in edit mode> mesh> scripts> solidify selection

Thank you for the feedback! Coming from a actual product designer this is excellent and very constructive criticism. I will be sure to take an extra look at the car soon and perhaps make some more adjustments as you have suggested.

Cheers,

-Jonathan

Great tutorial and thank you for sharing.

i’ve noticed that your model looks a bit too smooth aft applyin’ subsurf modifier, as a product designer myself, having smooth and organic surfaces helped to achieve an aesthetically pleasing model, however, having too many surfaces that are in organic form feels a bit too kitsche.

At some point of time, you might wanna observe the difference between model cars (toys) and real automobiles, that’s how i feel. Real automobiles are mixture of sharp edges and organic surfaces, certain engineering factors limit the organic form of design, as for toys, not much engineering consideration is required.

Thank you and Best regards,
yuanjie

One thing I’m wondering about: When you do loop cuts (Ctrl-R), why don’t you use the “P”-key option to get parallel and not a proportional cuts ? I guess it would end in a mutch more precise looking result, especially when you “sharp” the edges of the panels, .
Don’t you think so ?

Kind regards
Alain

1/2. NURBs are still in the process of being reintegrated with Blender 2.5 but they may be of some help. I have very little experience with NURBs and so I can’t give you a sure answer there. As for methods of finding surface continuity and such, one such method that comes to mind is using a normal shader along with GLSL in the viewport. After turning GLSL on in the viewport you could simply move your lights around to see all the details in the surface. The type of shader I’m talking about can be found here: http://www.box.net/shared/fo74kz8mkm
It is very similar to the way ZBrush displays models in the viewport.

3. As for a metallic material/rendering tutorial nothing is immediately coming to mind. I would recommend doing a bit of Googling for things like “car shader nodes blender tutorial”. A node-based system will definitely be the way to go.

I hope that was of some help

Cheers,

Jonathan

I have a couple of questions:

1. While this method will result in a surface that resembles the body of a car, as a car designer I am concerned about the lack of precise surface control you have. This method may make it difficult, if not impossible, to carefully control highlights/reflections. The density of the mesh in certain areas can lead to unanticipated surface anomalies (like small concave surfaces, bumps, or creases) that you wouldn’t care about for video games, toys/scale models, or general illustration, but are a huge deal when working with actual cars/products. Smoothing is a nice, quick way to clean some problems up, but as a designer you aren’t the one controlling those surfaces anymore. I know this isn’t intended to be a Class-A surfacing program, but are there alternative techniques for generating surface topology? Can NURBS curves/surfaces be effectively used in 2.5? How do you control adjacent surfaces (location, tangent, or continuity)? Or am I just hoping for too much with this tool? I am just so excited about how attractive and easy to use the 2.5 GUI is that I’m hoping I can make this program do what I need. Even if it won’t, great job to all of the guys and gals that worked on 2.5.

2. Related to point 1 above, are there any techniques for viewing surface continuity? Other programs use zebra stripes, environment map, and curvature analysis. The first two features allow you to watch highlights move across surfaces real-time to check for continuity issues. Any ideas?

3. Any recommendations for a good material and rendering tutorial? Obviously interested in automotive surfaces (shiny, metallic, multi-surface, HDRI), but would welcome any shiny surface tuts.

Again, thanks for a great tutorial!

-Brian

like Ross, i am curious to know what causes Normals problems… i had the problem for such a long time before learning the Ctrl-N shortcut, but i still don’t know why the Normals thing happens

anyway, these are maybe the best tutorials i’ve followed thanks Jonathan!

Great tutorials! I love how in-depth this series is, and I think you have the best cadence of all the Blender Cookie instructors. Two questions:

1. What is the exact cause of the problem that requires us to recalculate normals? I’ve had to deal with this for as long as I’ve been blending, but I’ve never understood why it happens.
2. Can you make a tutorial on how to rig the car, so it would “drive” like a normal car would (wheels turning in unison, car bouncing on frame, etc.)? I remember seeing one in the help menu of 3ds Max, but I haven’t done it yet, and I’d like to learn how to rig a car in Blender.

Unfortunately I have no idea how to fix your second problem, though it’s bugging me every once in a while as well. What you could try is slide away the entire loop except the controlling edge. =) Also, the Smooth option in Sculpt Mode might be of help.

Good luck!

-Patrick

Thanks a bunch anyway, you’ve been very helpful indeed! My Antonov model has finally gained some sharp looks without the need for insane amount of control loops. Wooot