oakchas

T, I haven't abandoned you... I been bustin hump on the hood... here's the scoop... i think I got it... more details, wires etc... tomorrow. [attachmentid=17745]

I finally found the answer to the hood... (after discarding 3 models that I tweaked til kingdom come) at least I'm pretty sure. Stay tuned, I should be able to post on Monday or Tuesday. Working all weekend

TEEEE! WOW! Lookin' Great! You don't need any help, I should be askin' for yours... You asked for a few comments, here's what I saw right off. But really, you're killin me here, you're doin' great! [attachmentid=17635] let me study the pix on the site a bit more.

better put his feet on the floor while you're down there

T, See if this helps you visualize what you need. There may be hooks where there shouldn't be, but I'm working with MS paint here... So it's kinda like using a stick in the sand.... [attachmentid=17596]

Stian, You'll finish the Bismarck before I finish the Batmobile. Excellent modeling so far, as usual, ad infinitum! 30K patches yikes! When did you start modeling it?

That looks good for now T, I've been with you in spirit if not in reality... Tried several shortcuts to make the scoop "happen." Here's what I tried: Tried the grid wizard, removing some of the squares and replacing with a circle, then rotating the circle 90­° in the x axis. It almost works. Tried making a 12 point circle bringing center points forward... nope... Went to Colin Freemans' Cooper tute on a human face... That's the closest. And where I'm at now. Now, I've only been futzin' with it in spare moments. And, I haven't had many. Replaced a dishwasher, one component at a time. (then ended up buyin a new dishwasher and installed that!) 2 Sick dogs at home, too. Dogs are worse than children, they won't just keep a pail by the bed when they're sick. And that had nothing to do with the skunk "strike" earlier in this adventure. Summer in the country, ahhhh! At the end of the day, I was starting to hope for the Make Batmobile button. See ya tomorrow. I'm at work now.

[attachmentid=17472] But otherwise, lookin' great. I should have my version tomorrow, maybe friday. I hope.

Ken, Stupendous! Very Very nice! Congrats on a paying gig, too! How did they find you?

Yee Haaa! yep, you've nearly got it... And I'm a mile behind! You're gonna hafta narrow the "beak" a bit, I think... I'm not certain of that... porcelain might help for the rest of the kinks If you look here, you'll see what I mean about the ramp and "shelf" inside the "nostril" opening [attachmentid=17393] Man, you're doin great... I know it's been a struggle. Like I said, I'm a mile behind. But I'm trying to figure out an easier way, and there may not be one.

T, It looks much better! You are almost there, and I'm still futzin' with mine. Here's what would make it the "cats pajamas" [attachmentid=17443] Have you tried a copy/flip/attach yet? Be sure to save what you've got before you do! But I gotta say, It's really gettin there... the rest should be a lot easier.

Lookin' Good T... Put a point on the nose and your hood is very close... Show a birds eye view with wire.

T, Scale of scoop to hood looks much better. There are some areas around the nostril we're gonna have to fix on yours. And there are other problems too. Look at the pic you just posted above, of the car in primer. Look in front of Robin's windshield. The brow for the turn signal isn't raised there, its sheetmetal is on the same plane as the hood. Believe me, I'm still working on my version. Had to take the pump and motor out of my dishwasher today... I wish real life would just quit interfering! Here's a reversed shot from Rodger's link, cropped to the hood and mirrored. [attachmentid=17423] Other than my poking fun at the body work, I can see the problems with ours. Here's where I'm at: [attachmentid=17424] I'm going to try another approach. This is close, but just won't "make it".

I don't know, I agree, I did the same... However, thinking back to the adjustments I did to the roto I did have to widen the front and rear views to match the top view...

Not to worry, Rodger... That's the same Batmobile. There was only one used in the show. It is the metal one you have depicted. (the metal one has a hood, the fibergalss knock offs used in car shows had a one piece tilt front end). The blade in the front was probably some Bat Tool weapon or another... [attachmentid=17392] What differences are you seeing? I saw where the hood continues under the turnsignal "brow." And am working that into my half. Else I'm at a loss. I realize the rotos are not accurate, and am using the pix to correct as needed. Thank you for the link though... it has some cleaner shots that I haven't seen in the other site. I guess, critically, I do see some differences... [attachmentid=17393]

