much. maybe this weekend ill get somthing done.

[Buzzy]

omni - i used splines. Draw out the path of the pipe with a spline. Then, the spline has some settings called "rendering". This will turn it into a mesh tube. Once you get it the way you like it, just convert to an editable poly. Voila!

[FrZnChAoS]

Heres a full screen grab.

nik_t: looks pretty blocked out at this point. looks like your at the detailing stage now.

[lampshadehead]

Thanks CaseyD2K :) I like the progress on the jeep so far. Looks like Hammerhead for sure :D

FrZnChAoS: That's exactly what it's supposed to be so that's a great compliment. Thanks very much. Your entry is looking great. You're definately making good use of the poly limit.

Buzzy: Thanks, and thanks for the suggestion. I took a stab at box modelling it and it didn't go too well. I must just need more practice at it.

nik_t: That looks really cool so far.

Big Toe: Interesting variation in reference images. Put together right that car could be really awesome.

[Noodles]

Still haven't come up with a concept I really like...hopefully I can come up with one in the next few days.

[drGrim]

awesome stuff!! omg these are impressive. and this thread is so active. im gonna make a driver and if i have time i'll make a car to compete too. keep it up guys!

[Oltskul]

Noodless: TVR Tuscan!
( http://images.google.cz/images?q=tvr+tuscan&um=1&hl=cs&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:cs:official&sa=N&imgsz=huge )

[vlad_flyzzz]

I've worked some more on the vehicle, added geometry and smoothed the shape where needed. I also reworked most of the joint mechanisms and now they work like they supposed to.

However, all of the articulations took their toll on the polycount. And I still have to keep in mind all the effects I'm planning to add (the hexagonal plasma sails, jet fire and smoke, etc) add up to the final polycount, I'm afraid I won't be able to model a cockpit.

[Novian]

vlad_flyzzz: Looking great man. The joints look alot better. sorry if my suggestion caused resource troubles. You might be able to save a few on the wheels with a normal map though. Keep up the good work!

[MattColes]

does it count if i design a police car and officer that goes into high speed chasers against dragsters in this comp, or is this out of lines with the rules?

[Oltskul]

Iam going tio say goodbye for three days... Ill be on internet and computer free place:D like last weekend :D
so goodbye and nice modeling to everyone :D

[poopipe]

omni - i used splines. Draw out the path of the pipe with a spline. Then, the spline has some settings called "rendering". This will turn it into a mesh tube. Once you get it the way you like it, just convert to an editable poly. Voila!

also, turn on the automatic mapping tickybox in the editable spline to save hassle later on

[CaseyD2K]

Hey everyone got some updates here! I still have to fine tune a bit, but I started adding some smaller details to my jeep!

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/CaseyD2k/Jeep_Update.gif

I'm debating whether I want to keep the back open or do a half cover. I really want to show off the interior since I plan on modeling the seats and stuff. The doors can swing open and the hood opens up too to reveal and engine I haven't modeled yet! I'm having a lot of fun with this Jeep so far it's got a lot of variety.

Warlock 279 - That ride is lookin pretty sweet!

Vlad_Flyzzz - Your vehicle is coming together real nice, I'm sure if you went through and optimized a bit you could find some places to reduce that geometry and make room for a cockpit for your final count.

FrznChaos - Thanks for the suggestions, the tires in the original pic were just placeholders, I plan on going in and and actually modeling some full blown heavy duty tread. That chariot is coming along real nice too!

Lampshadehead - Thanks! I did a lot of research on the cars and Hammerhead was my favorite looking one, so I went the off-road route.

People are totally rockin' this comp, I see a potentially heavy turnout! A lot of people have the jump start to make it to the end.

[Buzzy]

Looks really good Casey. I imagine a turret-mounted howitzer in the back.
The first thing I would suggest is that you make those wheels MUCH higher res....at least 32-sided instead of 12. 12-sided wheels are PS1 quality. Wheels that big need to read especially well in silhouette.

[CaseyD2K]

Looks really good Casey. I imagine a turret-mounted howitzer in the back.
The first thing I would suggest is that you make those wheels MUCH higher res....at least 32-sided instead of 12. 12-sided wheels are PS1 quality. Wheels that big need to read especially well in silhouette.

Thanks! I was just thinking about mounting a turret to the back this morning! i was thinking about manning it with a Koala too! haha! The wheels are still placeholders for now, I have every intention of going in and beefing up those wheels to a monstrous degree like in my ref!

[theaquarianspac]

As soon as I saw this comp I thought Mad Max. God I loved those movies :drool:.

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/2589/grandprixcomp011609wk3.jpg (http://img165.imageshack.us/my.php?image=grandprixcomp011609wk3.jpg)

I started on my entry only reading part of the req's :wall:. I don't usually do concepts I just start modeling whatevers in my head. Was wondering if its possible to skip the concept for the final post. if not I guess I could do some kind of drawing afterwards.

[Buzzy]

I'm pretty sure the concept is more or less optional. If not, then you should just collect a bunch of Mad Max images into a collage (since that is your inspiration)

[silverflame]

Here's a grab of the vehicle i started working on today after finishing all of this semesters projects woo a week off lol

Decided against weapons and am going for pure brute force and giant proportions to flatten the other drivers. Wheels are just place holders atm they'll have more detail when finished. And there will be more indications of a mega engine.

Put a base mesh human in as a scale

[BiG ToE-3DT]

concepts are not needed

[Warlock 279]

McKronic - The seats are looking good. Are the two in the back strictly passenger or will they have some co-piloting duties as well? Control cluste looks pretty good as well. Anyway, I'm loving the look of this so far, with the cables and what not, should shape up to be pretty sweet.

