CGTalk - WIP: Racing Snowmobile

Peoples

11-10-2002, 09:00 PM

Hey! I just noticed I've been promoted to a "veteran"! Seems I've hang out here for a while - but IMHO I'm pretty far from a C4D veteran - so how do you guys change the nickname above your avatar - couldn't find it in the profile settings or is that a privilige for the superheroes that have hundreds of posts?........As for this red rocket - I can't wait to get it finished but for now I'll have to focus on my boring undergraduate studies on linear algebra........... :mad:

I'll try to make this one as real as I can - It takes just too much time to bake all those little details of the primitives like my shockabsorbers f.ex........

AdamT

11-10-2002, 09:42 PM

Very cool--looking good.

DeathCarrot

11-10-2002, 10:42 PM

Very very nice stuff :buttrock:
I just became a veteran today when i turned 30 posts old, i think you can only get a custom title when youve posted like 70 or so times.... i think... :shrug:

malc0lm

11-10-2002, 11:29 PM

gr8 wrk, keep it up!
Givin up on the good 'ol car I see :P
Can u give a quick summary on how u did it?

Peoples

11-11-2002, 09:25 AM

Well - I haven't given up on the cars, I just got so enthusiastic with this I put the car aside for a while. I started with the "hood" piece - just plain old boxmodeling with hypernurbs. Deleted some polys and added depth to the edges using edge extrude. Adjusted the shape by moving points etc. The side tubes are loftNurbs with a B-spline profile - adjusted the shape by moving the splines points. The skisystem and shockabsorbers are made out of basic primitives mostly and some extrude-nurbs. The windshield was baked from an empty polygon object which I gave some points and bridged them together. Again - moved points to get the shape right and dropped the thing in HN. The body is a box in HN - just extruded and shaped by moving points. The seat was inner-extruded and extruded - its a part of the same bodybox. Thats basicly it.......Oh - I used symmetry with almost every part - saves work and makes it nice and clean. You just have to remember to delete some polys and align all the points exactly on 0 so you dont get ugly symmetries......

tonyg3d

11-11-2002, 10:30 AM

Nice Stuff,

Love the metallic reflected look.
Would you mind explaining how you 'baked' the polygon for the windsheild?

I'm a newbie myself, and though I've heard of this I haven't tried it.

Keep up the great work,

Tony.

Peoples

11-11-2002, 04:32 PM

First I made a polygon object (Objects -> Polygon object). In front view I added points to create the profile for the windshield. Then I copied the points in Structure manager and pasted em - moved forward. I used the create polygon tool to make the first row of polys. Kept on copy-pasteing the points and moved the forward and made polys between them. Once I got to the front end of the windshield I switched to side view and moved the points to get the aerodynamic sideprofile for it as well. The whole idea is basically to build some polygons with points and then finetune the shape by moving points in different views. I kept the polygon object as a child of hypernurbs all the time to see the shape evolving. I found out that when working with a polygon object the hypernurbs cage is very rough (strange) so I had to set the subdivision to 7 to get the shield smooth enough.

Thanx everyone for the comments - will keep you updated with this monster!

:twisted:

.ps. Does anyone actually know about the custom title above the avatar - whats the postlimit to change it.......?

That Adrian Guy

11-12-2002, 02:59 AM

Nice chrome, Making the treads/threads should be a nice challenge = )

Peoples

11-12-2002, 06:47 AM

Last nights work - the 'belt' needs still some finetuning and a decent carbonfibre-texture and a rubber. The rendertimes are getting pretty huge....

dirtySanchez

11-12-2002, 07:58 AM

Have you seen this guys work? He has an amazing attention to detail.
http://www2.jan.ne.jp/~yutakai/
http://www2.jan.ne.jp/~yutakai/obj12/obj12_rearleft.jpg
All done in Cinema too.

Keep up the good work,
DS

tkay

11-12-2002, 08:01 AM

The front hood seems to be inspired by the older Cobra-looking Lynx´s sport sled. Looks nice! You could modify the track a little though; the "teeth" are too uniform and need more shaping to give "extra grip".

What comes to your profile, goto my profile/edit profile/custom user text and do what has to be done... :D

sunk

11-13-2002, 12:17 AM

wpcked sweet man, after riding the damned things in my youth the only thing i have to say is that the track is a bit narrow. cant wait to see the final image.

sunk

11-13-2002, 12:31 AM

just noticed its the redline Revolt 800 or close to it!

Peoples

11-13-2002, 01:41 PM

Well - I actually based it on the new 954 Revolution but as I said - made some alterations.. Here is the real one from redlinesnowmobiles.com:

ThirdEye

11-13-2002, 01:42 PM

Your model is really good, now you have to add bhodinut fresnel on the reflection channel!

prayas

11-13-2002, 03:05 PM

really cool work over here mr peoples.

Is there allready snow in Finland?
Would be real cool to do a race.

