As I have holiday during 5th to 10th May, I can resume the projects again, however, I have little time to do the projects in the later time (especially after 9th May) as I still have exams on 11th, 13th and 16th May.
I also said that I’ll make two 80s cars previously: an executive car (Volvo 700 Series and Talbot Tagora mashup) and an aerodynamic sedan (Ford Sierra), respectively.
So I made a progress, plus more transparent body and I know that I can model the rest of the body, but I still need help on the body at 3rd window, trunk, front and rear detailing, then the mesh, as this car had three-box (hood, interior and trunk),
As nobody answered back to me yet, I’ll update this post as I have done the base modeling, but I still need help on the mesh and detailing like the window, bumpers and side mirrors (the blueprint had side mirror).
Maybe it’s not the answer you’re looking, but at this point for detailing you need to get creative
A few tips (you can go different way tho)
for the side mirror I use a different mesh, usually to boxes (one for the tube connecting the mirror to the body of the car and the other box for the mirror itself. I don’t know if you have notice it, but when you create a box you can select how many subdivisions it has, so playing with that you can get a solid base for the side mirrors. After doing that, remember to attach them to the test of the body.
For the windows, make sure the windows are a little bit curved. Then, what I’ll do, is that I select the polygons of the window and move them slightly to the back if it’s the windshield or to the right if it’s the side. Also, as you know, most of the cars have an line of plastic between the windows and the car body, make sure it is modeled as well.
Doors and the bonnet must be separate from the body, like the side mirrors. What I do is I select the polys for the door/bonnet/trunk de-attach them from the body, make the seams, and then attach them back to the body. Pretty much the same would apply to the bumpers I guess.
EDIT: excuse me for my typos, but I’m on my phone and the autocorrector is an ass.
What I do for the seams, which you may find easier, is select the edges that outline the door/bonnet/boot, extrude them and use the extrude tool to adjust. Then hold control and switch to polygon selection mode to select all the polys that make the seam, set the material ID, go back to edge mode and click ‘split’.
20th May Status Update: All of my exams are done since 17th May, so I have enough time for modeling until 12th June if I can add one more summer subject, but if another summer class addition failed or I can’t add it, I will have time until 15th August (for this section, I’ll update again between 6th to 8th June)
Project Updates: These two projects I did (80s Aerodynamic Mid-Size and 80s Executive Car) are going, but they’re going slow as I want to release two cars simultaneously.
I have three questions about the seams and detailing the car body.
Question 1: When I separated the doors, hood, trunk and the bumpers for making seams, do I had to re-attach again?, and do I had to detach to element or not?
Question 2: How can I do the mesh on the car body?
Question 3: Can I use both Editable Mesh or Editable Poly when doing the seams
Note: I have the tutorial videos downloaded from the converter, so I can watch it without network connection, or in area with limited or low-speed connection.
This is how I do the seams; First select the edges that outline the doors, bonnet etc. then use the extrude tool and play with the values until you get the gap and depth you want. Then hold ctrl and go into polygon selection mode to select the polys that make up the seams and set the material ID. Go back into edge mode, click Split and you’re done. For the sake of tidying it up check the corners of the seams to see if any vertices have been split in two and weld them back together. I do everything as Editable Poly but I don’t see why Mesh wouldn’t work if you prefer to use that.
If the bumpers are the same colour as the body, they don’t need to be detached, just the indented seam is enough. It’s the old fashioned chrome bumpers that do better detached. As for the doors, you separate them into their own elements and that’s it, they don’t get reattached.
15th June Status Update: Sorry for my late update, due to the summer class status. My conclusion is: withdrawal from summer class, because just one class for summer was not enough, and my hometown is in another city, which was 210 km (130 miles) away from the university, so I couldn’t go back home every week, as my mother had to drive for 420 km (261 miles).
Project Updates: I reworked the 80s Executive Car, which had better details compared to my previous posts, for the 80s Aerodynamic Mid-Size, I’m not happy with the hood detail, so I’d like to rework from scratch, since my modeling skill was improved, but it is going slow.
Thanks abg7, although I’m living in the other city now, but I’m busy a little bit because my aunt wants me to have a business experience for some day. For my projects: the 80s Boxy Executive and the 80s Aerodynamic Liftback were done, however, I up-sized the 80s Aerodynamic Liftback to an E-Segment because there are 80s D-Segment cars on the workshop from Partario (both Compact Executive and Medium Cars) and Felgen (Compact Executive).
I will publish these cars when I had the mirror done, but before the window detailing.
Make sure you separate the smoothing groups. Everything on the same group makes the car look like a blob (would work well in the 90s), so anywhere there’s a visible crease in the real car is where you need to change the smoothing group. You can see what I mean with the creases on my current project:
1.They don’t as far as I’m concerned. Of course, the creases between the two surfaces will stay the same under the morphing.
2.Simply assign a different smoothing group to neighboring surfaces which you want to have a crease between, and the same smoothing group for surfaces you do not want to have a crease between.
3.I am not sure at all. What I can tell you is that the modders of this forum are more familiar with tools and UI provided by editable polies, so you’ll certainly get more help if you convert.
I found no difference between editable poly or editable mesh, other than the use of some tools, like extrude and weld, which I think are more easier to work in editable poly.
In fact, 3 out of my 4 mods were made using editable mesh, and they worked just fine
Finally, I set the smoothing groups and the material ID, but I’m still new to this section.
Results (smoothing groups in the bracket):
1: Rest of the Body (1)
2: Hood/Bonnet (1, 2)
3: Doors (1, 2, 3)
4: Trunk/Boot (1, 2, 3, 4)
5: Side Mirror (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
6: Windows (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
7: Front Bumper (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
8: Rear Bumper (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
As the dev videos about it mention, make sure to only have one smoothing group per area. Suppose you make the top of the trunk group 2 with everything around it group 1, after selecting all the polys you’ll be changing, remove group 1 smoothing from them and add group 2. The reason for all this is for the reflections in-game to work properly.
Now I relegated the smoothing groups to its own (no longer shared), as well as separated the hood/bonnet, door and trunk/boot, also made the seams, had the material IDs for the seams and split already (9: hood/bonnet seam, 10: door seams and 11: trunk/boot seam). What next? Do I had to detail the body?, as I have those things above done (progress image coming tomorrow)