FrZnChAoS - That's coming along great. Are thos guns in the front of the pod? Mighten they wind up shooting the creature in the back of the head?

lampshadehead - Looks good. I like the spikes on the lower front. That machine guns massive, where's the ammo for it stored? ;p

BiG ToE - Not sure what you've got in mind, but it should be an interesting marriage betwixt those to cars.

VersionThirst - Very nicely done, very nicely done indeed, looks worlds better now! You took the whole model up a notch. :)

Buzzy - Indeed, LW has become a bit of an endagered creature it would seem. Looks good. Intercooled, twin turbos on a bike?!?! Now that sir, is a racing machine!

Beriadan - Looks interesting. Should be fun to see how you deck it out with weapones etc.

Novian - No problem, glad to help when I can. I've got no qualms with LW, it serves my purpose for modelling/rendering, and I can get enough of a rig in my models to pose them, so it works for me.

nik_t - Lookig good. I think you've managed to block it out quite nicely.

omnicypher - Is no Mustang, is Challenger. ;p I really did consider losing the wheels, I just couldn't find a look I liked with out 'em I'm afraid. So, for the time being at least, I'll be wasting 3500 triangles on archaic alloys and rubber.

vlad_flyzzz - Coming along well. You could clean a lot out of the wheels if you wanted. Some of the detail you've got modeled in there will show, and other might not.

MattColes - I don't see why you couldn't do that, or have your officer enter as a racer at the very least.

CaseyD2K - Thanks. You jeep is coming along nicely. I can't wait to see what you do with the tires. You might want to worry less about modeling an engine, and more about an undercarriage. The idea of a lifted jeep makes for a very exposed under carriage, so you'll probably have to pay that at least some attention, and leave room for it in your budget.

theaquarianspac - Looks cool, certainly very Mad Max.

silverflame - Reminds me a bit of an ant eater! Looks like its got a lot of potential to become something pretty slick. And going from the scale ref...its certainly pretty massive. You considered six wheels for it [budget depending]? All the better for flattening the competition.



Update on my end. Got a new set of wheels and fresh rubber on there. Fooled with the trim and tweaked the front end some. 7500 tris or so now. Lots to do yet.

[Buzzy]

Wow dude....that is one SLICK car. Are you planning on normal mapping it?

[CaseyD2K]

theaquarianspac - That car totally rocks! Can't wait to see it done! Awesome!

Silverflame - At the moment it almost looks like an ant-eater on wheels! Rockin!

[Noodles]

After a few hours of modeling, this is what I have so far.

It's basically going to be a modified Hover Lamborghini.

The back wheels have been removed in this early prototype, while the front wheel sockets remain.

[Buzzy]

Looking good so far Noodles. The rear end makes it look like a station wagon...or a minivan.

Here's my bike so far. Nearly done with the modelling. Unwrapping is going to be awful.

Time to spend some time working on the rider.

[Noodles]

Done for tonight.

[Stereo-Kid]

I started on my entry only reading part of the req's :wall:. I don't usually do concepts I just start modeling whatevers in my head. Was wondering if its possible to skip the concept for the final post. if not I guess I could do some kind of drawing afterwards.

Just do a paintover of your model. :)

[hulahuga]

I'm just wondering, haven't anyone thought of the Star wars speeders from the first movie??

Those with respective drivers would be awesome! Also the vehicles from Wipeout could be cool too.

[FrZnChAoS]

Heres, my second attempt at sculpting a model. Learned quite a bit of new tricks this time around. Might go in and play with it a bit more, but otherwise im pretty happy with it. Now onto the ship unwrap/sculpt.

[Tetsuya]

Still alot of work to do >.<

[Noodles]

Well here's my model, it's basically done...however, I might redo the whole thing and start from scratch. The mesh got kinda chaotic and messed up in some areas.

[VersionThirst]

Huge change of design.

Noodles - Really cool shape but all the edges are really soft. Maybe after you remake it, crease some edges to make it look harder.

Tetsuya - Awesome model so far, coming along great.

FrZnChAoS - Awesome sculpt, hope the normal map comes through clean on your low poly version.

Buzzy - Really clean model. Are the spokes cylinder geometry or flat planes? Or could you even just go with an alphaed texture?

Warlock 279 - Very nice lines and shape for the exterior; can't wait to see the guts.

theaquarianspac - Looking really tough, would not want to face that. Nice model. If you have the extra tris, you might want to round out the wheels a little.

CaseyD2K - Awesome jeep, your edgeflow on the doors gets a little messy, but I guess as long as it doesn't show on the final model, it works.

vlad_flyzzz - Looks great. Wonder if the supports from the base to the wheels would be able to support the weight, looks a little thin.

McKronic - Sleek design, I'd assume the spheres and cylinders are placeholders for something awesome to come.

lampshadehead - Nice little death coupe.


As for my latest update, I've completely re-designed it. After rethinking some things, and with the help here, the last design really wasn't working. The wheels in the back, hover in the front combo just wasn't functional, not to mention the torturous way you have to drive it.

The new design keeps the dual magnet-powered rear wheels and puts actual wheels in the front and includes the monstrous magnet engine (based off of a real magnet motor) that would power the back wheels. I also decided to mount the gun up top and make it large (for destruction purposes :) ) The driver and engine are under bullet-proof glass.

[Darchand]

Well while it has a long ways to go and doesn't even compare to what has already been posted I thought I would show you what I have done so far.

[lampshadehead]

theaquarianspac: That Mad Max style car is looking totally awesome. It has tons of character for that poly level. IS it going to say really low poly like that?
Warlock: Thanks :D The ammo is going to be housed behind the drivers seats and fed to the gun by a chain feeder! Muwahahaha!
Buzzy: That's really awesome. Great work on the bike and good luck with the unwrapping. How many tris did it work out to be?
Tetsuya: That bike is looking awesome! I love designs like that. How many tris?
Noodles: Nice idea with the model, and parts of it are looking really good. You could easily double the number of polies and be under the limit, and then you'd have a lot more edges to smooth out the fenders etc.
VisionThirst: THe new redesign is sweet. That magnetic engine is really cool to see.
Darchand: Great start. It looks like a chop top for sure. Keep working away at it and I'm sure it'll turn out great.