PS changed your avatar to the real peoples?
Need to see this movie again. Shaft rocks

P..:

Peoples

11-13-2002, 09:23 PM

Thirdeye - I have fresnel in the ref. channel as usual - but maybe it needs some adjustment. Anyway - the textures aren't final - just tried something quick. I need to concentrate on the belt and the whole rear end more - the belt doesn't look realistic. And yes - we do have snow here in Helsinki and bloody cold as well (-7°C.........)

Sez

11-14-2002, 12:11 AM

Really nice job so far with the snowmobile. The modeling is sweeter than candy!:buttrock:

I'd like to ride in deep pow or hard packed snow! hehehe!
Lucky you if it's already snowing! I'm waiting for it really bad!

Keep it up and the FOX sticker is real cool!

:thumbsup:

Peoples

11-16-2002, 09:06 PM

I made the belt a bit wider and started with the pipes and the steering rod. It needs all the details and wires. I also have to make the speed meter panel (what do you call it?). Once I get the overall shapes right - I'll get rid of the hypernurbs and start making some panel cuts and adding more details. Btw - is there a way to check polycount or objectcount in a scene in cinema? This one took 3h48min to render on my old faithful G4/400/320MB.......If someone has good ideas about realistic carbon-fibre shader I´d love to hear. I did a quick test for CF in PS with black and grey boxpattern but it seems too clear and uniform.....

Keep working my buddies - I know I will.....:airguitar

sunk

11-16-2002, 10:24 PM

damn impressive.

ThirdEye

11-17-2002, 12:09 AM

Nearly perfect: increase the GI settings and the reflections amount

Peoples

11-17-2002, 12:33 AM

Thanks! Will adjust the materials when done with the modeling and details. As for the GI - my poor mac is dying:bounce: This one was rendered 640x480, AA:geom, accur:70%, Diff.depht:1, stoc.sampl: 100, min:2, max:30 and took a bloody 4hours to render!! But when I get this finished with all the stickers and the racing outfit I WILL render a bigone with enough samples even if it took 4ever..

BTW - any suggestions for a name for this machine?

Peoples

11-17-2002, 07:47 PM

progressing bit by bit.......

DeathCarrot

11-17-2002, 07:49 PM

:applause: :bounce: :beer:
That's amazing, looks quite finished, i'd like to see that stuck onto a wintery environment...

malc0lm

11-17-2002, 08:58 PM

Looks _real_ great!! Just a friendly reminder: Don't forget too finish the "skies", (argh perkele I can't spell english wrds).
Keep up the great wrk! :D

say-g

11-17-2002, 10:27 PM

great job peoples!

sad

11-17-2002, 10:46 PM

great! that was fast! which version of cinem do you use?

amapimaster

11-17-2002, 11:41 PM

thats excellent work! all this is inspiring me to have a go at a vehicle myself!

Sez

11-18-2002, 02:56 AM

Looking really so far!

My only crits is the texture of the bench! It's a bit weird. It looks like a "spuge". that's the only thing I would fix.
The rest of it is great!:thumbsup:

I'm looking foward for the next image.

:buttrock:

Peoples

11-18-2002, 06:27 AM

Wow - thanks for the comments guys! I'm using R7 for the moment - having trouble with the R8 demo - It says String Resource not found! when I try to start the damn demo.........:bounce: :bounce:

I'll have to change the bench texture and maybe adjust the shape of the bench. Also have to make some details for te steering rod and maybe do the skis again - they don't look good. But thanks again - you make me feel like I actually have made something decentlooking for long time...

Peoples

11-18-2002, 10:22 AM

I'm in school at the moment - with too much sparetime in between classes..=) So I grabed my last post from the web and played around in PS - when the racer will be finished I'll have to focus on attaching it realistically on a background. Maybe the standard bg-object in c4d would work? Any experiences on making photoreal scenes with bg?

'till next time........

malc0lm

11-18-2002, 06:42 PM

Looks pretty realistic now ;)
Thats just awesome!

Peoples

11-29-2002, 06:19 PM

A small update - did some istruments to the steering rod and made the skis a bit more realistic. I'm rendering a better quality GI render right now but it takes 4ever! Any suggestions on how to make this better? I think I'm almost done...

DaliFan

11-29-2002, 07:05 PM

that is very nice

makes me want to jump on it actually and go for a spin

DeathCarrot

11-29-2002, 08:31 PM

That does look really good :thumbsup:, but you can see that there isnt an engine as you can see through next to the side fox logo... you know.. yeah, but.. that's gr8 m8!:p

Peoples

11-29-2002, 08:35 PM

Yeah - I'll have to fix that hole...I don't think I've got the energy to model the engine but I will make a panel to the bottom. :hmm:

Ramzes_II

11-29-2002, 08:54 PM

Wow, your model is just....just WOW !
Texturing, Lightning and rendering are very coool !
Good Job ! Love your Snowmobile :D

That Adrian Guy

11-29-2002, 09:16 PM

Watcha gonna do w/ it?

