In this multi-part Blender video tutorial we are going to be taking a close look at how to model a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Due to the nature of the car these tutorials encompasses a lot of techniques from both organic modeling and hard-surface modeling styles. A particular emphasis is placed on creating good topology that will enable you to easily modify the shape but also to accurately create the details.
In part 7 of this Blender 2.5 video tutorial series we will continue on the car detailing the windows, including weather stripping and adjusting other areas of the cars to fit the reference.
View – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
Due to some changes in the original author’s Flickr album, we are now linking you directly to references. These links are available for everyone, regardless of Citizenship and are subject to the Flickr License linked on the authors photo page. Source files do not contain reference images.
Side | Front | Back | Front Perspective | Back Perspective
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32 Comments
This is a good tutorial, but since I don’t have a real interest in car modeling, I’m losing interest and skip most of the part. It’s a lot of tweaking, and there is not as much tips as it was in the first parts.
Maybe we feel that Jonathan doesn’t have a big interest in it too.
For my part, I’m mostly waiting for part 9, with shaders, lighting and rendering process.
Btw, keep up the good work for those who asked for this tutorial and see you next time
Solineoz, when you watch movie in the cinema, do you fall asleep at some parts of the movie? As it was pointed out in the Part 1, the tutor said, a lot of tweaking is needed, so this is maybe the sugar&&cream for some of us. So, it should be nice, if you commented just parts that you are interested in, because we do not want to know, what aren’t your interests – they have nothing to do with this tutorial. Your comment migh discourage someone fresh to the Blender, although this car tutorial is probably one of a kind for Blender and is excellent in any point. Since it is very long, this is a Pros, not Cons (cannot have excellent car tutorial modelling Porsche that will be presented in i.e. 10 min).
As I see this tutorial, it moves from beginner level to very advanced level, which is also great for not experienced users, and those experienced ones, who might already forgot basic tips/hints.
It is realy a great challenge keeping the public interested in a tutorial with more than 3 parts. This one can reach 9 or more parts. Congratulations Jonathan per your effort made in this project. It is being hard to do, but in the end it will be a legendary free tutorial for our Blender community.
Thanks again!
Tio Ilmo
Please take a break. You made tutorial faster than I can watch them.
David
Whether I’m modeling cars or not, I’m getting a lot out of the car series. The techniques you’re using here have helped me a lot with some things I’ve been working on. You’re doing an amazing job, please keep it up.
To the complainers: Seriously? Find something else to complain about.
@Jonathan,
I noticed when you were adjusting the wheel wells, you seems to be eying it. You did it again when raising the top of the door to be the same as the other side. And of course, it looked awesome. Let’s say this car model was not for a tutorial but a job, are there other ways you would go about making sure areas like that were exact (I’m especially interested in how you would be more precise with the semi-circle shape of the wheel well).
If you have time. At the rate your cranking out tutorials . . .
Thanks.
Will
Hi Will,
If I were doing this for a professional production I would take several key steps in order to ensure accuracy. The key one would be to try and locate accurate blueprints of the car in question. With those I would be able to get most all of the major details close-to-perfect as I would not have to worry about lens distortion. I would also inquire at local car dealerships about taking pictures of said car. With those pictures I could get any angles and small details that weren’t shown in the blueprints.
If neither of those options are available I would spend a considerable amount of time gathering a pool of references and taking notes on every small detail I could find. Once all of the modeling was done (as we are getting close to having done in the tutorial) I would then spend a large chunk of time doing nothing but tweaking, while comparing it to as many references, from as many angles as possible.
Will,
One thing I use is temporary construction shapes to help get smooth/precise placement of parts or the model, which if I remember correctly is what Jonathan did in first video when he started to make the front wheel well. This helps a great deal even when you do or do not have the blueprints of the car because it will help keep the vertices evenly spaced apart.
Great videos Jonathan!!
They are helping me learn a lot about Blender and there have been some helpful tips in your workflow. Thank you for taking the time to make these videos.
-ray
The one thing I’m disappointed in about these tutorials is editing. NEVER record voice and screencap at the same time! Rather, screencap, then edit, maybe shrinking the time to 20% original, then voiceover. It makes them look way more polished, less amateurish, and more helpful and fun to watch. Take the last video in the “Learn Character Animation in Blender” DVD by William Reynish. He doesn’t make you sit through the whole thing. Or Nathan Vegdaul’s rigging tutorial.
Just a thought, but it’s starting to bug me. When I get a two hour tutorial, I don’t want it to be two hours of “humming and hawing”, only to have to wait for seven more parts in the series!
Thanks,
MTracer.