[Buzzy]

FrZnChAoS - Sweet monster so far. Is that like a Zerg or Tyrannid or something?
Tetsuya - The shape and design is looking really cool, but its still pretty early to tell
Noodles - Are you using meshsmooth or turbosmooth? I would have to recommend against using them. Your design looks like its got definate potential, but the model is still a bit too rough.
VersionThirst - I love the details. I'm undecided about how much I like the overall shape of the car though. And is that a model train engine?
lampshadehead - Right now my bike is sitting just shy of 13k tris. I still have a few bits to add, but it won't end up anywhere near 20k.

[tb1alexc]

Everyone's entries are looking really awesome so far! Well done folks.

VersionThirst, that motor looks pretty awesome. Wouldn't it be better to spend more tris on the general shape of the vehicle itself, though? As there are some very jagged edges in places ;)

Noodles, looks awesome but I agree with what everyone else has said, it looks smoothed out and there are no sharp lines.

Here's some progress on mine:

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/9742/gp5qi5.png

[vicban3d]

Finally had some time to work on this. I am curently at around 7,000 tris and thinking what to add so I can use as much of the tris limit as possible. Here is how it looks so far:

[FrZnChAoS]

Tetsuya: Looks great so far, solid edge flow.

Noodles: Looks to me that you through a mesh smooth on top of your mesh with the way the edges are rounding like that. With such a huge tri limit you should just cut your loops in by hand and make your curves a lot more smooth. Hopefully you didnt collapse your stack :P

VersionThirst: I like the redesign you came up with, makes it a much more plausible vehicle. If you have any triangles left I would spend them smoothing out areas like your front bumper, less your going for a real rigid look there. That engine is pretty intense.

Darchand: coming along nicely, is that a normal map on the wheels or is that modeled in?

tb1alexc: that gun is huge! Pretty cool so far.

vicban3d: could use some of those extra tris and smooth out the teeth on the vehicle. What goes on the top where its still all smooth?

[Darchand]

lampshadehead: thanks for the kind words. I will hopefully have an update by the end of the day.

Oh yeah it is chopped also channeled :)

FrZnChAoS: thank you, the tires were actually modeled out like that but I decided to take the detail on the down because they shot my poly count way up.


A little side note. I am looking for a good gun to mount to the front but can't seem to pin the right type. There will be no hood and the engine is in the rear so plenty of room up there for one. If you guys have any ideas let me know.

[silverflame]

Here is where I'm at think thats about it so going to start unwrapping and texturing in the next few days, thankfully theres no uni work for the next week so it should give me time to do it ^^

[Warlock 279]

Buzzy - Thanks, I can't take too much credit for the car design, at least some of it ought to go to Dodge. I just made it a little more "agressive" if you will.

Normal maps, nope 'fraid not. my old version of LW only supports world space, and I've not had much success with that [probably work alright on a solid object like a car tho]. So I just stick with the old-skool greyscale bump maps and careful use of smoothing angles. :)

Your bike is look pretty sweet. Have you thought about trying a sissy bar on it? I'm usually not a fan of them, but as stretched out as your bike is, one might just work for ya. I trust the "nearly done with the modeling" covers the need yet for brake levers and foot pegs/rests? ;)

Noodles - Not bad, I wouldn't start from scratch design wise, keep what you've got now, and just rebuild the mesh. They do have potential to get a bit messy if you're designing as you go, so sometimes a re-build is in order. I think, once cleaned up, you've got a pretty decent vehicle.

hulahuga - I started out going for something along the lines of the cars from F-Zero, but it just wasn't working for me, and I came back to something more traditional. F-Zero and Wipeout both have some pretty slick vehicles.

FrZnChAoS - That looks pretty good. I kinda want to see some skin stretched and pulled where the hooks are digging into it tho. Maybe I'm just sick and twisted like that tho. :D

Tetsuya - Ah yes, much work left for you to do, but what you've got so far is looking really nice.

VersionThirst - Thanks, glad you like it.

Your new design is pretty cool. I love the engine, and the gun up top is awesome. The front end looks a little awkward tho, for lack of a better word, it seems very function before form, which is alright, but a couple little tweaks could go a long way towards making it more interesting design wise as well, here's couple suggestions anyway, if you're interested, maybe get you started on some other ideas as well. I hope you don't my mucking about with your image, but I was in the mood to paint a little.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w303/Warlock279/Mini%20Tutorials/VersionThirst-Paintover_01.jpg

Darchand - A starts a start. Looks good so far. :)

tb1alexc - Given the sense of scale I was getting from your vehicle, that gun must be absolutely massive. Like revolving howitzers! Just hope my car can manage to star outta the way of it, that's for sure.

vicban3d - Looking good. Perhaps, a few wires, or some tubing somewhere. For all intents and purposes, your vehicle isn't too complex so there might not be a need for all 20k triangles, you don't need to use them all afterall. Round out what shapes can use it, and call it a day.

silverflame - SPOILER! It needs a spoiler or two half spoilers in the back. Looking pretty cool, I like where you went with it. I like the wheel design, you could probably clean up the inside of the wheels some yet tho. That would free up some polygons for a, um, spoiler?

[Feel free to ignore me babbling about spoilers, I'm just in a spoiler type mood]

[Noodles]

Ok, thanks for the comments. I am going to go ahead and redo the whole mesh, the design will remain pretty much the same though.

