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.
@theluthier You're right about the curves. I tried to model a car, but I gave up because the curves were hard to get right and I don't even like cars.
Mmm, interesting classes. I am more oriented to modeling a classic car. For me is more interesting to model something that is not seen nowadays.
williamatics Classic cars. Cars for XIX century or first half of XX century.
calmadigital But spaceships aren't seen nowadays. (I was joking.)
calmadigital I see where you're coming from - makes sense. You have a classic car in mind that you'd like to model for the class?
I want to model that tank without blueprints. Will I learn how to do that?
williamatics I won't be teaching that specifically. That approach makes the process more difficult and should only be taken if you absolutely cannot get blueprints/modeling sheets. You should be able to find some good options on the google.
@theluthier That's fine for tanks, but what about a vehicle from my imagination? Someday I want to make all manner of Planetainyan vehicles, most of which fly, and none of which I can find blueprints for.
@theluthier I finished my blueprint! Did I miss anything?
I had so much fun doing this one I'm going to do quite a few more!
@theluthier I was thinking about ways I could achieve that! Maybe very low-res sculpting first. Or I was thinking about making a base with metaballs! I was reading the Blender Manual while I was bored at work today lol. I want to try it out since when they get close to each other they smoothly mush together, and then retopo on top of it! I gotta play around with it a little and see what happens! I'm really excited to try modeling this! Hopefully I can do it justice!!!
williamatics That's where week 4 comes in - Vehicle concept sculpting! Outside of that, I mean anything can be modeled without modeling sheets/blueprints. It's just a more difficult, vague approach. Perhaps the next time I run this class I'll model without blueprints.
jack07 Wait...you made this blueprint from scratch without a 3D model to generate it from?
zzachzellman I tend to favor sculpting anytime a shape seems tricky; that is sculpt + retopo. I've never retopo'd metaballs before. I assume that's possible 😅
Lol reading the Blender Manual because you're bored means you had to be REALLY bored haha
@theluthier Yep! I took some photos of the toy as closer to an orthographic view as I could with my phone, then I drew over them with the the line and simple shapes tool with a mirror in Krita to complete the view! It was easy only because the figure's only round shape is the wheels haha!
Having the finished product in your hands also helps!