Hi MTracer,
I can understand while you are disappointed by the lack of editing and by doing the narration and screen capture simultaneously. However, from my own experience, preference, and the many, many comments I have received on this subject; I have found recording both the narration and the screen capture at the same time to be a much more effective method of teaching. This is for several reasons:
First, when doing narration after the fact, it is very easy to miss some of the small details that are essential to a new (and even sometimes moderate or advanced) user. In 3D, even the smallest setting can have a drastic impact on the final object/scene/render. There is nothing more frustrating than following a tutorial and being unable to recreate the instructor’s result because he/she forgot to mention or show a single setting or hotkey.
Second, doing each side-by-side allows for a more personal experience. Although, the presentation may not appear as polished or professional, it brings the education down to the user’s level. Most people will agree that nothing beats live, one-on-one instruction and I feel this is about as close to that as you can get with online, video tutorials. It’s similar to teaching over one’s shoulders.
Third, in the lengthy process of modeling a car such as this, you are bound to run into numerous trouble spots. Regardless of experience. By recording both parts at the same time, I am able to work the user through these areas just as I myself have to work through them. Even though it may be frustrating to watch at times. It can be very difficult to work through these problems as a new user.
I do not mean to say that my method is necessarily better than either Nathan’s or Williams. Those guys are awesome and have both provided incredible resources! However, those videos are also not as conducive to new users (from my experience). They provide a wealth of information but may be harder to absorb for new users as they don’t have the knowledge base to work from.
I am not trying to be defensive. There is very little better than constructive criticism, I just though it would be best to share why I do things the way I do.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Dont stop doing narration and video at the same time!.. I like it!
it shows me how you would handle certain problems instead of just telling what technique you used!
great tutorials btw! keeep it uuup ^^
thanks :3
I agree with you one hundred percent on all your points. Stick to your way of doing tutorials because i have never seen any tutorial on any subject anywhere on the internet that even comes close to yours for professionalism and sheer quality!!!
Don’t be dismayed by people like MTracer. He may make good points but, you have a method for your madness and it works beautifully. This particular tutorial is extremely useful for my education about modeling with Blender. Keep up the good work and don’t let any one else spoil your belief in yourself and your own decisions.
Stephen
I agree. I am very happy with the real time narration. I like to hear things like ALT+S for example. A lot of voice over tutorials skip those essential steps leaving the learner struggling to keep up because the instructor did not tell the key command.
I love this tutorial series. I am new to blender. I mainly got into using blender for its cloth sim. I also want to model furniture. This tutorial has been a great help. I actually enjoy watching the tweaking to see the sculpting take place. It helps me to understand the whole process better. Can we see part 8 in real time and not time laps?
Thanks,
Aaron
I agree with MTracer. Kernon has some sort of “timelapse” mode in some of his tutorials. He records, runs at faster speed, then does the commentary, which results in a good video tutorial.
Jonathan,
. Live tutorial is far more sensible rather than MTracer suggested. Commenting your very own moddeling in non-real time would decrease in quality of information at the moment of creation/inspiration you have at the modelling time. Yes, even one small forgotten detail, can result in a way you’ve described.
).
I could not agree more, just could not find the correct words
Also fluence from start to the end of the whole tutorial package makes beginner into advanced user, at least in theory sense (some basic modelling/perspective skills are still needed
To me, it is like live and studio track. Since I consider this as an art, it goes well with ‘live; method rather than polished in ’studio’. I’d say Jonathan here may do ’studio’ tutorial, just to show he is capable of doing it, but he’d not enjoy it, and I would not name it tutorial, but ’studiotorial’, and I’d have a feeling some robot is teaching me how to do stuff.
Cheers to everyone here,…
A very famous guy called Fausto Silva from a TV show here in Brazil always says: “Who knows, can sing live”
He usually say this phrase when one singer comes to his TV Show to sing a music without using musical instruments. Only a good voice is enough for a good singer show what he knows. A good artist do not need to use many technology resources to sing like a bird.
I make my Blender tutorials in Portuguese with the same process that Jonathan uses to do his tutorials. I usually receive lots of good comments related to my tutorials which are already been seen in Youtube per more than 100.000 students.
Jonathan is one of the best I’ve ever seen in this kind of tutorial. He explains modeling details and has a good timbre of voice to do this kind of job.
Jonathan you are an artist “who knows how to sing live”. Congratulations guy!
@Jonathan,
I told you . . . art director at Pixar (maybe you can convince them to switch to Blender).
I agree with Jonathan, live tutorials are very instructive and easily to follow to non-advanced users like me. Currently I am inspired by this tutorial and I am modeling a new car. As I do not have enough time to model and to watch all thse videos, I save them in my PC, and later usually see them in fast motion, I return it to normal speed when I need to focus on some part of each video. Easy.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Keep it live , It is potent .