Found a bunch of very good reference images.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

ended up going straight 57 Chevy/Caddy. Still needs bumpers and whatnot. Then when the basic shape/look is done, I'll add some futury type stuff.

[Tetsuya]

Bike with and without body
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b132/windreaver6/ThreedyChallenges/Bike2.jpg
I'm currently working on finishing most of the body and than going back into the details with what tris i have left, so far it has a circular engine, intake pipes, fuel tank, and mediocre suspension. currently around 6100 tris without the wheels

still more work to be done D:

[Chung Wong]

Wow, everyone seems to be making huge amounts of progress. I've made a start but it's not really worth showing. Still not really sure which idea to choose. I orignally wanted to make my all time favorite car, the Ford Mustang (67 model) but like the new shapes too, but then I brought Doug Chiangs art book and would love make my take on his racer. Any ideas guys as I can't make my mind up :wall:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh61/oivanwong/ideas.jpg

[Joseph Pomeisl]

Lots of great stuff going on here - really neat to see this much going on:)
Chung Wong: Tough call. The concept car is really neat. If you're just doing the vehicle than pick which one you like best - if doing both, then use the one that'll best fit your character. (Thanks, Captain Obvious)
Tetsuya: Great start as usual; really hope you finish this one.
Big-Toe:Nice. Love that car. Will we be seeing a greaser?
FrZnChAoS: cool concept. Wondering if there's a place for the driver in the rear section or would they ride on the beast?
Warlock: Great job. I was curious what program you use - didn't recognize that swirly logo from anywhere.
Buzzy: Killer bike. I imagine everyone's unwrapping will be quite the pain.
Poopipe: Where are you!? Cool new avatar.
'1960 Saab 96'. Wasted too much time on the interior - there's glovebox,radio,dials,tuners,ashtray,shifter,pedals ,e-brake,vents that'll most likely never be seen. Planning on reworking the exterior a bit, clean it up, and get things more rounded out.

[Darchand]

silverflame: I love the design but something is missing I can’t seem to place my finger on. It might be the back area. You could easily add some thing there.

vicban3d: Nice organic design. I think it reminds me of the green goblins hoverer. If you adding more I can’t wait to see what it ends up looking like.

tb1alexc: I said before I liked your other design more but now this one has owned it completely with that gigantic gun. Looks good!

VersionThirst: Just wow on it over all. There is one small thing I can’t get past though. Why does the gun need a sight when the driver can’t even use it?

Noodles: Love the style but I agree with previous comments on it being far too smooth. Can’t wait to see your new mesh.

Tetsuya: That thing is wild. No crits just keep up the good work.

FrZnChAoS: I love the originality of yours. I can hardly wait to see the finished products.

CaseyD2K: Looking good but the grill doesn’t look quiet right.

theaquarianspac: Nice work. It looks like you captured the spirit of the mad max cars.

Warlock 279: That thing is so clean. Of course no crits. Beautiful work man!

Buzzy: I feel for you on the unwrapping. The model is absolutely beautiful though.


Joseph Pomeisl: The shaded looked nice on that model. I am a fan of early 90 model saabs but this one should be cool. I would say don’t sweat the small details especially those that will go completely unseen.

Big Toe: Nice Bel Air


Well here is my little update. Tomorrow I should have a engine (you will only see part of it) as well as a gun hooked up. There should also be some other smaller details and some cleaning up. Hope you guys like :)

[Noodles]

Ok guys, here's the new mesh (From scratch) so far. All the basic elements are pretty much there...I might add some more features later though.

Right now all of the normals are hardened in the image, just so you know :halo:

Next step is to start adding the details and smoothing out parts etc.

- I don't know how to make normal maps, so hopefully that wont kill me in the end. I can make bumps maps...maybe not good ones.


- I'm liking this model a lot more than the previous.

[Orrin Hogan]

Wow, everyone seems to be making huge amounts of progress. I've made a start but it's not really worth showing. Still not really sure which idea to choose. I orignally wanted to make my all time favorite car, the Ford Mustang (67 model) but like the new shapes too, but then I brought Doug Chiangs art book and would love make my take on his racer. Any ideas guys as I can't make my mind up :wall:

I would go with the speedy racer pic on top, it goes with the premise of the comp theme as explained by big toe "it should be able to withstand bullets/turnovers/ & teenage drivers" besides its more creative that way rather then just modeling something that already been invented.... But that's just my opinion

[Thormyth]

heya

better late then never ;) here is the refrence that is the inspiration for my idea. hope ya guys like it :P i dont know if i make the driver like a space marine.. i think to make it different

http://kcdoorn.nl/images/ivo/portfolio/m1252529_99120101050_Ravenwingbikesqdmain_873x627. jpg

[tb1alexc]

Hey folks, here's an update:

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/9783/gp6op9.png

7.5k polies right now, there are some pipes at the back too that you can't see in this shot.

One question... what are the rules for 20,000 tris? As I'm modelling in quads at the moment, do I have to convert the entire mesh to triangles?

[Darchand]

tb1alexc: the model can remain quads in fact viewing the quads makes it easier to see the quality of the model rather than triangles. I would just say look at the other competitions and what people have done before. So long as it is 20k triangles or less it is good.

Hope that helps and your model is looking good :)

[tb1alexc]

Cheers bud. I've just run a triangle count, currently at 14k or so tris which is very cool as I can add quite a bit more. That, and I haven't optimized anything yet! I'm enjoying this new freedom with polies, as before I was creating vehicles with 1 - 2k tris max.

[omnicypher]

noodles: great looking car you have there! will you model the interior?

joseph pomeisl: nice flow on that car, but it doesnt look very fast... maybe a giant rocket on the back could help?

