CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #7 (July 5, 2018): BC3-1806 is officially over! The Class Wrap stream recording is available to watch and the closing post is on page 63. Please take a minute to fill out the Questionnaire 🙇🏻♂️
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #6 (June 20, 2018): Week 4's stream recording has been edited together - curse you computer freeze! - and is available to watch. This is the final week of the class! Spend some time sculpting a wild and crazy vehicle design and let's finish strong 💪
Also a reminder that we will be having a 5th stream to wrap up the class on July 3rd, so don't miss that.
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #5 (June 20, 2018): Check out Week 3's stream recording if you missed the broadcast! I also updated Week 3's homework for those of you that want to finish your vehicle exterior.
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #4 (June 13, 2018): Week 2's stream recording is now available to watch if you missed the broadcast. Also the additional timelapse video mentioned in the stream is available here.
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #3 (June 11, 2018): Week 1 is done! Thanks for getting your homework submitted on time. Here's a link to the report card if you'd like to keep track of your grades throughout the class. Onward to Week 2!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #2 (June 6, 2018): Week 1's stream recording is now available if you missed it. Also I've secured a concept car blueprint thanks to the talented 2D/3D artist, Milen Ivanov (see page 9 of this thread to download it). This is the vehicle I'll be modeling and you're welcome to model it as well if you don't want to find your own!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #1 (June 4, 2018): Class is in session! Today officially begins the BC3-1806 class. Please check the syllabus below for Week 1's focus and assignments. Begin watching the pre-recorded courses if you haven't already and begin searching for a cool vehicle you want to model. The first Live Event is tomorrow at 2pm EST - SEE YOU THERE! 😎
Vehicle model by Chris Kuhn on blendwap.com
Welcome to the CGCookie Class: Vehicle Modeling with Blender! Here by popular demand, this class is designed to be a holistic learning experience about the art of modeling vehicles. If you’re diligent in watching all content and hitting homework deadlines, by the end of the class you'll be prepared to build digital vehicles to your heart's content! This is an intermediate-to-advanced class which means you’ll do best by having some experience with Blender and 3D modeling before committing to this class.
This is the third "Class" format where Citizen members are invited to focus together on a particular topic/skill for a month. Participation looks like this:
WHEN? The class will take place from June 4th through July 2nd (ish)
Abstract: Vehicle modeling is pure hard surface modeling. Therefore it's important to be proficient with general polygon modeling techniques. This first week we're ramping into this particular modeling skillset to prepare us for the vehicle modeling extravaganza to come!
Goal of the Week: Level-up and/or dust off your hard-surface modeling skills.
Pre-recorded course to watch:
Week 1 Live Event (Remember to RSVP!)
Homework:
Abstract: When I say "Imagine a vehicle" I'll bet a million dollars you're thinking about the exterior. And that's why the exterior is important. It defines everything about a vehicle's visual perception: Style, utility, purpose. This week we're going to build a vehicle exterior based on concepts like building to scale and building from blueprints.
Goal of the Week: Build the exterior of your chosen vehicle based on blueprints. This will be good practice in strict adherence to orthographic front/side/back/top view modeling.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:
Week 2 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
Model by Neubi on blendswap.com
Abstract: The insides of vehicles involve more organic, soft shapes as well as opportunity for lots of fine hard surface details. Often vehicles renders focus on the exterior where the interior can be hidden or approximated. But not in this class!
Goal of the Week: Model the interior of your chosen vehicle to gain experience with fine hard-surface details in a confined space.
Pre-recorded courses to watch: Admittedly we don't have much in this context specifically...
Week 3 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
Abstract: There's another facet of vehicle modeling that doesn't involve strict adherence to blueprints. Instead, Concept Sculpting is about designing a vehicle from scratch using the artistic approach of digital sculpting. This can be an extremely fun, experimental method for creating unique vehicles.
Goal of the Week: Sculpt a vehicle exterior from scratch; Practice hard-surface sculpting techniques.