I’m going to join in on the debate here and say that I too think live recordings are better. Shiretoko mentioned Kernon’s video tutorials as a good example, while I actually find those less polished. When you record the video and audio seperately, you are bound to get into time issues. You’ll find parts of great detail that need more audio time than there is video, or you’ll find parts that take too long (which, in Kernon’s case, results in pauses and ‘ok’). I’m not saying I don’t enjoy Kernon’s tutorials, but I do find Jonathan’s easier to follow and sound more personal.
As for this specific tutorial: While I agree with Solineoz that this part contained less tips&tricks and more tweaking, it was definitely a good tutorial and I’m looking forward to the final 2 parts.
What makes your Education site great is that Jonathan, Kernon and Dave have different styles and approaches of teaching.
We need all that diversity of sensitiveness. Thank you all of you and Wes also of course
Cheers. Bernard
“What makes your Education site great is that Jonathan, Kernon and Dave have different styles and approaches of teaching.”
This. While I do appreciate Jonathan’s style the most (I find it the easiest for me to follow), it needs to be remembered that not everyone learns the same way. Having multiple people teach this software using multiple teaching styles ensures the broadest audience possible, which is nothing but a good thing for any open source software. This is actually one of the reasons I come here; I found in Jonathan’s tutorials a learning method that makes the information stick in my mind, which is exactly what I was looking for in the first place.
Others will feel that another author does it better, and that’s fine. Whomever it is we learn the ‘best’ from doesn’t matter; the important thing is that we learn and retain the lessons given.
From the standpoint of an educator, I look forward to each video produced. I am an elementary computer resource teacher and your videos have walked me through the entire process so far. I had only downloaded Blender a month before I found your tutorials. Other tutorials that had good video were just click and move leaving a newbie wondering how’d he do that. Your live narration is an excellent teaching tool. I have gone from not knowing how to do anything but shape the cube and color it to toying around with 4 car renderings in my free time. Keep up the good work. You have a fan for life.
How do you place a background image into 2.5? I have been trying to switch over completely but I can’t seem to get a background image in like I was able to in 2.49.
Great tutorial, but it doesn’t feel like Porsche. May be a toy car model could help to visualize it better ..
Of course this tutorial is riddled with technical issues. In the first part it was obvious to me, that drawings would have been more appropriate, to use as background images, for precision because you want orthogonal projections and not central projections, which is what photos are. Jonathan excused this infraction by his invocation of the caveat “I am not a car person”. If it had been any one else, i would have felt slighted but, knowing that this guy has real depth, i took it as humor and had a good chuckle! I already saw Jonathan’s head tutorial, so i knew Jonathan is genuinely concerned about teaching Blender to artists eager and even desperate to learn. This is not a tutorial for Porsche engineers about how to make a showroom presentation in Stuttgart, it is about how to use Blender!
I don’t care if the top of the car is too small, in comparison with the real thing. What i care about is that since viewing Jonathan’s tutorials, it is as though some one opened a door and the fresh air is finally streaming in. I have learned so much from your tutorials, in the last few months, than i have learned about Blender over the last few years, before i found out about cg cookie!
Please continue. And thank you for all your effort and perseverance.
Any chance we can see a highly detailed furniture modeling tutorial from you Jonathan? Like a pillow backed chaise lounge or an ornate wicker chair.
I tired to post some links example images but I was told my post felt to Spammy.
Thanks,
Aaron
Thanks I really needed this.
Hello, I have a question, when will all the parts of this tutorial be finished and posted here? I mean when the last part (with coloring and lighting and all of that…) of the tutorial will be made?
Thanks,
Max
Jonathan Williamson keep up the good work
Long time ago I’ve made a car ( here is the link http://freemodels.ewb.ro/?s=bugati ), and I’ve made the car from 1 mesh( so => many vertexes )…. there were lots of things I learn just by watching the car series
so I’m voting for live tutorials and please keep your style…
Hello, thanks for all of the work you have done here.
I have a quick question, when working with sub surfed meshes like the car, is there any benefit in using loop cuts for making the edges sharper vs using edge creases. Am I missing something because it would seem that edge creases keeps the mesh cleaner, does it cause problems later?
Keep up the great work,
-Matt
Hello,
. also the alt-D instead of shift-D for linking. AND te select with B and then middle mouse button to deselect 
great tutorials.
the car-modelling topic isn’t such a big problem for me, so in first instance it wasn’t interesting for me.
But, when I watched the whole video I learned about 6/7 new little features in Blender. For example: I didn’t knew there was an edge slide-function