3dsmax Car Modelling

7/30/2019 3dsmax Car Modelling

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The Pits 3DSMax Car-Building TutorialEditor's Note: This tutorial should really be your starting point from the basis of a knowledge levelof wanting to get started with 3dsMax modeling and rFactor. We also have a Q&A doc that shouldassist you with many of those questions that everyone assumes you know the answer to, so checkthat out as well. This document starts with a preface from one of The Pits Crew asking aboutmodeling, thereafter Scott gets into mirroring an already half-built car.

Chapter 1: The Starting Line

Hi guys,

Recent l y I ' ve st ar t ed at t empt i ng t o l earn 3D model i ng. I t ' s har d when youst ar t out but I ' ve been wat chi ng vi deo t ut ori al s and r eadi ng qui t e a l ot .Some of i t seems t o be rubbi ng of f - I somet i mes l ook at t he Peugeot 205 I ' mmodel i ng and del ete l arge chunks because I ' ve l ear nt bet t er ways of doi ngsomet hi ng. I woul d post a pi c but I ' m at work and don' t have t he f i l e her e.However, t he shape i s get t i ng there now and the bunch of pol ys has st art edt aki ng f or m and l ooki ng l i ke a car .

One di f f i cul t y I ' ve f ound i s havi ng t o use a bi t of ar t i st i c l i cense becausebl uepr i nt s can onl y t el l you so much. Lot s of phot os r eal l y hel p!

Of cour se, t he end goal i s get t i ng model s I ' ve made i nt o r Fact or, but I ' mqui t e a way of f t hat at t he moment ! One t hi ng I ' m sl i ght l y unsure about i skeepi ng t he pol ys down, but keepi ng a ni ce ar c shape at t he same t i me. Canyou use smoot hi ng gr oups i n rFact or t o hel p you out ?

Al so, any ot her t i ps or t hi ngs I shoul d be awar e of ?

Rob


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Nice to hear you're getting into this some.

I t hi nk i t ' s a l ot of f un, as l ong as you don' t bi t e of f mor e t han you can chew. . .

The ar t i st i c l i cense bi t i s where you wi l l r un acr oss t he most cr i t i ci sm of your wor kf r omother s. Fact : Even i f you l aser scan a car , you won' t necessar i l y have a modelt hat accur at el y r epr esent s al l car s of t he same make. Wi t hout l aser scanni ng, t here

are choi ces you have t o make, compromi ses you have t o make. That ' s what makes 3dmodel i ng as much ar t as sci ence.

As f ar as t he l ow pol y t hi ng and how t o appr oach i t . . . Thi s i s another of t hosechoi ces/ compr omi ses t hi ngs. You r eal l y have t o pi ck your bat t l es when doi ng a l ow pol ymodel . I can t el l you t hat f or me per sonal l y i t ' s gener al l y easi er t o add pol ys t hant o r educe t hem. I t ' s al so common t o set a goal and t hen exceed i t . Wi t h t hat i n mi nd,i t ' s my opi ni on t hat your best bet i s t o bui l d t he l owest pol y model you can, and t henadd det ai l when/ i f needed. You can cover up a l ack of pol ys usi ng smoot hi ng ( r Fact ordoesn' t speci f i cal l y suppor t smoot hi ng gr oups, but i t ' s ver y, ver y easy t o get t he sameef f ect i n rFact or and you can get t her e easi l y i f you model usi ng smoot hi ng gr oups, soI hi ghl y r ecommend i t ) . The t r i ck i s t o f i gur e out what areas need more pol ys to l ooksmoot h and what areas don' t . I n general , t he edges wi l l need more pol ys t han t he

mi ddl e of panel s. You can al so cover up a l ot wi t h a good t ext ur e/ pai nt t empl at e, aswel l as add a l ot of det ai l t hat i sn' t i n t he model . I t end t o use mor e pol ys ar oundt he wheel openi ngs, on t he nose of t he car , al ong t he top of t he f r ont f ender s andal ong the out er edges of t he roof and t r unk/ hat ch.

Back t o t he smoot hi ng gr oups t hi ng. You can t ake a 3d obj ect , sel ect t he f aces bysmoot hi ng gr oup, detach t hemt o an el ement ( keeps t hemas part of t he same obj ect , butbreaks t he seams bet ween the sel ect ed and unsel ect ed pol ys) , t hen expor t t o t he r F gmtf ormat and the model wi l l show up i n game wi t h the same ki nd of smoothi ng as i t has i n3dsmax usi ng the smoothi ng gr oups.

