ZBrushCentral

Z-car

Continuing my experiments in non organic modeling in zbrush, I get myself into a car modeling project.
Before the release of the great pluggin from marcus, marker master, I decided to put weels in the same object…
Now this pluggins has been released, I regret a bit! MAybe Ill compose something in the final image…
Anyway, heres were Ive been so far. A very basic sculpting… The base mesh if from zbrush, edgelooped, uv edited in maya.
I have good feeling concernign the result, almaost with materials… But I still have to find a good compo…

compos01.jpg

Nice! Curious how you develop it.
:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:small_orange_diamond:+1:
LemonNado

looks very cool! Is it based on an actual car?
You may wanna have a look here for another Z_car;
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=274756
Keep it up!
:b2:

Hey! Funny to see someone already tryed to do a car in zbrush!

compos02.jpg

this is some thing you dont hardly see on this forum:+1:
keep going man
i want to see this render out with some body paint:grimacing:

Hi Sebcesoir, Exellent tests, although if you will allow me I would like to suggest an alternate workflow which I developed after I engaged in similar experiments, some years ago.

At the time I had just purchased an Alfa Romeo GTV6 24V (1998), what I consider to be one of the best designed cars in the world, and in combination with my attempts to learn how to model vehicles using nurbs, three important conclusions arose -

1 - That in essence we are dealing with organic - smooth, flowing, gradually changing forms, when we consider modern car designs: enter Zbrush.
orgcar.jpg


2 - The most difficult element of modelling with nurbs is not the construction of the ‘Surfaces’, but rather the creation and maintainance of intended volumes(here I use volumes and forms interchangably) and planes. This is because you are working curve by curve, patch by patch to contruct the final surface of the car/object.

3 - What I found after numerous experiments modelling helicopters, cars and ‘spaceships’, is that realistically, Zbrush can not be deployed for all elements of the non-organic modelling process. I’m implying the fine details - hard straight edges/creases, the metal panels that compose the surface of the car and so forth.
With enough time and an eye for perfection it may be possible, but it really is not a very efficiant undertaking in many respects.

The principles of creation of vehicles/object with nurbs, that I wrought from these realisations are as follows -

In effect we combine Zbrush modelling with nurbs modelling to solve the three problems simultaniously


1 - Amongst all the solutions for the formation of geomtry, in the creation of, not just details but also major forms, Zbrush is the most precise and flexible. The first principle involves the creation/imagination of the general volumes and planes of the vehicle inside Zbrush leaving all other details, aside from a few hard edges, to your nurbs modeller, at which they are profficient.
(I should[from reading the previews] say that with the next release of Zbrush this first step will become even easier and faster.)

2 - Once this form is created we may use the volume to help us in the creation of the nurbs curves. The important point to make here is that, now, maintaining the intended volume and planes becomes a trivial task. The volume can always be used as a solid reference point and contruction helper.

3 - Create nurbs patches and all details.(Again with the working out of your programs modelling functions and our polymesh volume as visual and contruction reference this is a far more simpler and enjoyable(:rolleyes:) task. ( Having a Shrink-Wrap type tool in your nurbs modelling program is of great help throughout this step.)

Note A - A method to traslate modifications of car size and changes in major form to the finished Nurbs model
By means of ‘Deformers’ I bind the nurbs model to my polymesh model so that the models maintained both positional and deformational continuety. As goes the worflow for facial expressions, I imported instances of the vehicle from zbrush, variations of the original design, and created a ‘morphing’ relationship between the orginal and variation model. I could then, with variable degree, modify the polymesh volume and thus that of the nurbs model, mixing and matching variations. Lengths and sizes can be modified any time with the greatest of ease.

Note B - When to use this method
This process is not suited to all non-organic modelling tasks and really would be a pointless exercise for modelling a keyboard or printer,say.

Note C - Why Nurbs
Why nurbs? Employing this method they are fast and very accurate. However with the next release of zbrush it is most likely they will become the second choice.

The key here for you, is not to bother modelling the fine details, once you have the form you can add them as textures, if you need reference to those features. Or now that I think about it, add them in the presentation of the design as ‘paint-overs’. I hope you can see, the reason as to how I say this, and that I’m aiming here for high quality high efficiancy modelling.

