Bentley Continental GT

[Tonn]

This is my first car in XSI and also the most sad day in modlling for me. This was supposed to be a low poly car with 20k tri limit, but now it already has 19 000 messed up polies due to pressing the wrong button.
I wanted to see how my low poly model looks when I apply smoothing to it so I saved the mesh, then symmetrized it and added smoothing (freezing the mesh, deleting the lowpoly base, because I of course saved the actual model). I fiddeled with it quite long trying to add reflections etc. (new to XSI) and then accidentaly pushed Ctrl+S instead of Shift+A and saved it... there was not enough undo steps so I basically ruined my mesh, it has enough tris in it to make it not work smoothed. I have a backup that has about 1/3 of the work done but I don`t feel like getting to it now. This is what happens when you have 3 laptops with different keyboard layouts...

Although I`m quite sure there`s now way of recovering it, I`ll ask anyway- Is there a way to turn it back to unsmoothed when I have freezed the base mesh (I haven`t closed the app yet, the undo steps are used up)?

And so noone could say anything about starting a thread without some WIP shots...

[yan]

i personnaly had this problem few years ago..... :D
you could check your local setting folder>temp... maybe xsi make some backup, as many other 3d apps.

if this doesnt work, another solutionis...the work!
we have a plug in lw called "merge trigons, who make 4 points polys with 3 points polys...very useful when you need to clean imported mesh...
and after some few hours with the bandglue tools(always in lw, who help you to merge complete line of polys...), and weldind the few subdivision you dont want....you will be able to have your base mesh.....
so, to resume, some big work waiting you to "remake" your mesh, but you can make it, as its "only" the car body.
i dont know if xsi have such tools, but pretty sure he have such powerfull modeling tools(xsi user plz say us you have them!...)

but maybe remake the mesh with the old one as a background ref could be faster(snap polys tool ON...) :D

so good luck, and at work! :D

[scorp323]

Hm.. I dont know how to solve your problem, but the model itself looks nice sofar! And hey, this is the second thread where i can show personal ref pics! =) So here are 3 pics i took in Monaco - HIRES 3456*2304px :

01
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/756/img39638zc.jpg

02
http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/1836/img39646ec.jpg

03
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/8639/img39654df.jpg

scorp

[Dronson]

Oh, its my favorite car :buttrock: . Tonn, do you have blueprint for this car, or you made this from photos ?
If you have blueprint pls give me link where i can donload them.

[dbKenn]

nice to see something different

[Tonn]

@yan - Thank you for the support and ideas! Yes XSI has those tools, maybe except for the make-quad-out-of-tri tool, haven`t seen it, but I`ve been modelling in XSI for 2 weeks only (used it for tex baking before), it`s my first advanced 3d app. so moving to XSI from Zmodeler, it`s all quite new to me.

@Scorp - Thank you for the refs :)

@Dronson - I used the side print found on www.smcars.net , which I belive is from road and track magazine, whose prints are partially drawn by eyeing the car (so I`ve heard, not sure). The side print is the only adequate print I have found so the rest is done by photos.

As of now I`ve managed to work the old, early state, back up mesh to the state where the model was when the mishap occured. I`ll finish the base body and post some pics in a few days if school allows.

[The Rain Knight]

the blueprints of the GT on smcars are the ones I've made in Rhino using photos of my 1/43 scale model. So theses are perfectly matching with eachother but not 100% matching with reality.
Hope to see these babe finished ;)

edit : scorp323, first photo is not the Continental GT but the Flying Spur or smthg, the 5 doors limo (look at the rear window and in the shadow you can see the rear door handle...)

[Tonn]

Well, after some redone work and some new things here it is at abou 8500 tris.

As I am new to XSI (or any other advanced software), I will probably come up with a bunch of questions as the work on this model evolves. As for now, does anybody know-

1)/solved, check my next post on how to solve/ How can I edit the camera view so that I can see the smoothing of the mesh as it "really" is? What I mean is that, if I were to make a cube with 6
quads and leave all the edges connected, the camera view would still show all the edges as if they were disconnected(sharp), while it actually should show as all smooth bad-looking-made cube.

