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.
williamatics I like the middle one the best, but you could also exmperiment with something like this:
llollito_larkham Very pleasant aeroplane render. Looks like a promo poster for one of my kid's favorite tv shows. And that primitive structure hardly looks "primitive". Good work!
You're stacked with reference. It's an A+ this week for sure 👌
yoddathehunter Good work, Eyad. I really like the way you presented your plane on Sketchfab. I like your choice of Range Rover too. A-grade work this week 👍
thecabbagedetective It's ok that your blueprints aren't symmetrical. We're going to model one side and use a mirror modifier, so just trust one side and don't be bothered by the asymmetry in the blueprint. Alternatively you could take you blueprint into photoshop, gimp, or krita and copy and paste one side of your blueprint to the other side to make it symmetrical.
I'm glad some of you are trying to model ahead of time and running into the difficulties. We'll spend plenty of time on Tuesday on the workflow.
csehz Sorry to hear the plane exercise was more on the difficult side. The result turned out well. On one hand, having the physical toy as reference is going to be a huge plus. On the negative side, having a blueprint is super useful with vehicle modeling. Usually I'm against over-dependence on orthographic/blueprints (especially for organic modeling) in this case it a significant aid.
dostovel I'll spill the beans: I too have found box modeling to be inadequate for intuitively achieving the smooth curvature of most vehicles. Edge-modeling is the ticket.
Homework Submission Week 1
Airplane:
Model with Primitives: https://cgcookie.com/exercise_submissions/13647
My chosen vehicle: 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540 K Cabriolet B
baukepost Why didn't I think of that? That's exactly what I'll do!
HOMEWORK SUBMISSION WEEK 1
HI.
I will admit that I did not look at the primitives video and kinda went all subsurface:
https://sketchfab.com/models/701c3e449d1c450ba950746dfe1d9343
So after reviewing that video today - I have redone my models in cylinders and cubes.
https://sketchfab.com/models/bc31f94dc9e7462e94e6bc562e44eb72
Primitives:
SubSurface:
I've not done the plane course yet - but I have watched some of it.
Cheers!
@theluthier dostovel
I'll spill the beans: I too have found box modeling to be inadequate for intuitively achieving the smooth curvature of most vehicles. Edge-modeling is the ticket.
Shots fired :D
From my (little) experience, if you want to have a one-to-one replica of a given car model, it will indeed be more easily achieved with edge modelling. Box modeling is more recommend for stuff you can allow yourself " "artistic freedom" (understand: not having the energy to struggle ;) ).
The problem with edge-modeling is how repetitive and not fun this workflow is (at least to me). It also give me the impression of not really working in a smart way, not to anticipate the following steps of the modelling. It's a safe method, I can't deny it but I don't find it rewarding.
Box modeling is time-consuming on the beginning, but once you the proper blocks and major mesh flow which will give you the correct feature lines to sharpen, the remaining of the modelling becomes very simple. And you can definitely achieve great replicas of actual vehicle models with box modelling. Just allow yourself few days of struggle with the blocking part.
Homework Submission Week 1
Airplane - I can see some tris happening on the glass on sketchfab, couldn't figure out the issue, except that it wasn't happening neither in unreal or unity with the same model.
Primitives Modeling
Blueprints:
BB18 25 Train
Ford V3000S
I want to go with the truck at first, but if it proves to be difficult regarding my time management, I might switch to the train.
Sorry for late-ish submission.
Cheers!
@theluthier
Homework Submission week1
had the plane on earlier post, and now this primitive thing. :)
https://cgcookie.com/exercise_submissions/14768
llollito_larkham @theluthier Thanks for the advice you two! Never even thought about mirroring the blueprints, that should help a lot. I think until Tuesday I'm mostly going to study prerecorded content whilst experimenting with my model on the side so I know as much general stuff as possible before getting into the more specific field of vehicles.
Thanks for the grading too! I definitely know my primitives exercise could've been much better but that just gives me motivation to do better.
nneilnico Hi Neil, just checking those links on sketchfab,, its showing as unpublished so we cant see them, either that or theyre set to private. you can double check in sketchfab when you manage the model, should be a publish button there.
Homework submission week 1
Here's my Small plane and the Primitives Exercise
I'm not so much of a car person so it was difficult for me to decide what kind of a vehicle would be nice to make. Finally I decided to reunite with my first car that I sometimes miss even though it was a piece of junk. Here he is: Mazda 323 from year 1998
Edit: The Sketchfab embed doesn't seem to show properly but the "Small plane" -link should take you to the model
I have checked both models. one was in draft but the other was published. I have now ensured that both are published. If there are any further problems please let me know.
Cheers.
Homework B3-1806 Week 1
Because I'm not sure that it was count at my first post ...
Airplane :
Primitives :
https://cgcookie.com/exercise_submissions/12087
And for the model ... it not really exists but I've started with a jaguar blue print :
with a real model :
And currently it's like something else (WIP of course ...):
Homework Submission Week 1
Okay, first up, my airplane. I did this particular course a while ago; but I hadn't made any renders of it until now.
The primitives exercise I did a fair bit more recently - new course and all - and by coincidence it also ended up being an airplane; a Boeing 727:
Although it feels like maybe a little bit of a cheat? Since some parts - particularly the wings - consist of some overlapping surfaces, since I had to make them out of straight regular boxes. As nothing but a model for exercise purposes it looks fine; but if I had to texture this thing there would be serious z-fighting going on in the wing surfaces.
And finally, for this class I'm going to model a 1951 Chevrolet Pickup truck. It took me a ridiculously long time to decide on what vehicle I wanted to build. This project will be very challenging for me and I kept second-guessing myself, looking at my choices and thinking "I can't do that, that's beyond my skill level." I finally found this one and I think I can pull this one off, and I might be able to step up to more complicated models afterwards. I seriously just settled on this a short time ago, so unlike many here I haven't even started on it yet. But, I'll get it done.
