63 Vette

[TNT]

I decided to take a stab at modeling a 63 vette.

So far I just have the dog house, hood, and front tires.

It's got a long way to go and a lot of detail missing but it's starting to look like something.

 

I used Photoman's tut on the bike tire to make my tires.

It worked perfectly. Thanks.

 

 

[Eric2575]

That looks like a really nice start.

[TNT]

I was originally going to follow the tuts by Xtaz but they don't seem available any more.

 

I'm having some trouble keeping the sheetmetal from creasing.

It seems that sometimes the bias settings tweak themselves and an edge I made straight gets twisted.

I see it happens as I adjust the position of adjacent CP's.

I must not understand something about how the CP's and bias settings are related.

Also any bias settings I make don't seem to actually mirror when I C/F/A.

It looks more like they translate.

 

Lastly, I have no idea how to make nice shiney paint!

 

Any suggestions or tuts will be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

[R Reynolds]

These are the quirks you have to get used to when attempting accurate mechanical modeling with A:M's splines. I have this vague memory from the last century that Hash splines did not originally act this way but due to complaints from character modelers concerning their difficulties of modeling faces without creasing that the spline algorithm was changed to include averaging over local cp's.

 

I know all too well the temptation to concentrate on one local feature (a nicely hemmed sheet metal edge for instance) making it "perfect" and then moving on thinking it's finished, forever. But you really don't want to tweak bias until you have a significant chunk of the object built. And you'll just have to get used to re-tweaking splines after you do a C/F/A. I've noticed that typically the sign of some alpha's get flipped after that operation in an unpredictable way. After the C/F/A, put your model in wire frame and look through it for splines that don't match. Click on the badly aimed spline and change the sign of its alpha; + to - or - to +. This works most of the time but as I say it's unpredictable. Once you're mentally prepared for this added task; it's easier to swallow.

 

As for nice shiny paint, I'd suggest a specular colour closer to white, low specular size (5?), high specular intensity (90?) and higher reflectivity (40?). Make sure you use a number of lights and surround your model with a background so there's something to reflect.

[itsjustme]

I found a couple of things that might help with car paint here, here and here.

 

Hope those help, Tim.

[John Bigboote]

Looking good! My uncle would look at a car like that and say 'What are all those scratch-marks? Must be from girls trying to get in..."

[photoman]

For my shiny car paint materials, I just create a couple of Fractal Sum combiners (To get the metallic look) and I put an environment map attribute under it to give it some nice reflections. Here is a quickie example I put together:

Paintdemo.zip

Contains a quick project with the material and environment HDR.

 

Hope it helps

 

Photoman

[robcat2075]

I have this vague memory from the last century that Hash splines did not originally act this way but due to complaints from character modelers concerning their difficulties of modeling faces without creasing that the spline algorithm was changed to include averaging over local cp's.

 

There are two custom buttons available in the Tools>Customize>Commands>Tools tab...

 

 

One for "biased normals" and one for "Perpendicular normals"

 

you can drag those to a tool bar and use those to set the style for a selected group.

 

 

I THINK this is what rodger is referring to, the "perpendicular" is the old style, and "biased " is the new default.

[TNT]

WOW!

The help this forum gives never stops amazing me!

 

I found the buttons Robert mentioned and will gives those a "road test" to see what they do.

I copied all the paint setups David pointed me towards and downloaded Photoman's example project.

 

Lots to digest.

I hope I can apply it and show more later.

 

Thanks again to everyone!

[robcat2075]

here's the brief mention I could find in the A:M docs. i don't fully understand the difference between the two except the interpolation of the splines between CPs appears a bit different.

 

Biased Normals

 

“Biased Normals”, which exhibit better smooth shading, are now the default spline technique, but old models will still load and animate the same.

[TheSpleen]

TNT Performance on tires is great touch!

[Tralfaz]

The vette is looking pretty good. If you have the Dark Tree shaders and the AM Simbiont plug-in, you could use their paint shader. It does a really great job of doing a metallic paint.

 

You can get the shaders here.

 

And get AM Simbiont here.

 

I used the paint shader on the Honda Rebel I modelled a while back.

 

Al

[robcat2075]

The Simbiont plugin is already included in A:M, but you do need to get the shaders.

[TNT]

The vette is looking pretty good. If you have the Dark Tree shaders and the AM Simbiont plug-in, you could use their paint shader. It does a really great job of doing a metallic paint.

 

You can get the shaders here.

 

And get AM Simbiont here.