Last bi t , and t hi s i s anot her per sonal pr ef er ence t hi ng. I f a l i ne on a car i s evensomewhat cr i sp, I t end to use t he smoot hi ng gr oup st uf f and create a shar p edge ther ei nst ead of t r yi ng t o model a cr i sp t ur n. When you get t he model i n- game i t wi l l gi ve

i t a cer t ai n def i ni t i on and wi l l usual l y be at an angl e wher e you can' t t el l i t ' s ashar p cr ease. An exampl e woul d be wher e t he r oof meet s t he body on most cars. There' susual l y a smal l f i l l et t ype t r ansi t i on bet ween t he panel s. I model i t wi t h a ver yshar p t r ansi t i on between t he t wo, as i f t he r oof wer e j ust set upon a surf ace. Betweent he pai nt t empl at e, t he angl es and di st ance i n game, et c you get a wel l def i nedt r ansi t i on that doesn' t l ook as shar p as i t does i n 3dsmax.

Her e' s a coupl e of qui cki e scr een pi cs to show some of what I ' m t al ki ng about . Ii ncl uded t he f ace edges i n one of t he pi cs so you coul d easi l y see what par t s of t hecar have hi gher pol y count s and what part s don' t , as wel l as a general f eel f or adecent pol y model f or r Fact or . Of note, anywhere t hat you see a ver y def i ned bodyl i ne, i t was or i gi nal l y done i n 3dsmax wi t h smoot hi ng gr oups and t hen went t hrough t hewhol e det ach t o el ement t hi ng f or i ngame. Thi s i s t he case f or t he f ender f l ar es, t he

concave cur ve at t he t op of t he f ender s l eadi ng t o t he convex cur ve of t he hood. I tal so appl i es t o t he upper par t of t he si des t hat i s separ at ed f r om t he l ower par t t ogi ve t he si de of t he car t hat 8" bevel ed of f l ook at t he t op of t he si des.


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One l ast t hi ng on t hi s. Ther e ar e t i mes wher e you wi l l want t he t r ansi t i ons t o be moresmoot h, l ess shar p. I n t hose cases, you can end up wi t h some r eal l y odd smoot hi ngr esul t s unl ess you use some r eal l y smal l pol ys al ong t he body l i ne. The smal l pol yshel p t r ansi t i on t he smoothi ng f r om l ar ge f l at sur f aces t o smal l cur ved ser vi ces wi t houtcausi ng hot spots ( bul ges and/ or dent s t hat shoul dn' t be on t he mesh) . At t achi ng t woscreen pi cs of a hood f r om t he CoT st ockcar . I nst ead of t he hood l i nes havi ng r eal l yst r ong edges, I smoot hed i t out some by creat i ng a pai r of t hi n r ows of pol ys t ot r ansi t i on across t he body l i ne. Thi s ent i r e sect i on of hood i s i n one smoot hi ng gr oup.


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Tah Tah For NowScot t St ockton

Ah, that's interesting.Thanks f or t hat t i p. I haven' t got around t o doi ng t he r oof yet but I ' l l bear t hat i nmi nd when I get t her e! I guess you must do somet hi ng si mi l ar wher e the hood meet s t hesi de of t he car ?

Rob


6/14

Chapter 2 Mirror, mirror

The first thing to do is to pick the model you want to work with and in mesh edit mode just deleteone half of the car. Pick either half. In the screen pics here I picked the passenger side to delete.I'll take this moment to give you some input on the model to pick. After looking through the differentLOD models that are included with this Lexus, I think your best bet would be to start off with thereally high poly version and manually weld verts together where you can, create new individualfaces that span multiple faces in the original model, etc, until you have a reasonable poly count.The lower poly models for this thing were all auto generated and the automatic choices that weremade were not that good. It will be more difficult to get a clean model out of the lower poly onesdue to the way some important polys to the shape of the car were removed while others that don'tmatter much were left in place. For the door seams and such, I'd recommend creating polys thatspan the gaps and then delete the old ones. The hood and trunk will probably be better if you just

weld them to the body.


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Moving on... With half a car, you can tweak the mesh anyway you want, make any additions,changes, etc. Once you've got the half mesh the way you want it, then map or remap anything thatneeds to be adjusted or mapped (in the case of new polys and such). Do this while you're stillworking with half of a car.


