1957 Simca Aronde Elysée

[Stereo]

Beta released
See http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2751.

(obligatory Blender render. Really I should set up this scene or similar in Racer at some point.)

I recently switched to Blender and I'm looking for advice cleaning up triangles into squares. I got the basics done with the triangle to quad tool (shift-J) but I'm still left with a bunch of triangles around the edges of things. This sort of thing worked ok in ZModeler but it seems to make normal problems in blender (also subsurf hates triangles). How do I smoothly merge from 2 rows of polygons into 1 while only using quads? I'll probably end up adding some polygons to the C-pillar, but in a more general sense I'd like to keep the poly count down and I can't have rows going all over the place to suit one corner.

On a more completion-wise note, I've filled in the gaping hole in the underside (it used to just have the wheel-wells modeled, which worked ok if the camera stayed high), so it just needs the engine/driveshaft/exhaust to be complete. I'll be working on the interior next. Right now the suspension is not set up for generic models but I guess eventually I might do that.

Things to do
- trim around the top of the doors (to prevent drips?)
- small chrome bits (tail fins, gas cap, badges)
- general poly structure improvements
- interior (doors, trunk, then add dashboard, seats etc.)
- engine/drivetrain/exhaust (only what's visible from below, for now)
- high LOD body subsurf? Body is only ~8000 polies, so 1 level only makes it 30k & looks quite a bit smoother up close

Once these are done I should be able to put out a beta version, and hopefully get help with the .ini side of things.
Before final release:
- better tuning
- baked/photo textures
- more poly structure improvements, whatever catches my eye as imperfect
- shift moving/optional parts to separate generic models (suspension, doors, seats, driver)
- blur & LOD models, interior model
- lights all around

 

[Alex Forbin]

Very nice work there Stereo. It makes me want to learn blender.

Alex Forbin

 

[boomer541]

Really great job of modeling!!!!
Usually when I have two parrallel rows of polys I select two vertices, one in each row such that the line between them highlights (yellow) and then press W-key, merge, center. You have to be careful, if it doen't look right press Ctrl-Z to undo.

To export from racer get my blender exporter in the download thread, it has good instructions.

 

[Tiberius]

Wow, that's a seriously nice model, I wish I could get car paint to render as good as that

About converting from tris, the tri to quad tool is great but don't rely on it too heavily, it doesn't always get the conversion right. Your best friend for converting individual faces is the faces special menu (CTRL+F), on there there's an option to convert to quad, just select the (two or more) faces you want to convert. Other than that, edge split and edge slide (both in edge specials menu, (CTRL+E)) are very useful.

Exporting from Blender is easy when you get used to it, just make sure your material names are the same in Blender as they are in your car.shd, also make sure you've got the model assigned to textures (in the 3D view, click view > view properties to bring up the view properties box, there's a button at the bottom marked 'solid tex' - click this and your model with appear with your textures).

Try and keep objects separate (but you know that already), if you get issues with scale or rotation when you export, make sure you've applied scale/rotation to each object (CRTL+A)

I like that car very much.

 

[Stereo]

Thanks, I'm still going through the motions of getting textures and stuff that I had in Zmodeler. Everything is easier with Blender, it's just a matter of learning how it works.

Got the headlight & license plate loaded now so it doesn't look so dull.

 

[Santaji]

Awesome! i'm looking forward to downloading it when it's done!

 

[FiftyOrange]

Gett down, *****.

Amazing quality car, really well done.

 

[AMGfan(BPM)]

Gett down, *****.

Amazing quality car, really well done.

Lol, i liked it!!

very nice job Stereo!

 

[Tiberius]

LMAO Fifty - where are the chromed 22" dub rimz and the pink/gold fleck paintwork? It's also missing the 8" flue duct wedged under the rear bumper

Stereo: Something I forgot about the subsurf, you can select edges and 'crease' them with SHIFT+E. It's a bit like doing up a shoelace, you pull the mouse away from the point and it will make the subsurf more tightly follow the selected edge, it's handy on corners which you want to keep sharp and also makes the subsurf work better on tri faces

BTW, what are you using to render those shots? blender's renderer or Yafray? It looks too good for Blender's rendering engine but I recognise the stars .

 

[Stereo]

Yeah, it's the built in Blender renderer. Ray tracing enabled and all relevant materials have Ray mirror set up with appropriate fresnel values. The paint shader is also using Phong specular because Cook-Torrence works poorly on low poly models (as it stands, about 16000 tris when rendered, I think that's about 1300x4 for wheels + 11000 body). Takes my poor computer about half a minute to do a render...

 

[FiftyOrange]

LMAO Fifty - where are the chromed 22\" dub rimz and the pink/gold fleck paintwork? It's also missing the 8\" flue duct wedged under the rear bumper

I spent my unemployment benefit money on a bangin sound system, boiiiz.

 

[luthobu]

Thanks, I'm still going through the motions of getting textures and stuff that I had in Zmodeler. Everything is easier with Blender, it's just a matter of learning how it works. Got the headlight & license plate loaded now so it doesn't look so dull.

1. I love Zmodeler.
2. I wish I had the time and energy to learn Blender.
3. I LOVE that CAR! It is so beautiful.. with the stars and all.. pure poetry. A very good job there Sir.

 

[Stereo]

Since I'm basing the trim level on a specific car on flickr, I guess I should mention that -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/33240904@N03/3420484929/

I'm still working out the differences but I think it's looking closer now (only did small adjustments so far today, all in the name of art). Can't seem to get the same lens distortion from Blender but it's close enough.

 

[Jonsta]

Wow, that looks pretty nice.

Is the .ini going to have a lot of bodyroll?

 

[FiftyOrange]

Wow, that looks pretty nice.

Is the .ini going to have a lot of bodyroll?

Nah, but the car might.

 

[KS95]

Haha, that made my day.

 

[FiftyOrange]

Haha, that made my day.

The idea of a computer file being wobbly is an odd concept.

"This music isn't playing properly. I think the MP3 file has gone dry around the edges again."

 

[Stereo]

I haven't really got any decent pictures of what the interior looks like so I'm making a lot of this up >_< The trunk is mostly finished though, I just need to go round the front door/windshield and across the firewall. Then there's the insides of the doors/trunk, seats, steering column, and dashboard. Progress is slow 'cause I've been fairly busy with school, and thinking about other things (poly structure with quads, I've been doing a lot of sketches and a few throwaway models to get more used to them).

Fortunately it seems like Racer is getting ambient occlusion so I won't have to do a great job of interior textures:smile: Always drove me crazy mapping everything.

I also messed with the suspension tuning a bit, found out why the front anti-roll bar should be stronger than the back one When the back wheel lifts off the ground going into a corner you get a lot of oversteer, even in a 40hp car.

 

[opaleiro]

nice work bro! 'm looking forward to the link

if you need some help in the ini, I am here (sorry, bad english)

 

[Stereo]

Did a little work on the wheel normals/texture. Don't really have a picture of the old one for comparison but it looks better to me.

I also tracked down some pictures of the dashboard that should be good enough to model it from, no more excuses :tongue: Still no luck with a texture quality picture of the speedometer though.