 

I used the paint shader on the Honda Rebel I modelled a while back.

 

Al

 

I didn't realize I had this one.

I gave it a quick render and found what I suspected would be the case.

The vette now appears to have been made with a ballpeen hammer but the paint is nice and shiney!

I guess I need to take what Robert and Roger have explained about the bias settings and work the surfaces till smooth.

Hopfully I can get the vette to look half as good as your bike.

 

Then I can work on more paint solutions to see which one is best for me.

 

Thanks,

[Eric2575]

Lay out your model without bias tweaking first. Best to even turn off the bias handles. The tweaking comes later. If you bias tweak as you model, you're really opening a can of worms and you may also find that much of the bias tweaking was unnecessary. I started modeling with bias tweaking as I went and ended up setting many of the bias points back to zero once the modeling was done.

 

Eric

 

One more thing, I know it's tempting, but stay away from modeling or decaling your model until it's all done. This will keep you focused and less likely to rush the job.

[TNT]

Lay out your model without bias tweaking first. Best to even turn off the bias handles. The tweaking comes later. If you bias tweak as you model, you're really opening a can of worms and you may also find that much of the bias tweaking was unnecessary. I started modeling with bias tweaking as I went and ended up setting many of the bias points back to zero once the modeling was done.

 

Eric

 

One more thing, I know it's tempting, but stay away from modeling or decaling your model until it's all done. This will keep you focused and less likely to rush the job.

 

I'll give that a try.

I figured I could remove the bias settings I have altered, get as smooth as I can and see what is needed when done.

 

Thanks

[TNT]

I did have a bit of success using some of the paint settings David pointed out to make a polished aluminum rim.

I thought I would post a shot of it.

 

The Spleen mentioned the lettering earlier. I did it one letter at a time and rotated the tire to place each one radially.

Is there a simpler way to make the font wizard follow an arc or path?

 

[tbenefi33]

The 63 vett turning out nice I like paint job on it.

[robcat2075]

The Spleen mentioned the lettering earlier. I did it one letter at a time and rotated the tire to place each one radially.

Is there a simpler way to make the font wizard follow an arc or path?

 

Your method is probably the most accurate, but you can use distortion boxes to bend things. Because of the way fonts get splined some may work better than others.

 

 

 

 

Another possibility is to create the letters in a a vector program like AI, use the better tools in that program to bend them, and import the result via the AI wizard.

[TNT]

The Spleen mentioned the lettering earlier. I did it one letter at a time and rotated the tire to place each one radially.

Is there a simpler way to make the font wizard follow an arc or path?

 

Your method is probably the most accurate, but you can use distortion boxes to bend things. Because of the way fonts get splined some may work better than others.

 

 

 

 

Another possibility is to create the letters in a a vector program like AI, use the better tools in that program to bend them, and import the result via the AI wizard.

 

Thanks Robert, I never thought about using another program. I guess I have always just tried to find my solutions inside AM. I should have thought outside the box.

I'll remember that for the next time.

[TNT]

I wanted to give an update to the vette since everyone was so kind to offer help.

 

Below is what I get after applying the techniques given by Roger and Robert to smooth the creases.

 

All the bias settings are now 0,0,100,100.

 

I don't know if it was the best way to get them all reset but I just selected the entire model, set the bias settings to 1,1,0,0

and then changed them to 0,0,100,100. It didn't seem to work until I changed them all and then changed them to what I wanted.

 

I also found that I was not as careful as I needed to be in ending a few splines and they were causing a lot of the distortion.

I broke a lot of connections and very carefully reconnected them properly.

 

Below is what I get now. There are still some places that may need tweaked but as Roger suggested, I will wait till I am finished with the basic model.

 

I am moving on to make more of the body now.

 

Please critique so I can get better.

 

 

 

Thanks,

[HomeSlice]

Nice progress! It's looking good.

[itsjustme]

Looks great, so far, Tim!

[mtpeak2]

Nice!

[robcat2075]

newly pressed sheet metal!

 

 

Does that "perpendicular normals" button make any difference or is that a false lead?

[TNT]

newly pressed sheet metal!

 

 

Does that "perpendicular normals" button make any difference or is that a false lead?

 

I removed all the bias adjustments prior to this change.

It is hard to say how much it did on its own because I did not render after just that change.

 

The way I used it was, I selected all the CP's and then applied the "Perpendicular" bias setting.

You could see ALL the splines "tweak" when I did so I assumed I did it correctly.