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Once you've got the half car mapped the way you want it, it's time to mirror the car. Note thesettings I've got on the "Mirror" modifier. You will need to select "Copy" and then you'll need tocheck each axis until you get the equivalent of a passenger side of the car from the driver side (orvice versa depending on which half you originally chose to work with). If the mirrored halves don't

line up correctly, delete the Mirror modifier to get rid of it and adjust the pivot point for the model tomake certain it's setting at 0,0,0, then re-add the Mirror modifier. Once you've got a whole carbody, collapse the Mirror modifier (right click on Mirror just below the Modifier List, select collapseall). That's something to make note of, every time you finish working with a modifier collapse it,otherwise you can find you work will get blown away by any other editing you do. This goes for theUnwrap UVW thing especially. Once you've got the mapping done on the half car, collapse theUnwrap UVW modifier or your mapping will be lost when you've finished up with the work from theMirror modifier. Someone used to ignore me when I'd tell him to collapse the modifiers and he wasconstantly complaining about losing his mapping and warning that using the Mirror modifier wouldcreate bunches of extra polys. All he needed to do was collapse the modifiers and it would resolvea lot of the problems he used to blame on 3dsMax.


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Now that you've got a full body and no modifiers applied, you'll likely need to go in and weldsome of the vertices together to smooth out the panels on each half of the car (see the imageabove, and compare the roof of the Mustang to the way it looks in the image on the previous page

just after the Mirror was applied). The way I handle this is when I've still got half a car, I select

groups of faces and create smoothing groups that create sharp edges where I need them andsmooth surfaces where I need those. After I mirror, I go into vertex editing mode for the mesh, Iadjust the distance on the Weld Selected option to .0001mm (this will force it to only weld verts thatare on top of each other), then select all verts, click Weld Selected, and then switch to face editmode, select face smoothing groups one at a time, and click Detach and select "To Element". Thisis done because the rFactor export tool doesn't support smoothing groups very well.


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Once you've got your whole car mesh looking the way you want, it's time to add the UnwrapUVW modifier again. You'll notice that while you've got a whole car, you've still only got what lookslike half a car mapped. The mirrored side of the car retained the mapping of the original half car,and the mapping did not get altered by the mirror modifier. At this point, you can select whole

sections of mapping in the Unwrap UVW Edit screen. You should be able to select the nose, thetail, the main body, any other separated mappings you need. When you select the faces in theUVW Edit screen, it will highlight the faces on both the driver side and the passenger side.


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In the mesh editing screen you can deselect the faces that are correctly mapped (in the case ofthe example pics, deselect the driver side faces and you'll be working with only the passenger sidein the UVW editor).


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Now you can click on the Tools menu in the UVW Edit screen and select Flip Horizontal or FlipVertical in order to get the mapping correct for the side of the car you're working on (see image 07).Once you've flipped the mapping you can reposition it so that you get the entire nose, tail, body, etcof the car. One trick here when repositioning, if you hold down the Shift key it will force the

movement to be either vertical or horizontal, so you can keep the mapping lined up (in the case ofthe pic above, I moved the mapping of the nose to the left while holding down the shift key, so themapping staid lined up vertically). You'll need to zoom in quite a ways to get the flipped mappinglined up with the original mapping, but it doesn't take long to get the two halves lined up nicely.


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These two images show some continued progress in flipping the mapping on the passengerside of the car and getting it lined up.


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Once you've completed flipping all of the mapping and getting it aligned, you should have acompletely mapped car with no issues of mirror images of the graphics and such.

Also attached in the rar file are two images I use when mapping a car body to show me quickly

any places where there might be warp. It's impossible to eliminate all warp in a model, but you canminimize and/or control where the warp is on a model and the two mapping grid textures come inhandy for me when working in 3dsMax. I picked orange and black simply because my monitorshowed up the contrast in the two better than any other combinations I tried (all the others tendedto be a bit blurred due to the high contrast in such a tight pattern). I haven't messed with mappinga car body since I went to an LCD monitor, so you might want to modify these files to better suityour monitor.

--=====Tah Tah For Now

Scott Stockton

This document 2009 The Pits.No reproduction or distribution for monetary compensation or exchange for goods or services is allowed.

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3dsmax Car Modelling