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.
HOMEWORK SUBMISSION WEEK 2
P.S. Colours in the first image (Final render) are just to make things more visible .
@theluthier
the good look is thanks of the subsurf magic :D
But if you want to to see the real thing:
subsurf model: https://skfb.ly/6zMOs
hard model: https://skfb.ly/6zMOy
jakeblended Thanks for the encouragement! The thing that worries me is I've never modeled a character in my life, nor have I ever taken a character course. Well, always a time for something new!
At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, a couple of days ago whilst editing a mesh I accidentally hit a button (or multiple) which caused this wireframe box to surround it. Doesn't seem to be affecting anything but if someone could tell me what on earth it does or even how to get rid of it I'd appreciate it, thanks in advance.
tbrbn Aha, you're a lifesaver! Or a least a confusing annoyances saver, thanks for that!
@theluthier You sir have the "eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox" for there was a slight wobble in the mesh of the rear fender. Here is the new and improved version. I love the Alt+S hotkey. It takes out all of the dings and dents. If it were so easy in the real world...
Funny how the reference photo has a dent in the same exact place. Ha ha.
adsb2035 I can just imagine one of the "Vonn Bots" from the Animation Bootcamp driving this vehicle.
HOMEWORK SUBMISSION WEEK 2
Its just a work in progress. I've been struggling with it a lot. I'll be trying to keep up with interior this week as well as trying to finish the exterior!
Ugh I'm sooooo close to being done I hope I can render it before the next stream. Seeing all your hard work come together is the best part.
williamatics I'm not a military hardware expert, but from what I can tell, the hatches on these things seem to be pretty much EXACTLY the size for a human to fit into them:
That's an M1 Abrams tank; going from the size of the hatches on your model, I would say it's similar in size to an M1. If that's the case I think perhaps your grab-handles might be a little too thick.
For seeing outside the tank, the M1 has a few different things. The commander's machine-gun position (the sticky-uppy turret next to the main hatch) has these windows all the way around it for seeing out if that hatch must be closed:
And there's also these periscopes:
The upper one is used by the gunner to aim the big gun, and the lower set is used by the driver. The upper periscope has these armored doors that can be closed over it to protect it, but the lower ones I guess must just be made of really thick glass.
jakeblended @theluthier 
louhikarme 
shiennar thecabbagedetective Thanks. I wish I had better blueprints, them not lining up was the source of a world of pain and wobbliness.
dostovel A lot of us feel your pain including me. Though on the positive side as time goes on we'll adjust and work better around them, or at least I'm hoping.
dostovel I remember someone bringing this up during the week-1 livestream. There's lots of blueprints out there that are kind of low quality.
I think what's happening is, some of these are more or less hand-drawings made by people using photographs for reference. Photos are never orthographic, so the artist always has to do some adjusting of lines and I guess like any drawing skill that's something that needs practice to be able to do well.
ullreym As always your submission is super cool and also makes me smile
jack07 Yeah, but I don't have the moolah right now. I've heard of it, want to try it, but I also don't have the time to dedicate towards it right now.
jakeblended I believe sketchfab does not support modifiers, so you have to apply them before exporting.