The change was subtle but it did make a difference.

 

Thanks,

[TNT]

Here are a couple more pics of the vette.

Working out the back half.

Still needs doods.

 

Not sure how to do the glass????

Any suggestions.

 

[robcat2075]

Not sure how to do the glass????

Any suggestions.

 

1st, You model it's shape like anything else. You probably want to model it with thickness rather than single patch. about 95% transparent with a touch of green or gray.

 

You can make reflections on glass and car paint more realistic by using a gradient combiner ( leave start and end at 0,0,0) to make a reflection material that makes reflections less apparent for viewing angles that are perpendicular to the surface.

 

Real glass reflects much more when viewed at an angle than viewed straight on. Same with car paint.

[photoman]

Also for the glass you could set a IOR to about 1.3-1.5 for super accurate results but that would create gigantic render times.

 

Photoman

[Tralfaz]

Wow! You've captured the lines of the 63 split window vette really well! The car just screams to be red or black though

 

Looking forward to see more.

 

Al

[TNT]

Also for the glass you could set a IOR to about 1.3-1.5 for super accurate results but that would create gigantic render times.

 

Photoman

 

OK. I got to tell ya, in case you can't tell already, I am as green as they come to understanding lighting, texturing, and rendering.

If you would be so kind, please explain what "IOR" is.

I've seen several of your stills and you obviously have something to teach me here.

[mtpeak2]

IOR=Index of Refraction. Located in the surface properties.

[TNT]

newly pressed sheet metal!

 

 

Does that "perpendicular normals" button make any difference or is that a false lead?

 

 

I did some more with this and it definately makes a difference once you have tight bends and corners.

It straightened out the edges of the doors and the windshield opening a lot.

[TNT]

I've finished some more on the vette and so I thought I would post an update.

I tried everything that was suggested from material for glass to IOR to red paint.

I still need an interior and a few details but here it is after all the suggestions.

 

Thanks,

 

[itsjustme]

Looking great, Tim!

[tbenefi33]

You done a heak of a job on it.

 

I like the paint job on the 63 vet how you get it so shiny ?

[TNT]

You done a heak of a job on it.

 

I like the paint job on the 63 vet how you get it so shiny ?

 

 

Thanks.

David Simmons (itsjustme) gave me some links to creating the paint earlier in the topic.

I made a few adjustments to get what I wanted.

Here is the material in a ZIP file if you would like to check it out.

 

Gradient_Paint.zip

[robcat2075]

I've finished some more on the vette and so I thought I would post an update.

I tried everything that was suggested from material for glass to IOR to red paint.

I still need an interior and a few details but here it is after all the suggestions.

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

Wow, that looks sharp!

[Tralfaz]

That is one sweet looking Corvette!

 

Great job!

 

Al

[NancyGormezano]

Yup, looks like a mighty fine Chickbot magnet to me.

[TNT]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback.

I have some more of the detail done now.

The fender wells, door handles, and interior are all there.

I did them a bit rough since I don't figure on shots from inside the car.

 

Everyones input has really helped with the modeling.

Now I need suggestions on composition and lighting.

 

It's probably not a winner but I thought I might an entry for the

2010 Mascot contest Jason is running.

I would like to use my robot and the vette. Everything else is unsettled.

I'm not sure just what makes a good entry but I'm pretty sure it's not

stock trees and rocks.

 

[robcat2075]

I would like to use my robot and the vette. Everything else is unsettled.

I'm not sure just what makes a good entry but I'm pretty sure it's not

stock trees and rocks.

 

 

How about a shot that concentrates on the character. Have him leaning out of the car window.

 

[TNT]

I would like to use my robot and the vette. Everything else is unsettled.

I'm not sure just what makes a good entry but I'm pretty sure it's not

stock trees and rocks.

 

 

How about a shot that concentrates on the character. Have him leaning out of the car window.

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'll give that a try.

[TheSpleen]

excellent!

[TNT]

Here is the vette as far as I have taken it.

I added some trim and basic interior.

No engine and such.

 

[HomeSlice]

beautiful model. Way to go

[mtpeak2]

Looks Great.

[pixelplucker]

Lettering can be done with a bump map or displacement. Make sure you make the letters white and background gray so that it raises and not indents. Used a decal for that will allow you to better blend the letters to the tire rather than just plopping letters as a model on top.

 

Very nice looking model.

[itsjustme]

Great looking, Vette, Tim!

[robcat2075]

That's a fine looking car.

 

Did they really sell them in baby blue?