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.
swikni nice demonstration - I guess I have to follow the shader forge to be able to do that :-S
@draniction
hey Peter that hood is looking solid :) do not worry about not making this class, just try to take away some of the techniques shown and remember them for later. Btw, the more you struggle the more your mind / modeling skills will grow !
Personally I am very glad to have spend allot of time learning Blender and participating in this course. I still need to figure out how to "thicken" and "connect" the outer shells to make something coherent but so far its going pretty well. I basically have "half" a car now lol!
@draniction Hey, that's okay! Do what you need to do with the things that pop up in life; there will be more to do here later.
That hood looks really good! And I feel you; hard surface modeling is hard!
WIP
I need to figure out how to fix those holes in the hood, but the more I do this the better I seem to be getting. This is challenging!
Any tips and tricks would be appreciated.
ddoulos4iesou Congrats on finishing your exterior. It's looking pretty good! Could you post a wireframe-on shaded version (optimal subsurf dispaly)?
llollito_larkham You've done really nice work on your car. It doesn't appear 100% finished but what you've done is modeled very well. I'm going to give a strong B+ with the only deduction being the incompleteness. Good stuff!
csehz Congrats on finishing, Zsolt! 2 weeks of work has paid off. Overall it's a solid model but perhaps a bit boxy compared to the reference photo. Though the real car is definitely boxier than a lot of body styles, I still can see some subtle roundness to pretty much everything. Perhaps your later versions of the file where you used proportional editing was where you added the subtle curvatures.
It's a B+ in my book. Good job! 👍
louhikarme Kudos for throwing out and starting fresh. That can be one of the hardest choices to make yet always the better choice to make. I can tell this model is higher quality than the first iteration. Surfaces are smooth for the most part, edges are crisp, details are comprehensive. There's tiny bit of surface bumpiness above the rear window, but overall very nice.
Based on your effort, quality of modeling, and level of completion: B+
Good job!
shiennar Kudos for finishing you exterior model and texturing/shading. Your topology is super even and clean; a pretty wireframe to look at. The shape feels really close to your reference photo but I can't shake the feeling that it's a little more simplified/cartoony than the real thing. It's a hard note to analyze beyond the impression...I don't know if that's helpful. The upper corner of the windshield appears unnaturally sharp:
Overall it's solid work especially considering car modeling maybe isn't your favorite thing. It's a B+ in my book. Great job!
tthepainter Great job, Palo! Kudos on finishing. Surfaces feel smooth, edges sharp, and the model is comprehensive in terms of detail. The only sore spot is the interior of the wheel being empty. Still you've earned an A in my book 👍
As for the high expectations of the homework with respect to time availability, I'm getting the impression a lot of people struggled this week to finish the assignment. While I do want the homework to be a challenge, I don't want it to be impossible or require too much time. I'm thinking about giving the option to skip the interior this coming week to continue polishing vehicle exteriors.
I like that you asked the question about time spent, as I'm curious myself. For me, I've probably spent around 8-10 on my vehicle exterior. What did you spend on yours btw?
swikni Congrats on finishing, Jere! I'm really glad to hear you've enjoyed the experience so far and that things have been learned. In general, the model is solid; the topology looks very clean and even on sketchfab. Though I agree with you that there's some areas where the surface could be smoother.
Still, great job this week: B+ in my book 👏
baukepost This hoverbike is turning out so well. I absolutely love the details and precision of the shapes. It's my "compliment of the class": Your model is CRISPY! Even though it's not finished, your vehicle is unique in that there's not really an interior, so I gotta give an A based on the quality of the model and the cool factor.
I can't wait to see this model finished. Keep going at it, Bauke!
aarev This is super impressive for being your first car model! And I'm definitely getting the impression 1 week wasn't enough for several participants to finish the exterior. I'm thinking of ways to remedy that..
Still, you've done good work this week. It's a strong B+ in my book 👍
@theluthier
Okay I can't figure out how to render with the sub on optimal so I just did some quick openGL renders of the viewport.
The mesh sort of got out of control lol, maybe I can re-topologize it one day to clean it up. :/