2)As I already asked on the app. specific forums
When you make a quad mesh (just a flat surf, for example) and convert it to tris, XSI will create a nice continiuos tri-surface with all edges "logically" orientated.
When you take that same mesh (quads) and collapse some edges, then triangulate, then the tri-edge orientation comes out bad, as if the edges had been collapsed after the triangulation. This ruins the smoothing and reflections. Is there any way to "refresh" the mesh, so that when I convert the whole car into tris, it`ll be some nicely orientated tris, not all messy?


BTW I`m useing the XSI Demo, so I can`t render.

[Dave_3d]

I'm not an XSI user, but think you might need to check out smoothing groups for the edge effects you are looking for.

Bentley is looking fine as usual :)

[Tonn]

Thanks Dave! Though I`m not sure what are smoothing groups, I think that was it, problem 1 solved.
Should another beginner want to know, I found it explore(alt+rightclick the mesh)->geometry approximation->hard display->polygon mesh-> over there uncheck the automatic discontinuty and you get to see what your mesh really looks like.

[Tonn]

I made the wheels, I got a bit carried away with polies so at 16k for the whole thing (20k limit) these will get alot of reduceing... I hope I can save their quality a bit with textures.
BTW These aren`t Bentley wheels, they`re Kahn RSV-s, I`ll later make RSX-s too, but then it`ll go over the 20k limit for sure.

[rx911ns]

Looks pretty good to me!Like the rims also,keep it up waiting for more.
Regards Rx.

[dbKenn]

Its nice. are you going to model Jay-Z in the Bentley too, lol.

[Dave_3d]

Thanks for posting the wires, very interesting and insightful.

Do you find that the little refining tris that you add around the curved edges (wheel arch, light surrounds, etc.) have no negative effects on the smoothing when inside the game engine ?

This is a new area I have been experimenting with - completely different to high-res meshes.

Dave

[Tonn]

@dbKenn - If anyone then maybe Ross and Roy.

@Dave - All the games I`ve made cars to have had the smoothing just the same as in the modeling app. Tris usually cause bad smoothing if they`re too long and narrow and are on a flat surface (then they cause a sharp line, as you`d get when you chamfered an edge on flat surface with even polysize). They also might cause bad smoothing if the area on the mesh is too dense in tris (comaperd to the rest). There are exeptions of course, I have alot of areas on this car made like I just said is generally bad but it seems to work. Actually tris aren`t bad on high poly models either... until you apply subdivision, which tries to "fix" the tri and generates alot of quads over the tri, making the area too dense and causing a bump. It´s trial/error at first but when you get used to it you more-or-less know ahead where the tris work and where not.
Getting the surface smooth isn`t hard when useing tris but getting the reflections right is another story, the areas which you pointed out will quite surely have a "wave" in the reflection, but it will be small and polycount/meshquality wise it will be acceptable.
I hope my "clear" idea didn`t make you more confused :D

About reflections, in XSI, how can I add a basic reflection on the car? Tuts are welcome, I´d also like to try HDRI (I´m not quite sure what it is but to my imagination it´s a "panoramic" reflection map).

[Dave_3d]

Thanks for your feedback, perfectly clear. I'm learning more about low poly modelling. It just takes a slightly different mindset compared to high-res/poly. I can get away with things in low poly that I couldn't do in high poly modelling. Having to unlearn some methods :) But end result is the key thing, while still be sensible with polycount.

HDRI are not essential for good rendering. And an HDRI is not necessarily a panoramic image. A HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) stores the range of intensities in 64bit, rather than 24bit. This means that a lot more refinement or ranges between light and dark can be recorded.

In effect that means you can use some of the available range to define whites that go way above the 256,256,256 range in a 24 bit image, and likewise with the darks. Adjusting the viewing range (exposure) means you will see the detail in intense light areas and deeply dark areas - Areas that before would just be white 256,256,256 or black 0,0,0 and contain no more information.

This is particularly good for reflections as most renderers calculate the ray as it bounces off the car. Most paints are not 100% reflective so the renderer decays the bounce (env map). In a standard 24 bit image that means the white high spots can turn slightly grey. In the HDRI it can take many, many reflections before that occurs - and the white highlights can stay brilliantly white, while the darks stay black.

You can "fake" an HDRI by adjusting the output intensity of your normal bitmap (especially using curves). It takes a little trial and error, as you will have to keep the blacks dark and not ligthen them ... TTombo explains a method here ( http://cg-cars.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2445 ) for Max but the principles are the same.