Pre-recorded courses to watch: Again we don't have much in this context specifically, but we have a couple courses that cover hard-surface sculpting in general:
Week 4 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
This thread is reserved for CG Cookie Citizens that are participating in the "Vehicle Modeling with Blender" class. Its purpose is to serve as central communication for all participating Citizens (excluding Hobby plan Citizens) to ask Kent and fellow participants questions and to post homework. As the instructor of the class, Kent will be monitoring this thread on a daily basis (especially Mon-Thurs) throughout the month of June to review homework and answer questions.
Free members are welcome to observe the thread but please respect that communication is reserved for Citizens.
baukepost If you're going off the scale of the person sitting in the vehicle and assuming that person is 6' tall, then it's probably about right in the measurements.
What do others think?
dieedi That's looking pretty good! It's okay to throw out what's not working and try again. This second attempt looks like it's working for you.
williamatics I'm not sure but as we are going to model the vehicle interior, it's a good training :D
silentheart00 Yeah, that's the method used in some courses and I really prefer this way to model based on plan/picture ^^ (but I have to try other ways before staying in my comfort zone :D)
williamatics According to the syllabus, Week 3 has us modeling the inside of our chosen vehicle, so I assume airplanes count.
dieedi Hey, keep experimenting. You'll find ways of doing things that others will say are impossible.
pprocyonlotor Great job on your exercises, John. And I love the fantasy vehicle you've chosen. That will be super impressive! You've earned an A this week 👍
As for legality, it's perfectly fine to use this art the way you are as far as I can tell. *AS I UNDERSTAND THE LAW* copyright holders are primarily concerned with whether or not you're making money with their copyrighted material. If you're not making money off the copyright holder's property and you're crediting them as the owner/creator, what possible legal issue is there? In most cases it's essentially free advertising for them.
When in doubt ask yourself A) Am I trying to make money with someone else's work and B) am I crediting the owner/creator? If the answer to A is "No" and the answer to B is "Yes" that should be completely legal.
That said, I'm very open to other points of views/interpretations of the law. I think we all want to be above reproach here.
dieedi That's coming along very nicely, good job! One small tip: have a face loop running around the wheel guard, that will make it look better once subdivided.
michallis How. Fascinating. Thanks for sharing! That's my new thing learned for the day 🤘
baukepost Based on the artwork we can reasonably use a motorcycle as a start reference for dimensions:
In your case, you have an extra passenger seat that is quite broad, the front part is quite pushed forward too and there's many extra components that add space, so it makes sense to have bigger measurement, I'd go for it as well! Nice artwork choice, looking forward to see the result!
dieedi excellent work so far! Just a question, is it one single mesh or did separate the front grills ? Think about it for when going further in detailing, you might want to split it (if not done already) :)
jimmack Bummer - I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy building the plane. I think all modelers would agree that modeling is definitely hard work. Keep at it and maybe you'll end up discovering that the hard work is actually enjoyable! I mean in general - no pressure to continue with the class. Thanks for trying it out 🙇🏻♂️
llollito_larkham Good vehicle choice 👍 and great idea with the video! That will no doubt prove to be very helpful as you model and have questions about the shapes that aren't 100% clear from the blueprint. Anyone modeling a real-world vehicle should look up videos as well.
ffreddie82 Good work this week - it's a A in my book 👌 Glad we have a classic Beetle in the queue for modeling!
tbrbn I have a base mesh and from it I have separate detailed elements
shiennar Hello again, Katerina! Glad to see you in your 3rd straight class. As usual, excellent job on the homework. I quite enjoy the pokemon-themed plane. And going over-and-beyond the primitive exercise with texturing. Good stuff - It's an A for the week. She's back to take all the XP!
I also like the personal touch with your vehicle choice. This will be a fun one to see modeled 👍
@theluthier Well then mechanical interior it will be! Yes it's that project, I just uploaded it on sketchfab, if you want to see its current status:
https://skfb.ly/6zBUs
[edit: just figured something went wrong on the upload regarding the right front brake system. please disregard :) ]
feedback is welcome, from anyone :)
@theluthier Good. I doubt much would come of it, but my concern is that this might be distribution of their intellectual property. Some claim could be made that this is their product (that they could sell for money) and I, by posting it, am distributing it for free. On the other hand, I did purchase the art, so....
baukepost it looks ok. situations like this, you could also make quick human model to scale and pose it roughly on the pose and model around it. and this model really doesn't have to be detailed, just a base that has proportions correct.