FrZnchaos: your sculpt is getting a little blobby, maybe these could give you some ideas as far as detailing and texturing goes:

http://www.gameartisans.org/gamecon/galleries/artwork.php?uid=7064&aw=2265
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=60271

[Oltskul]

ouch...everything looks so great:dance:
but mine is crappy:
some progres for now:
HyperCharge and engine -i don´t know how does it look like properly :( :D -
and some weheels :D
131174
131175

[Darchand]

I think I am done with the mesh. I will probably leave it alone till the weekend.

[Buzzy]

Chung - Are you finally getting in on this? Can't wait to see what you can knock out.
Joseph - Looks very good so far. Although, the first thing I notice is that you could probably spend some more polys to make the headlights rounder.
Noodles - Much better. Very futuristic looking in an 80s sort of way...somewhere between a DeLorean and a Countach.
tb1alexc - that is one badass gun. But I can't help but notice the seeming lack of anywhere for a driver to sit.
BigToe - The 57 Chevy look definately works for a vehicle combat game. Nice.
Oltskul - The engine and supercharger look good. The rest of the vehicle still needs more detail
Darchand - this looks hella cool. I think the body could use some more detail. If your already up against the limit, you can definately remove some loops from the wheels and the tail pipes. As a very practical person, I gotta ask why he has straight pipes coming out of the top of the engine as well as tail pipes? Seems redundant.

[tb1alexc]

Buzzy - haha, I was just getting to that part. Had to wait until I'd removed the mirror modifier first, so that's why it wasn't there in the beginning. Here's a render with AAO:

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9631/gp7oj7.png

As you can see I've just started to work on smoothing in some areas. I think the texturing is where this beast will come alive though, providing I'm good enough. There is an interior in there, just in case anyone's wondering. The whole thing sits at just short of 16k, which is pretty cool.

Everyone else's are looking great, can't see what else you come up with guys!

Oltskul - Looking good! Now start getting your hands dirty and really dig into the details on that body!

Tetsuya - looking fantastic mate. Like the engine a lot!

Chung Wong - I'd go with the flying car, but what ever you choose I'm sure it'll be awesome!

Joseph - that looks brilliant. Like Buzzy said, I'd rework the headlights a bit though. You've got the polies for it by the looks of things!

Thormyth - sweet! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Darchand - very well done, that's a great model. Will you be going all out with rust normal maps / spec maps etc?

Warlock - don't know how I missed your car before! Looks like something out of GRID or GT5, wonderful modelling. What sort of weapons / texturing are you going to be going for?

Keep it up folks!

[Warlock 279]

BiG ToE-3DT - Looks ace so far. Pretty tidy, can't wait to see what you do with from here.

Tetsuya - Looking good, keep pluggin'. :)

Chung Wong - Nice to see you jumping in. I really dig that top image. That's a pretty slick concept. If you're really torn between the two, you could always make the top one a little more blocky and incorporate some of the Mustangs design elements as well.

Joseph Pomeisl - Looks good. Clean up what you're going to, and get some weapons on there, and I think your set.

Darchand - Thanks, I do my best no to waste too many tris. Your models looking quite nice. I hope that's not the gas tank exposed out front, might not be a bad idea for you to cover that up, for your drives sake, don't want it catching any stray bullets. I really like the little fenders on the back wheels, those are pretty cool.

Noodles - Nicely done! Looks much better now. Given your tri count and the allowed budget you could probably work in some more segments on some of the curves if you wanted to make them a little rounder. You plan to do any sort of interior?

Thormyth - Better late than never indeed, welcome! There's still plenty of time for you to get rolling on this challenge. Warhammer's always a great place to get ideas. Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

tb1alexc - You don't have to convert the mesh to triangles necessarily, but you do have to count your geometry in triangles. So 10k quads = 20k triangles. Darchand's is right, it is easier to look at quads.

I like the cockpit, but I have to question if the driver can actually see anything out of there? Might not be a bad idea to sit it up a little higher. To the point that it sits about as high above the rear fender as its currently sitting above the front one, no need to go too high with it. Sitting a little higher would also break the symmetry of the silhouette which certainly isn't a bad thing. Maybe a few ladder rungs for climbing up into that beast as well?

Thanks. :) I'll probably be giving it a two small caliber/single barrel machine guns mounted down in the lower grill for shooting out tires, and one double barrel machine gun on the roof for shooting everything else, nothing too extensive. Texturing, I'm not totally sure yet, but it won't be glossy car paint, that's for sure.

[Darchand]

Thanks guys the crits and comments are always very welcome.

Buzzy: The pipes on the top are actually suppose to be air intakes however it is easy to see how they might be mistaken as exhausts pipes. I might take out the pipes on the bottom of the car for that reason, plus they are not really doing anything for the model.

Also I have 1k triangles left. If you see an area specifically that I can improve I am sure I can spend them and still have some left over.

tb1alexc: Thank you for the comment. Jeez yours looks like it couldn't even be dented like a monstrous futuristic tank.

As far as textures I am not sure how far I will take it. I would do them with directX in real time but I don't know of an opacity shader I can use for that and I have area's that will use opacity maps.

Warlock: Just look at the driver as one hard core dude. Not only is that big tank up there the gas tank but you see that little bottle up front to? Yep that's a nitrous bottle.

[Tetsuya]

Still Alot of work to be done D: and i have midterms soon
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b132/windreaver6/ThreedyChallenges/bike3-1.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b132/windreaver6/ThreedyChallenges/Bike3-2.jpg

To Do List:
-Wheels
-Rest of Body
-Handles
-Fangs
-Detailing

Good luck to everyone :]

[Warlock 279]

Oltskul - Sorry, I missed ya in my last post. :o That big block and blower are looking pretty good. I think the body is coming along alright, it could probably be a little tidier, but I think that's something that can wait till later. Like Noodles ran into, sometimes when you're designing as you go, you don't end up with the best flow you can have and the shape can get a little wonky, so a bit of a rebuild may be in order later on. But I think you're doing fine for the time being.

