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 So awesome. It feels like this could be a CAD from the actual vehicle designer.
shiennar I honestly can't tell what you're missing if anything. Looks great.
jakeblended Yeah 
tbrbn 's is amazing, really looking forward to the shading class to see that and plenty of others come to life. And don't doubt it, a truck - especially a truck designed to carry trailers - can be quiiiite complex. Trust me, I've played Euro Truck Simulator 2, I'm a bonafide expert.
silentheart00 Ah don't worry about being late, just concentrate on being great. Ooo that rhymed. But seriously you're doing a great job so keep at it and don't rush yourself.
thecabbagedetective Thanks for the vote of confidence =] I plan to keep working on this past the class, I just hate feeling so far behind. Oh well. At least I have some time now.
silentheart00 Hey life comes at you fast, as the TV commercials say. I think you're not the only one who plans on continuing after the class is technically "over"; this is definitely a thread I'll keep watching as long as people keep posting to it.
jakeblended Sounds good! Yeah, sounds like a good chunk of people are interested in areas past modeling, so good to hear potential future fun!
Interior modeling kinda done, I wish I had more time to correct the many mistakes. Even though is not part of the class, I bet everyone here wont help but do some shading, lighting and rendering. After all the time and effort is a must.
Learned so so much trying to model this car and watching @theluthier doing the live stream. I thought I knew how to model well, this exercise exposed all the things I need to work on.
thecabbagedetective Thanks Aaron! I sure will, I can't let it like this :) Just busy today, I will continue tomorrow !
jakeblended This. Your floor and seats are amazing, super inspiring!
As Aaron mentions, bigger trucks do have a crazy amount of switchs, gauge etc to display due to the fact that their engines are put in harsh conditions. Dragging a 30 ton tank, even with engine that easily deliver 600hp or more, is super demanding to the mechanical parts. So you want to check that everything is in order. Basically you want to look at both pressure and temperature of every fluid present in the truck: Oil, coolants, hydraulics (suspensions) plus all the extra features truck engines have that cars don't, it adds up really quick. With most recent truck everything is condensed into a humongus touch pad however, much less fun to model :(
That being said, I still haven't recoverd from the awesomely detailed model of yours! Super well done, it reads really well !
ddoulos4iesou That's great - I really like the worn and distressed leather texture on those seats. Is that painted, or dirty verts, or something like that?
dostovel LOL no way - I'm not brave enough to put my topology on display like that. It's gorgeous!
thecabbagedetective jakeblended You're being too kind. My goal is indeed to take further from here to get a final textured render for portfolio.
I would like to be more active here in thread but most of my time is going for the homework and even a simple post like this always takes several minutes for me write since I can't count English as my strength. So usually I just rush all the posts through and tap the like button as fast as I can and go back to Blender lol. Hopefully this doesn't offend anyone, all submissions have been so good this far and I appreciate everyone's work that I've seen during this class.
thecabbagedetective I am not considering shadering this model, but make 2 LODs for a game, and texing them :) I hope I will do it this week since I have 0 interest/needs of sculpting in near (and possibly far) future.
jakeblended What Aaron said - this looks fantastic! Very detailed, yet smooth (I was seriously struggling with the main dashboard not getting all wonky, but you seem to have managed it almost effortlessly :-) )
There is one thing I'd like to ask you about - the dials. Did you manage to find textures that match exactly your type of car, or are these more generic? I'd like to texture mine as well, but I'm not too sure how to go about it.
thecabbagedetective Almost there, Aaron! It's turning our very nice. I really respect that all your updates are renders. I envy your patience.
swikni I like the way you presented it. And I really like the quality of your interior! Lol I know what you mean about details seeming endless. But it seems you've addressed them all and it's looking very good. Awesome job this week - it's an A in my book!
shiennar Great job, Katerina. Even if it's not 'properly' textured, the materials you have do a lot. It's an A from me 👍
adsb2035 Heh technical, detailed rabbit holes like this can be a lot of fun. And you'll likely be a stitch expert from now on! Thanks for posting. As I think about texturing/shading my interior one day, I'm increasingly aware of the importance of stitching.
