3D Work In Progress: Lamborghini Sesto Elemento Concept.

[Marcel vd Aa]

With winter knocking on the door I decided to take up my other hobby next to racing: modeling cars in 3D. It's always hard to decide which car to do but this time I chose the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento Concept. I love the way this car is styled; awesome stealth look.
I thought it would be nice to let you see how this process works. It's very similar to the way cars in games are made with one huge difference. Where ingame cars are limited to the amount of detail that can be rendered by the game engine, I don't have that limit so expect a very high detailed model.

Step 1 is creating a so called splinecage. Basicly it's a 3D representation of all the major bodylines (plus some extra lines to make it easier to patch). I normally use car blueprints as a reference to get the correct lines but for this one I use photo's. This makes it a bit harder because of the camera's perspective fov. Once the spline cage is done I will fill it up with polygons and from there the detailing starts.

Real Car:

Spline Cage WIP:

 

[Gary Thompson]

Quite a skill and so much detail .. love the colours.

 

[Omer Said]

Wow i use Maya and i know how much hard is that job, even without blueprints it's harder.

Looks really nice and hope to see you w.i.p pictures mate

Also great choice of car, such a beauty

P.S that Modeler software, do you think it's better than Maya (if you used that) in modeling?

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

P.S that Modeler software, do you think it's better than Maya (if you used that) in modeling?

It really depends on what you plan to do with it...when I started doing this you had 3DSMax which was the best at rendering, Lightwave was best for modeling objects and Maya was regarded as THE software for character modeling. Today the differences are much smaller but Lightwave kinda stuck to me; although I am busy with learning 3DSMax nowadays.
What do you do with Maya?

 

[Omer Said]

What do you do with Maya?

I was doing modeling, rigging, animation...everything i could do with Maya.

But now i want to start modeling some cartoonish F1 cars. Thanks!

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

Almost done with the spline cage...I will start building the actual model pretty soon.

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

Started the so called patching process; basicly this means creating polygons along the lines of the spline cage. So now I can test how accurate my lines are. I will make up a global model and by judging the poly-flow in certain areas I can come up with a model that has most of the lines of the original. Sometimes however it is not possible to create enough detail in this stage so I will address any detailing issues at a later stage. The way the patching works is actually pretty simple; I select 3 or 4 connecting lines (mostly in a square) and use a simple tool that allows me to define how much polygons I want in between those lines. The tool will automaticly follow the contours I provided. So far it's still pretty easy tbh, the really hard part is detailing the model. Stay tuned...

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

For some of my other car WIP's... http://cid-01d7c7e24fd5bcb3.photos.live.com/browse.aspx/3D Cars WIP^4s?uc=3
Haven't touched these in a long time though.

 

[Omer Said]

Wow Marcel, espicially Enzo looks great, will you continue to them soon?
Are you able to implement these models to Race On or rFactor?

 

[Adam Eggbeer]

Very interesting way of building the car. May have to try this method out some time. Cars are looking really good as well

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

Wow Marcel, espicially Enzo looks great, will you continue to them soon?
Are you able to implement these models to Race On or rFactor?

Thanks Omer, I consider the Enzo as my best best work sofar. As for continuing these cars, I think I will scrap the A8 and the RX8 mainly because my inspiration has run dry with these cars. The Maybach is another car I did from photo's and will definately be finished. The Enzo too will be continued in the long run but not sure when.
As for implementing these models into any game I have to dissappoint you. If you look at a car model from NFS:Shift which is nicely detailed you will see that it exists of roughly 45000 polygons. The Enzo model although far from finished is doing 230000. This is waaay too much for any current game engine. Hopefully we will be able to use those kind of polygon number in the future but for now we're stuck with lowpoly cars for games.

Very interesting way of building the car. May have to try this method out some time. Cars are looking really good as well

Thanks.
There are many ways of building a 3D object but I find this method to be the most accurate. Especially if you have good blueprints of the car. If all the blueprint views line up it is very easy to come up with a decent model pretty quick. There is only one thing you need to keep in mind (at least when using Lightwave); sometimes you'll need additional lines to ensure the patching process goes well. Try it out and let me know if you run into problems.

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

Working on refining the bodylines and adding detail...

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Amazing work Marcel!

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

More detailing done...focussing on the lines and angles of the bodywork.

 

[ufunacaoenn]

This looks really good, can't wait for the next update.

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

Amazing work Marcel!

This looks really good, can't wait for the next update.

Thanks

 

[Günthar Rowe]

any news on this baby?

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

just started working on it again...had some busy months

 

[Wayne Reed]

That is some awesome work there bud. I tried to make a car about a year back with 3dsmax and it was just to hard. I just don't have the free time to know all there is to know to make a car. I take my hat off to all you car makers out there it really is a skill super stuff

 

[Marcel vd Aa]

That is some awesome work there bud. I tried to make a car about a year back with 3dsmax and it was just to hard. I just don't have the free time to know all there is to know to make a car. I take my hat off to all you car makers out there it really is a skill super stuff

Thanks