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.
Maybe Chris Plush or Karol Miklas would be interested in joining the stream of week 5.
When I get back from vacation and get to use my computer again I would like to practice some vehicle modeling. What do you think would be the best idea, making the same car twice (one as practice, one during the course), or modeling a completely different car before the class?
@theluthier that is AWESOME!!! Maybe some day in the future, we will be able to make and 3d print (life size) our own cars and drop in a motor. Like a kit of some kind! Everyone could have a custom car!!!!
zzachzellman Thanks! And yes, I can totally imagine people will be printing and assembling their own custom car kits in the future. As well as a ton of other goods. 3D printing is going to change a lot imo.baukepost Good options for an alternate guest, I'll definitely think on it. I personally don't like modeling the same thing twice, so if you're going to practice, I'd vote to do 2 different vehicles.
Is it okay if the exterior and interior blueprints aren't from the same type of tank? I didn't realize how big the interior one is until I noticed a small label that said "Driver's Seat"!
Looks really interesting, really want to check this out, just worried my skills aren't up to snuff yet. Well, I'll definitely finish the HSM fundamentals before this, will hopefully give me a fighting chance at making something great!
williamatics Yeah that's fine. The interior blueprints/reference will need to be interpreted more openly. Like with the car I'm doing, I don't have an interior blueprint. So I'm going to interpret an interior concept from elsewhere and conform it.
thecabbagedetective Don't worry so much about your skills being 'up to snuff'. See what you can soak up this month with the outlined pre-recorded content, then see what happens in June. It'll be a welcoming environment for all skill levels.
After I'm done with the tank, I think I'll modify it to make it more futuristic, and maybe give it a crew (who wear sci-fi helmets from that course).
@theluthier Ah fair enough, sounds great then! I've admittedly been concentrating on concept more recently so I'll switch my priorities for this month, really looking forward to this.
Car modeling exercise
The blockout phase of my car exercise is finished and I've already learned something: modeling cars is hard! Some of the edges aren't there in my real model, but they were added by the computer because of bent quads and ngons.
Two questions:
1. How good do you keep your topology in this stage? Do you think it's bad to have some triangles or would you just clean that up later?
2. Should I already separate the panels and start detailing?
https://sketchfab.com/models/1da9312edf3c4f6fae45aff5d9566525
williamatics No, this is just an exercise :). I'll edit my post to avoid confusion.
baukepost Getting a head start! I respect that.
Sorry to ask another question, but I'm currently working in a little bit more detail on the front panels (which I have already seperated). I just can't seem to achieve such a sharp point where the line ends when using subsurf. Do you guys have any advice?
baukepost I'm pretty sure Chris Kuhn has done that in his motorcycle course.
williamatics I couldn't find it in the course, are you sure he covers creating a sharp point that starts on a smooth surface?
baukepost either have holding edge that you spread out from the point where you want to have the point be. or use triangle to get similar effect. though latter propably will be trickier since sub-d is question.
