GTA Car W.I.P.

[Sephiroth_VII]

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/fgs.png
No tuts. Using plastic car model kit for reference.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

How many polygons does a GTA4 car have usually?

 

[TDR]

eek...that looks really messed up. The topology must be criminal. Please post a wireframe view, as big as you can (just screen capture your viewport with edged faces turned on) so I can give you more specific advice.

Oh, and these new gen games have insane polycounts, my guess would be around 20.000 - 50.000 for a car in GTA4.

 

[SuPa-]

That is insane. Really, they could probably use half of any of that and have the same looking model xD

But yeah, your car looks messy right now

 

[TDR]

I know, right? They may have even more. I mean an armor set in oblivion is at over 15k polygons and it's 2 years older than gta4...

 

[~Void~]

Wow, looks pretty nice, but from my experience windshields usually aren't solid gray...

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

would be around 20.000 - 50.000 for a car in GTA4.

Thats good. After I smooth everything with 1 Iteration its about 21,000.

I've changed it a bit since the last pic. Heres the wire frame. Before smoothing. I'd think you'd want to see what it looks like before smoothing.

 

[TDR]

yes, of course before smoothing.

K, now first of all that car is really ugly design-wise. Try making a real car before coming up with your own design. This is very ugly, doesn't have any nice flows nor shapes, no nice silhouette and it's very disproportionate.

And about modeling, well it's obvious you don't even know the basics of high poly modeling. The first and most important rule of all is to keep all your polygons quads! Triangles and ngons mess up the mesh big time, like you can see.
Secondly, you must have nice, streamline flows of polygons all around your mesh, not catastrophic crashes like you have above the wheels. Those areas are absolutely terrible, they're just a random pile of triangles and ngons.
Keep your distances between polygons equal in order to obtain a nice smooth mesh! The closer 2 edges are to each other, the sharper that edge will be. Have this in mind when you want to define sharp edges, but unify the distances between polygons otherwise.

Yeah, so you basically have to heavily reconsider the design and to celan up your mesh, remember, you must have only quads! You can hide triangles and whatnot in areas you won't see. Also there may be situations in which triangles or ngons don't affect smoothing at all, but they're rare. If it doesn't bother, leave it. If it does, like in your case, remove it.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

Thanks, I was wondering how to make them sharp edges. I thought triangles and quads were ok. But thats only for low poly ok I see. Make real car. I like to make up my own models tho. It wouldn't be so fun to just copy something. But I see what your saying. I'll try and clean this up, wouldn't want to trash it. Good thing you didn't see the bottom of the floor inside the car. lol. You'd really be like wtf then.

Wow, looks pretty nice, but from my experience windshields usually aren't solid gray...

It doesnt have material its just any random color i want it for now.

 

[Draelren]

Best thing to do from my standing point, would be to scrap this version of the model, but rebuild it from a new object, building around the already done mesh you have.

That way you merely have to "trace" the shape, but keep it all quads. Like TDR said already, occasionally a triangle or 2 in a model won't hurt. You really get into trouble when you have more than one next to each other. Smoothing doesn't know how to calculate how to difference the points to counter.

Keep it all quads, NEVER more than 4 points ever on a polygon. If you have to, simply make another cut down the side of the car.

When you smooth, the model should look like a semi-dense spider-web mesh. If some areas of the car are higher in density than the other, you might have a problem when it comes to importing.

It would be a lot of work to clean that model up right, that's why my recommendation is what it is. Good luck.

 

[De4thSoldierX]

Really the cars great but what are you gonna do with it? its worthless unless someones driving it?

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

When I'm done with it I guess I'll just render it. In some places i was a little confused on how to set up the quads.. but here's what I got.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/bo09.jpg

 

[TDR]

that's a HUUUUUUGE improvement from what you had before. Good job!

 

[SuPa-]

Yeah, this is a lot better!

 

[GnoobSauce]

Looks really cool. Are you planning on putting it in GTA 4 or just modelling it?

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

removed questions.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

Update

I am still not done with it. As you can tell. The body will be high poly, everything else will be low poly.

1) http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/7-2.jpg
2) http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/6-1.jpg
3) http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/5-2.jpg
4) http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/4-1.jpg
5) http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/3-3.jpg
6) http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/2-3.jpg
7) http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/1-3.jpg

 

[brad.dude03]

The level of detail is excellent, reminds me of the seventies-style Corvettes.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/Car-1.png
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/257.png
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/256.png

After showing that wireframe on another site they said it has no hard edges and no proper loops.

Them renders are from scanline.

 

[brad.dude03]

Still quite win though.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/03.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/04.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t218/Sephiroth_VII_photos/05.jpg
I think its finished! Its much, much better now.
C&C anything needs fixing? I tried to make it have poly flow, hard edges, and loops..
I'll get some shots of the bottom next time.

 

[TDR]

heh, unfortunately the render is terrible...if you could give me your max scene, I'll show you how to get a proper render for that thing. I'll give the scene back to you and explain what I did. But also tell me what version of max you're using.

 

[brad.dude03]

Yeah, let TDR fix it up and make it ultrawin.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

Here. I set up cameras for views I like. 6&7 are of bottom, 8 is of engine (you have to open hood.) I have max5 sadly. hope its not to much work for you. thx. materials will have to be redone probably.

 

[TDR]

K, it's no problem, I'll look into it right now. Though you might want to remove the attachment now if you want.

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

Off topic: Removed it, Metal Gear Solid 4 is so damn good that I have to make a random praise on the internet. Only reason I came here is because im stuck on vamp, so I check thread before I give it another go. MGS4 IS BEST GAME EVER!!! maybe. For now at least. There's still FF13 and God of War3 that can beat it! I might even be so enthused as to make a MGS4 crappy sig!