Tetsuya - Sweet update. I really like how this is shaping up. I'm loving the engine and all the details "under the hood" I hope they'll be visible when all is said and done. From a technical standpoint, I'd be a little worried about the rider's head snapping back and hitting the element behind him, maybe shorten it some, so it doesn't come up quite so high.

Darchand - Haha, must be if he's riding around with an exposed N2O tank as well.

[Chung Wong]

Hey everyone, wow, there are a lot more entries than I had thought there would be, it's nice to see everyone make such promising starts :). I've decided to go with the Mustang (67) The safe boring option, as I started making the space thing last night (Doug Chiang's concept) I felt that I'd be more comfortable making the Mustang as it's something I wanted to do for awhile now. I'm planning on making a high poly model so I have something to bake maps on, but nobody seems to be doing this... Am I going about it the wrong way I wonder? Not really made anything like this before and I'm sure it's going to be tough to pull off. Anyway's...

Buzzy: Hey dude, yeah, finally pull my finger out and started this. Your bike is awesome. Really looking forwards to seeing the final image. You going to make a high poly for normal maps? or create them through ps? Anyway, looking forwards to testing out your shader some more. Planning on trying the skin shader too for tires and seats etc... I'm interested in what will come out :)
Daddy oh: Cheers dude, you not in this time round?
Warnock: Thanks for the suggestions, I would take your advice but I'm pretty cr@p at concept work. Loving your car, such a nice clean mesh. Looking forwards to your textures the most.
Tb1alexc: Cheers dude. Really like the nice solid feel about your design. It's like pain dealer on wheels.
Tetsuya: Nice looking bike, you have a lot going on there. Hope you finish this as it's looking sweet.
Noodles: That's looking a lot better now. Very nice shape.
BiGtoE: That looks awesome. Very tightly modelled!
Joseph Pomeisl: That is such a nice model, it looks like you are going to finish soon too. Looking forwards to seeing some interior shots.
Darchard: Awesome madmax style buggy you have going there, Really like the mini guns and the gas tank. Very solid design.
Version Thirst: Very cool. Really interested to see how you go about the glass covering the machinery.
Vicban: Very cool bug like design.
Frznchaos: Cool approach to this, you going to stick a rider on it?
Silverflame: As very says, awesome scale. Very cool design too.
Oltskull: That's looking very promising.
Mckronic: Looking great.

I hope I didn't miss anyone out. Anyways, here's where I'm at. Just blocking out the model, there's lots of tightening up to be done...

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh61/oivanwong/mustangwip1.jpg

[FrZnChAoS]

Silverflame: Love the sense of scale and hugeness of it. The wheels came out pretty sweet.

Joseph: Looks sweet, what kind of weapons are you going to arm it with?

Darchand: Yours really has this mobster kind of look to it, really cool.

Noodles: Your redo seems to have paid off. Looks way better this time around.

Tb1alexc: Nicely detailed, cant wait to see where the driver fits into the design.

Tetsuya: Looks crazy, keep it up.

Chung Wong: Plan on doing any kind of twist on the traditional mustang?



Finally got all the normals projected. Pretty happy with how it all came out. Really at the hardest part of the project for me the texturing side... Hence why I left myself so much time. Wish me luck lol.

[Buzzy]

I just realized that the due date is Valentine weekend. That could spell doom to those with lady-friends.

[Darchand]

I just realized that the due date is Valentine weekend. That could spell doom to those with lady-friends.

I am sure most of us are safe. Or at least I know I am :(

[Noodles]

whats a lady?

[tb1alexc]

Quick update: smoothing done, and re-positioned the cockpit as Warlock suggested:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3403/gp8yr7.png

[vlad_flyzzz]

Wow, all the entries look awesome so far. This turned out to be one hell of a challenge so far, great job guys!

Here's my final mesh for the vehicle, still wonder whether or not to add the cockpit... but I could do that even later, without screwing my UV's...

[TonyClifton]

I am really slow these days, and I feel sorry about not having the time to comment on everyone´s work. I do like Darchand´s model, it is working out very well!

I am still blocking out the idea, and putting together the pieces, and for the short amount of time I have, I will go for a low-low poly version...:haha:

GOOD WORK EVERYONE!

[Orrin Hogan]

Daddy oh: Cheers dude, you not in this time round?
I am in I've just been swamped at work again our company is having an exhibition in Feb. and all the content is me and one other person. I've also been working on my wifes website which is a bit of learning process as well, I should have a concept that I drew up later today.

[CaseyD2K]

Everyone's submissions are coming along really nice! I have made some significant progress but I am pushing dangerously close to the limit at this point (19K+). I went in and did some major optimization last night and I am really hoping I can down size a bit more in order to squeeze in a few more ideas I had.

Here is the latest update (not quite complete of course), and as usual, comments and critiques are more than welcome:

Wires:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/CaseyD2k/New_Prog_Wires.jpg

Flat Shade:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/CaseyD2k/New_WorkProg.jpg

[Orrin Hogan]

My concept:

[Buzzy]

CaseyD2K: SWEET!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

Daddy OH: looks alot like Omni's idea. Yall may have to battle it out

[Orrin Hogan]

Trust me this is just a "concept" they're both indeed ****** rockets but thats all the similarities they'll have. Plus its far from a final product, I also plan on making mine a police vehicle. Besides you can watch just about any anime and find the same style, and I'm not even a fan of anime. .....But I see what your saying LOL Don't fret it'll be different, if there's one thing I truly respect it's originality!:verts:

[lampshadehead]

CaseyD2K: That's looking really rockin. Are there going to be any guns?