I apologies for the length of this post, more then anything I’ve written it for my self since when I was working on the project I did’nt really pay much attention to conceptualizing the principles - now that you’ve aroused my interest at another attempt :slight_smile:

Kircho

Edit - Spelling/Grammer - Changed first point of realisation because it was too equivocal.

Hmm! Sound rather difficult! In fact I’m not trying to do a car with milimeter precision, I would use nurbs as you said for this.
My Aim is to match my model as close as I can get in zbrush, put as much details as I can, and try to get a very nice rendering and spend less time than for a classical modeling.
It a continuation in my non organic modeling period (wich is ending with this car :wink:

Hmm! Sound rather difficult! In fact I’m not trying to do a car with milimeter precision, I would use nurbs as you said for this.

No, not difficult.(Well yes, if you don’t have Maya)
Not millimetre precision…Realisitic and Original design - and fast. Yes.
I guess I will have to make a demonstration when I have some time.

Kircho

I chossed a car that had rather simple geometric shapes that could be done in zbrush, the Ford probe.
I didn’t wanted to use any nurbs, and tryed to do all the work (except uv editing) in zbrush.

[attach=19300]probe01.jpg[/attach]

The car shape is rather simple, and most of the details can be done in projection master.
I hope I will have time to advance it, and start soon texturing, wich should bring a lot of relisme…

Attachments

probe01.jpg

Looks great that car! :+1: :+1:

Modeling is 90% finished. Material setting is basically done, I’ll start texturing.

compos03.jpg

reminds me of the Matchbox cars we collected as kids…boy if I only had them now!

Looking forward to your further progress…this is turning out pretty cool.

Nice Idea Seb !
and cool work too !

Pilou

*** USE THE CHROME or Metallic shaders while modeling. I can’t tell you how helpful this is. Or better yet, paint the model black with high specularity. This will allow you to see the imperfections in the surface.

Seb: Model the base mesh without the wheels. This will give you more polys for the body. I recently did a hard surface model for a film in production with Zbrush. Learned alot! Modeling everything separately. Putting them in one layer in my modeling application, bringing them into Zbrush (exploded apart). I made a morph target which moves them into normal positioning. Then I was able to see how each part reflected the whole. I was able to hide the other objects and work on one at a time. Generate my displacement maps and move forward. Now in the host applcaition since they are all in the same layer it only has to do subdivision once before displacement. I should have used bones to move my objects close together and animate them even though they were hard surfaced objects.

I learned a few other things. First is that you need to have serious brush control. Chris Reid wrote this plugin for me to have this control, but I realized it can be done more pain stakingly without it. Use the layer brush to level out the surface and then inflate,smooth and pinch to adjust your radius. When I wanted smoothing flatter at higher subdivisions I used the blur brush in Projection master to plane out the surface.

What could also help here is strengthing the confidence of the A piller’s transition from the sideview mirror to the roof. Look carefully at most CG cars the roof seems to be the hardest part for people.

Good!Exspecially the weels!!(Why the single weel pic is different from the one that you’ve used in the entire car?I think that the model in the first pic is better…).

Anyway good work!:+1:

MattHHH:sunglasses:

ALIEN FACE HUGGER

Thanks crossbone for the tips! Il already aplied the chrome mat to diplay irregularitis, but the surface is so round, the refelection is distorted everywhere…
As you said, its difficult to get very regular shapes…
But Will try to make few midification, like the roof you said, to get more uniform shapes…

Hey Matthhh! ABout the wheel, I choosed to indculed them in the mesh, so the entire car is one signle object. I didnt wanted to use multimmarkers because they were not handy. So I projected my wheels by side, in PMm so theres a lot of imperfections, almost when you look from front…

But since marcus released his great marker maker, I think I will change my mind…
Maybe for the final rendering, I’ll hide those wheles and make a multimarker with the good ones…

My aim is not to do beterr car than nurbs, because I also think nurbs are more usefull trhan zbrush, but I try to get as close as this quality, but reducing production time.

I do believe Sebcesoir that you have succeeded in showing that while not a technically perfect nurbed car that it can be done fairly quickly in zb for illustration purposes.

I think you did a great job of it as a matter of fact. I hope you can get your textures and materials to play together to achieve the goal you set out to do here (if you are doing that in zb that is)

keep going!

The update : material base is done, I’ve started texturing few elements.
I have some tweaking to do on modeling, and still few details to add.

compos04.jpg

An air filled car :smiley:
Cool result :cool:
Pilou