Can I have it? he he... I already know the animation I'd make

Peoples

11-29-2002, 09:26 PM

Well- so far I haven't got a clue what to do with it....I just did it for fun.Maybe I'll put up a showcase one day and get me a job. What sort of anim did you have in mind?
I think an animation is bit out of my league at least with this render quality (GI) - My mac is far too slow........:bounce: :bounce:

ThirdEye

11-29-2002, 09:32 PM

Light the scene with some fill lights and no GI, the main problem for an animation would be snow particles i think...

AdamT

11-30-2002, 06:58 AM

Great work Peoples! It really turned out top-notch.

Peoples

11-30-2002, 09:24 AM

I tried to attach this to a photo to get a real environment - but it's so hard!! This is rendered with one parallel light with hard shadow and one tube with no shadows to simulate the bouncing light from the snow. I used sadie's advices to get the shadow to the ground. This was done by having a floor with my bgpic as texture with the rendertag compositing background on and frontal wrapping. I've also got a background element with the same bgpic texture attached to it. But the lightning is very hard to get realistic compared to the picture.....

I'm thinking about posting this to the Finished Work gallery - but since that is an arena with *really* pro work - I'm not sure if this would fit in.....

I think the monocolor looks more photoreal:hmm:

Peoples

11-30-2002, 09:26 AM

here it is..

ThirdEye

11-30-2002, 10:11 AM

No it isn't photoreal at all, the color version is surely better! Post it there but there's that hole in the engine place, fix it! :thumbsup:

Peoples

12-01-2002, 11:27 AM

Fixed the see-through engine and added some mesh to the foot rest tubes. A bigger res pic can be seen here:

http://www.hut.fi/~vhautala/sled170k.jpg

It's nearly done.....any final adjustements?

ThirdEye

12-01-2002, 11:31 AM

No comments, it's perfect: now if i were in your shoes I'd follow two roads:

1) you want only stills: make some GI renders even with HDRI technique

2) you wanna animate that monster: use a sorta dome of lights (instanced) to simulate GI and work a lot on particles to simulate the snow.

DeathCarrot

12-01-2002, 11:32 AM

That's cool :beer:
btw how did you composite it onto the background? was it in c4d or with ps or summing? cause i really would like to now how to get it nicely on there, check out http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29614

Peoples

12-01-2002, 11:42 AM

Thanx guys!

DC: I made the composition on cinema. I read your thread and followed sadies advice. I didn't quite get it first but did some experimenting and got it. Here's how I did it: I have a background pic (the alpine one). I applied that to my floor object with frontal projection and the composite backround checked on in the render tag of the floor. That way it stays bright but still receives shadows. I also have a background object with the same bg pic in it. When the floor has also frontal mapping - they fit together perfectly and no seem between them is visible because they have the same tex and same projection. It doesn't matter how you rotate your viewport - the floor will always show the bgpic frontal. I haven't tried how this works with radiosity but with normal lights it works as in my pic.

Hope this clears it out - if not - I can try to explain a bit more....:wavey:

DeathCarrot

12-01-2002, 11:45 AM

ok, so, what i feared is true! :sad: no radiosity can be emitted onto it... just normal shadows from normal lights..

malc0lm

12-01-2002, 02:01 PM

Looks really gr8 Peoples..
The only thing keeping it from perfection is the seat-cuschion.
It looks too smooth, maybe a texture with a little bump will solve it?

ThirdEye

12-01-2002, 02:11 PM

The shadow should be blueish

imashination

12-01-2002, 11:48 PM

I've been milling it over and now know what the problem with this (fantastic) image is. It isn't quite right and it took me a while to work out what it is. the main thing is that this 150Kg snow mobile is sitting on top of the snow perfectly. The shadows of the skis are crisp and straight, when they should be being cast onto quite bumpy and chunky snow. Secondly is that the rear flaps are also sat perfectly on the surface when they should be digging into the snow.

Subdivide the plane you've used for the ground shadow and apply the crumple command to it, allowing parts of it to dig into the snow.

santiago

12-02-2002, 12:02 AM

Ni ce model!
I see some shadow problems, the render is grainy, that can easilt be fixed. Regarding the modelling, the first post looked better, after posting the rear tread, this model somehow lost some of its quality. It's interesting to see that you already began textures without having completed the model.
I like the original idea for the model, lately so many cars and toony characters having been appearing, which is awesome, but it's great to see other kinds of models coming out from the dark.
What plans for this model?

santiago

12-02-2002, 12:07 AM

oops, I didn't realize there were more pages to this thread!
... he he, how embarassing, it looks better now, it looks too clean and perfect to be considered photorealistic, add more chaos dude.
Looks cool!

MJV

12-02-2002, 01:28 AM

That is outstanding. Very realistic. Let's see some more of your work. Is your avatar real or CG?

l_farley13_l

12-08-2002, 07:17 PM

yup the old chaos! Snow should just be all over this thing, that would make it look cool - like one of those pickup comerecials, with all the mud. or if your keeping it "Clean" like the photo, at least somthing on the treads. Plus it's good practice ;)

Farley13