[Oltskul]

today mess-up progress
131224

[theaquarianspac]

short on time but thought I would throw up an update

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/3645/grandprixcompimage2gp2.jpg

as you can see still have a ways to go on this one. should be done by saturday.

Thanks for the crits. Keep'em comin'.

[Oltskul]

theaquarianspac: is that Mad Maxes interceptor, isnit it?

[katana]

So many miniguns...nice stuff everyone.

[CaseyD2K]

Buzzy - Thanks!

tb1alex - That thing is a freakin beast! I love it!

Tetsuya - That is one convoluted lookin cycle! I love the huge front end on that thing with all those electric lookin parts!

LampShadehead - Thanks! I really liked the idea that was mentioned before about mounting a mini gun in the back. I have to cut a lot of triangles though to get that in there, I'm sitting pretty close to the limit and I went a little overboard in some areas, so i'll definitely try to work that out once I go in and optimize it down a bit!

Theaquarianspac - Lookin real nice so far!

[omnicypher]

caseyD2k: wow! that model really came together! somthing about the tire tread bugs me. also if you flattened the bottoms of the tires a bit, it might add more weight to your model. everything else is looking great!

theaquarianspac: that car is awsome, will you model the door opening mechanism?

[CaseyD2K]

caseyD2k: wow! that model really came together! somthing about the tire tread bugs me. also if you flattened the bottoms of the tires a bit, it might add more weight to your model. everything else is looking great!

I totally agree with you I have a more involved design in mind for the tires before I'm done. I'll get to them after I make room in my tri count for a mini-gun in the back!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

ok, so I've got an idea, I'll give you all a hint, it's old school, meets new school. Or, history meets future. Basically, a guy takes old stuff and use current technology to make upgrades, he isn't a pro when it comes to building, but the makes it work.

[hulahuga]

Casey - Really cool truck you've got there, GJ so far!
Are you going to mount some weapon on the roof, controlled from the back or is the truck itself the weapon?

TheQuarianSpak - Nice MadMax car there :). I also like that you've squeezed as many guns in as possible :). Lots of attitude with so few polygons.

FrznChaos - Can you post all your workflow pictures in one post, they inspire me alot :). Really gives me new ideas about how to model better. Cool idea you've got there.

GJ and GL to all contestants

[Oltskul]

Freak idea of mine:
Ill sketch some turbines and hower boards :D

131247

[Noodles]

This might be hard to understand, but how can you create an interior for a vehicle and merge it with the original vehicle shell without creating non-manifold geometry?

[Oltskul]

This might be hard to understand, but how can you create an interior for a vehicle and merge it with the original vehicle shell without creating non-manifold geometry?

for me, its hard to understand this quzestion..its nothing personal, but i don´t enderstand...
please expain...;)

[Novian]

Noodles: It depends on what software you are using but I use 3DS Max and after you create the interior if you go under the Edit Poly properties you can choose "Attach" then click the body of the car and now it it one mesh. You will still need to cut,delete, and merge the edge flows so it is one congruant flow though.

Cheers~

[Chung Wong]

Awesome progress everyone. Sorry pulling out of this one, want to up the specs and I'm boring as I'm not going to do anything special to the mustang.

[omnicypher]

bigtoe: your concept is looking cool so far, it kinda reminds me of the gangsters ships on futurama.

[Darchand]

Awesome progress everyone. Sorry pulling out of this one, want to up the specs and I'm boring as I'm not going to do anything special to the mustang.

Sorry you feel that way Chung Wong. I think there is plenty that you could do with a mustang and personally liked the choice. I have always liked how the early model mustangs had a big bear like grill and front section.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

Chung Wong: you can't stop. This is the last comp before the war. You need to be ready when the fighting starts. So, hurry up and finish. See you in the final entry thread.

[Noodles]

Built the Interior.

[Stereo-Kid]

Anyone know where I can find really good VW van reference? And possibly even schematics?

[Darchand]

Anyone know where I can find really good VW van reference? And possibly even schematics?

You could say I am a VW fan and if you are wanting to make a micro bus then I would be glad to help with reference material.

here are some links that should help out.

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1865054&page=104

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1642504&page=6 (not the best but might help)

and for blue prints go here

http://www.the-blueprints.com/index.php?blueprints/cars/vw/

[Chung Wong]

I'm still up for the driver one, and I'm sticking with the car, but just want to attempt a GT5 style racer, if anyone knows the spec's I should be aiming for that would be great.

BiGToE: lol, cheers dude, don't worry. I'm just sharpening up before the Dom wars. I have threedy blood in me and we'll get the win again.

Sorry to get off the subject a bit.

[theaquarianspac]

Thanks for all the feed back everyone. Really keeps me motivated.

Oltskul: No its not the 'Big Bopper' but there are elements of it in there

omnicypher: the door is kind of rigged with a custom attribute and a set driven key so that i can model inside.

[Buzzy]

Chung: straight from the official GT website: "An average of 200,000 polygons is used to model each car"....but that is probably highly misleading.
First, I'm sure by "polygon" they mean "triangle" since the general public doesn't know the difference.
Second, my guess is that is only in the vehicle selection screen, when the engine doesn't have to render much of anything else. Hell, the PS2 could render a 200k triangle model if thats all it had to render. The actual playable vehicle is almost assuredly lower res, with lots and lots of LODs (drawing 16 cars at 200k each plus a hi-res track all in 1080p is flat out impossible...just a couple cars plus the track is probably not even possible).
Someone posted a Koenigsegg a while ago, toting it as an "in-game" model. While it was a beautiful model, it was hardly in-game. It may be realtime renderable, but practically anything is realtime renderable (everything in your Max viewport is by definition be rendered in realtime).