Dave

[dbKenn]

Wow so your saying you don't have use HDRI to make things look real?

[Dave_3d]

Wow so your saying you don't have use HDRI to make things look real?

No I'm not saying that, but actually understanding HOW it works and WHAT it can do is essential for getting the output you want. Common sense.

Dave

[rodderworld]

@dbkenn: real geniuses can do equivalent to hdri type environments using enviro maps in their 3d app. of course, your options are somewhat limited since procedural textures have their limitations. however, for very basic environments, it's worth trying.

regards,
rodder

[Tonn]

I have 2000 tris left and I have brakes, wipers and logos to do, that means the interior will be very low poly, maybe GT style.

[X-Ice]

superb:buttrock:

[SeSim]

Hi.

I realy must say that this is totaly pure talent my friend. I realy hope u are working in any game development company:) wish u all the best and good luck! U make lowpoly a name of itself..:deal:

/sesim

[Checker2k3]

Awesome work for a lowpoly car. Really nice and detailed exterior!

[Tonn]

Thanks for the kind words!

I`m basically done with the modelling part. I still have this problem I pointed out earlier. It feels to me that the thing I`m looking for should be some easy to find button but I´ve gone through all I can think of... I really hope there is a way to do this right, creating tris out of quads useing "add edge" tool wouldn`t be fun :dead:

When you make a quad mesh (just a flat surf, for example) and convert it to tris, XSI will create a nice continiuos tri-surface with all edges "logically" orientated.

When you take that same mesh (quads) and collapse some edges, then triangulate, then the tri-edge orientation comes out bad, as if the edges had been collapsed after the triangulation. This ruins the smoothing and reflections. Is there any way to "refresh" the mesh, so that when I convert the whole car into tris, it`ll be some nicely orientated tris, not all messy?

[petter]

i really like this car. i wanted to start modeling it but the lack of good blueprints discouraged me:(

so you did it for me.for my soul.and you did it greath...

[Tonn]

It`s done. It`ll get some decent wheels later, right now it has ca 19 000 faces. The renders are far from nice quality but I had only a few hours to them and that time includes opening max for the first time ever and importing the model into it un-messed up.

(somewhy the attachment system doesn`t work on this computer)

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/6360/contconti3ng2.png

http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/1459/contconti4tp6.png

[marbl]

it looks a bit bumpy... but cool

[legolaz]

ye, nice. i like the model

[petter]

yeah, some little errors... but overally looks gooood.
i wanted to this car but i had no good blueprints. what blueprints have you used?

[Tonn]

Bumpy!? Where? I used a side print from SMC and pictures.

[Tuss4]

Good job man!

[Tonn]

Bringing up an old thread but I rendered it so here`s a pic.

Also, you can download this car for World Racing 2... for example from here (http://theborggaming.planet-multiplayer.de/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=10669), some ingame pictures on that thread too.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x99/Tonn_bucket/1-8.jpg

[Paps]

wau, very nice. looks good in a game aswell. judging from the screenshots ofcourse. dont have the game myself :)

[rodderworld]

your renders have improved quite quickly. looks very nice.

regards,
rodder

[P2sta]

really nice model, can you make blueprints from your model, or only the side, top,.. shots? it will be nice to have them IMO, thx ;)

[younglion]

i really like that camera angle

[Tonn]

Thanks for the comments!

I almost made some bps out of it as they have been requested so much... BUT... I actually like cars without bps, it keeps the model kinda "special", I don`t want this car to be another audi r8.... don`t hate :deal: ... if one was really desparate for bps he would just dl the WR model and use that as a reference...

Here`s another render, I´m not satisfied with the reflections and the rim material but since it took so long to render I´ll just try not to repeate my mistakes when rendering this from a fresh angle.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x99/Tonn_bucket/1-9.jpg

[P2sta]

ok man, I understand it, the same as the 300C I'm working on ;) keep it up

[Tonn]

The rim material should be a bit better now.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x99/Tonn_bucket/3-5.jpg

[younglion]

definitely looks much better the only thing that bugs me is the car seems like its floating

[Tonn]

Yes it does look like it`s in the air... I think it could be because of the shadow position and them being too light (didn´t look into the AO yet..), the tires are actually sunken into the floor a bit.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x99/Tonn_bucket/4-4.jpg

[younglion]

yea i think its the shadow that gives that illusion, but your renders look very good man