Yep. That's the way it goes, in my experience, too. Two steps forward, one step back. In all, it looks good. It's not perfect, but it is GOOD. And, that's the goal here, improving our modeling skills. While Rodger says more splines give you more accuracy, remember his tolereances are .06 in. Mechanical models can use such accuracy... But, then I look at Porsches by Jin, or McClarens by Agep (Stian) and marvel at the large mesh/low spline elegance of their models. Then when you look at human models look at Tanassi's work... his wonderful women have 5 splines (okay, maybe it's more than 5, but his splinage is E-L-E-G-A-N-T, S-I-M-P-L-E, and just plain beautiful)! But, in all honesty, the sheetmetal man has the same difficulties as we do. His solution is lead or bondo. Or for that matter, the sheetrock man will tell you "There's nothing a little "mud" can't fix!" Our answer may end up being porcelain. Let's see if tomorrow, I can finish my half hood. and we'll compare.

I've added a couple of splines... Highlighted here. They'll allow for a smoother curve on the turn siganal bend. And, the one near the center line will allow for the placement of the decal for the red "glow strip". [attachmentid=17330] Now, I'm going to use the $4 key to move some cps along their "handles." The selected cp will move along the spline that you see in green without moving in any other direction. Before: [attachmentid=17331] After: (I've moved all the cps on the front to back spline, but I've only moved them along the splines from left to right by making certain the spline that goes from left to right is selcted, then holding down the $4 key to move it to the right along the spline in order to follow the curve of the hood scoop. [attachmentid=17332] Here, I've done another extrusion, and I'm going to use the same trick with each of the cps moving them back along the front to back spline by using the $4 key. Before: [attachmentid=17333] Moving them along the front to back spline will keep them in line with the slope of the hood that I have already established. Here you can see the result from the side. the extrusion is the topmost wire. the bottom is the moving of cps in process (note the spline that is selected that goes in the z axis... Holding the $4 key when moving the cp moves it along that spline) After: [attachmentid=17334] If I use the #3 key to try to move the whole extrusion back, this is what would have happened. oops!: [attachmentid=17335] Now, i'm going to make two more extrusions using the $4 key trick to shorten the first extrusion back. the second extrusion will be the same length (because of the "intelligence" programmed into A:M) Here are the extrusions: [attachmentid=17337] Next, I'm going to break some splines leaving the newly created patches, where I want them (following the slope of the hood) to reconnect to later. Here's what that looks like: [attachmentid=17338] I didn't break all the splines. After all, the turn signal hood continues on. But I did use the $4 trick to move the circled cp along the x spline's axis. You can see where I'm going with this, I think. The plan is to extrude the scoop back into itself and extrude the patches that are part of the extended hood back to where the scoop is blocked off. I'm out of space for attachments and out of time as well for today.

Tony, Looks like you're getting the hang of it. I like your approach of extruding from the side. I'll keep coming towards me from the front. We'll see which one we end up using. here are some of the reference shots from the Batmobile site. [attachmentid=17322][attachmentid=17323] In both, you really can't tell what's happening with the "nose" that comes out of the scoop, though I'm pretty sure you're very close with the smooth sides of the nose. I did notice that the tip of the nose was gone in one of the pix and I circled that, too. I also noticed that on the real deal, the scoops don't even go back into the engine compartment... The are blocked off. Rodger's right when he points out that things wouldn't be as smooth on the prototype. So a few imperfections aren't going to hurt us. I should be caught up with you again tomorrow... Sorry for the absence.

Thanks Rodger, I think that's what I'm trying to do now... and yes some of the patches will be larger than 6" and some smaller. I'm trying to get as many patches as we need, just. Thanks so much for the valuable insight. especially about tweaking now rather than later!

A:M is "inteligent!" I laid out th spline that takes into account the cps I'm going to need for edges. then I moved the right (as you look at them) splines upward to make the scoop and extruded. Then I moved the extruded spline down in the Y axis only. When I extruded again, it continued the downward extrusion. Now, the problem is that the splines the cover the turnsignal are also moving down. But, I can move them upward so they are closer together (in the Y or vertical axis), and scale then to 0 (zero) in the Y axis. Here's what it looks like: [attachmentid=17254] Now I start moving them up and then I'll scale to 0. Moving: [attachmentid=17255] Scaling to zero using the Properties window, after grouping: [attachmentid=17256] [attachmentid=17257] this leaves the splines kinda snaky, but we can peak and/or tweak as we move on... I think it's going to work this way, at least better than the previous method. here's the updated model:[attachmentid=17258] And, that's it for today. chasbat6606a.zip