If you want to make an "in-game" car, I think your time would be much better spent making something that is actually useable in a game, not just renderable.

http://us.playstation.com/granturismo/products_carlist_pro.asp

[Chung Wong]

Thanks for the advise Buzzy, that's helped clear things up a bit more as there are lots of different specs floating around. So for something to run in-game, what sort of specs do you think they are? Around 50-70k (tris) And what map sizes? Including interiors?

Thanks for the link by the way.

[Oltskul]

look hilairious :D

[Buzzy]

Chung: I'd think it'd be comparable to a really hi-end character. 30k-40k with a pair of 1024s or a single 2048.
Think about it this way (note that these are really rough estimates): The PS3 has 256mb of RAM. Probably half of that will be used for cars (the rest being used for HUD sprites, sounds, the track, etc.)....so lets say we have maybe 128mb to fill with cars. A single 2048 dds texture is 2mb...2.66mb with mipmaps. So, with 16 cars (each having a diff and norm map), that'd already be over 85mb with just textures alone (And if all those maps have an alpha channel, that number is doubled). A 40k model will probably run about 2.5mb for the geometry...x16 = 40mb. Thats 125mb. Now, they may have some really really good streaming system (since I believe the game installs to the HDD) or they may be devoting more memory to the cars...so you might be able to punch that up a bit higher, but it'll be near that I'd imagine....it will NOT be 200k with 2 sets of 2048 maps.

[Warlock 279]

FrZnChAoS - Your...uhh...vehicle is coming together quite nicely. Seems your normal maps turned out well enough. Guess you're off to texture now, can't wait to see what you do there. Well done so far.

tb1alexc - I'd actually meant a bit higher than that yet, enough so that it was actually higher than the rear fender. You certainly don't have to do that if you don't want tho. Put a camera in the cockpit, and set as tho you were looking out, and see what the driver would "see" from in there. Or you could simply say the driver uses virtual screens, then visibility is a non issue.

vlad_flyzzz - Looks pretty good. Looks like, if you wanted, you could clean out a good many edges around the hub of the wheel, no real reason to have as many edges in there as you do on the outer part of the wheel.

TonyClifton - Looking good. Be nice to see you do this at the full 20k triangles, but if time's tight, its certainly better to get it done at a lower res. Got a big old bench style seat in there? I don't know what kind of room you have in the back, but a rumble seat back there might be kinda cool.

CaseyD2K - The jeep's turned out excellent so far. Looks like the springs on the shocks are modeled, if you're in a pinch for budget space, you might be able to get away with mapping them to an alpha plane [well, tube in this case]. There's lots of places left to clean up yet tho, I don't see any problem in getting it down low enough to work in anything else you wanted.

Daddy OH - Concept sketch has some nice lines, should be interesting to see how yours compares and contrasts with Omni's.

Oltskul - I'm digging the tracks. [Or the hover pod fin things] The sat dish, might be a bit much tho, unless you painted big bullseye on it, then it'd be kind of humorous. Right now it looks like something that's just going to catch bullets and create massive wind resistance. Maybe a smaller revolving one would work better, ship style. A fixed dish wouldn't make a lot of sense, any time the car turns it'd lose its connection.

theaquarianspac - Nice update. I don't know where you are in your budget, but perhaps the wheels/wheel wells could use some extra sides? Looking good, keep at it.

BiG ToE - Now you've gone and done it! You need the classic Caddie fins on top of the engines now.

Noodles - Interior looks good. Guess its just down to weapons then for you.

Stereo-Kid - Check out Scratch Made Cars (http://www.smcars.net/). You'll have to sign up, which is free, but they have a ton of blue prints.

Chung Wong - I'd hate to see you drop out already, you just got in. I know what you're saying tho, I've mulled over bumping up to a higher res as well for my car.

Buzzy - Nice breakdown on that stuff. Thanks. :)

[CaseyD2K]

CaseyD2K - The jeep's turned out excellent so far. Looks like the springs on the shocks are modeled, if you're in a pinch for budget space, you might be able to get away with mapping them to an alpha plane [well, tube in this case]. There's lots of places left to clean up yet tho, I don't see any problem in getting it down low enough to work in anything else you wanted.

Warlock 279 - That is a great idea!!! Good lookin' out man!

[Chung Wong]

Cheers Buzzy, as Warnock said, very nice break down and has taught me a lot. Awesome information.

[TonyClifton]

Warlock 279, thanks for your comment and I definetly will have a look at a rumble seat, great idea!

[CaseyD2K]

Alright fellas check it out, My latest and last Modeling update! I'm currently sitting awfully close to the limit and I don't really have much else I can think of to add to this beast of a project. If anything comes to mind i have 102 triangles to work with (should be plenty!! HA!!!) I might optimize it one last time before i go in and start the unwrap but i really want to jump on the texture unwrapping considering there are a lot of parts to separate! After that I am going to jump on my character! So more updates in the character side coming soon!

Here it is, complete with the ever popular mini-guns, Comments and Critiques please:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y68/CaseyD2k/Newest_Update.jpg

[TonyClifton]

CaseyD2K, well done! Are you going to use normal maps as well?

[hulahuga]

CasyeyD2K - I checked out a few pictures of round fog lights. And according to them they are round on the back and flat on the front (glass). On your model it's the opposite ;P. I like how the jeep has turned out, really goodlooking. Though two miniguns hanging on the sides seems quite overkill :). How do they hang and where does the ammo come from? :)

Buzzy - I got a ps3 and the games are installed onto the hdd. Though the installed files are only about 3 gigs I think. The streaming system probably utilizes the blu-ray's good reading speed and the ps3's overkill processors. Plus, for an example take GRID; the only high def models are the cars and some structures, the audience (at least according to what i've seen) are quite low poly. So all of that results in a higher capability for polygons and textures.

[tb1alexc]

Some rough texturing progress: Just Diffuse at the moment

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/8199/gp9ve8.png