Here we are on the hood. First, I'm gonna look at the pix on http://www.1966batmobile.com , as there are a lot of them there, and we're very lucky to have so many reference shots. Many folks modeling a car only have a few pics to look at, and not very great rotos to work from. Also, reading the forums last night, I learned some new tricks for moving CPs >>>Here... I knew about the 1,2,3 keys but 4-6 give us some advantages we might be able to use on this hood. Let's start with Scott's suggestion and try modeling half the hood then tweaking to get the scoop right. Warning: this may not work, or work the best, but it's worth a shot...Here'swhat I'm thiking: [attachmentid=17251] Here's the extrusion, right now it's just a flat panel. but we have enough patches and cps to try tweaking them into 3 dimensions and as we go we may be able to eliminate some of the cps. Let's try it. [attachmentid=17252] That's not working for me. I was doing the extrusion from the top and, as a flat panel, there's just too much tweaking. This is the model where I quit tweaking... it's just ugly.[attachmentid=17253] So, I'm going to try a different way. I'll lay out a spline at the back of the hood again, trying to take into account where I will need cps later, and tweak as I go. chasbat6606.zip

I agree... Done. Thanks, Martin! I figured either here or new users would be the better home for it... It started off in New Users... but got moved to Animation:Master somehow... Doesn't matter this is it's home now... Welcome to the new BAT CAVE!

Okay, the hood. well, extrusion might work, but it would be messy. Here's a quicky example. [attachmentid=17225] We'd have to do a copy/flip/attach, plus there'd be alot of spline tweaking to make it happen. If this were a poly program, we might be able to lay a mesh down and "loft" it. But this is A:M, we've got splines and patches to deal with. The "lofting" notion is a good analogy, but we want to be as patch conservative as we can be, so we are going to use as few splines (and resultant patches) as we can. So, imagine the hood with a fishnet laid on it. But instead of 1/2" squares, we want to go as big as we can, maybe 6 inch squares or bigger. We'll have to adjust the tweak handles to make a domed intake, and curve the hood down in the center, and so on... It might be best to model the hood in it's entirety rather than CFA on half of it. Here's what I'm thinking, very crudely drawn. [attachmentid=17226] Anybody got a better idea? Let's hear 'em. And we'll start tomorrow.

Gosh, Batfans, I really missed this for the last few days! Today, I'm gonna start modeling on the fender/headlight area on the right side of the car. I start by going to the front view, and making a spline that follows the arc of the headlight "eyebrow" (don't know what else to call it). The rotos are good but the pix on the site give me more detail to study to get it "right." So, I follow the "inside" of the arc and pull it forward (by using the #3 key to move it in the z axis only) to where the turn signal is (by looking at the top view). Then I notice that the hood (in the pix and rotos) is about 50% of the "brow" of the turn signal so I add a cp or two to the spline to make it come to the edge of the hood. [attachmentid=17220] And, I'll extrude towards the front of the "brow" and rotate to match the angles, while giving it some thickness. This is before the extrusion, after adding a cp, and rotated to match the angle of the brow. [attachmentid=17221] Here, I've scaled the arc only to come to the outside of the brow and extruded it back (again using the #3 key) just to where the fender flare begins 'cause I haven't decided what to do there yet. [attachmentid=17222] Here's the model so far. Notice tht I've saved this as the model with the date, and will save it as the model as well. the reason is that it not only gives me a progression of the modeling, but I'll save it (with the date) outside the project so that if the project becomes corrupted, I can reload the model and haven't lost much work. [attachmentid=17223] You'll also notice that I've tried to add an extra extrusion or two, as I did on the cowl. That will be where we decal the "glowing" red stripes along the edges of the features of the car. On to the hood, or at least the right half of it. chasbat6506.zip

Here's the mdl file of my cowl. That may be all I can do for the weekend... I've really got a full schedule. [attachmentid=17172] I will be back on Monday though, guaranteed. Check this one against yours. you can always change yours in the properties of the cps... but, they don't have to match exactly... I've named mine chasbat... I'll keep uploading just the mdl file updates. and when we're done, we should have two versions of the Batmobile. chasbat.zip