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.
Just out of curiosity, what are peoples' post-class plans? What's next for you, learning-wise?
I think I'm going to take a break from the modeling-course blitz and begin some animation courses. I want to start by retaking the Intro course as a refresher, and then I will take Wayne Dixon's bootcamp.
Otherwise though...I have to say. I can't stress enough how much I was intimidated by this class at the beginning. I think I mentioned before, but I settled on my vehicle and its blueprints only minutes before the Week 1 deadline, because I kept looking at all these vehicles I would like to have modeled and kept thinking to myself, "There's no way I can do that and have it look any good." When I settled on the truck, it wasn't that I thought I could do it better than other vehicles, so much that I was out of time and just had to pick one. But the way my work turned out over the following two weeks, and the great and supportive feedback I got for it from everyone here, was a surprise and a HUGE confidence boost. And because of it, I have enough confidence that I think I can start working on some of my own projects and posting them to the gallery, in addition to coursework.
some work over the sculpt, retopo, high poly mesh work (details extrusion...), bake. Only for the "body".
jakeblended I was 1/2 way through the animation bootcamp when this course started so I put it on the back burner but so far, so good I like the class. I want to get to the series on rigging so I can do some advanced modeling like maybe a train or an engine or even a simple analog clock face and then render it.
jakeblended Damn, thanks! Me and you both dude, I need to experiment with more brushes, it's just been grab, hook, crease, pinch and flatten for me.
ffreddie82 Why thank you! Yeah I can definitely see the shoe, honestly it was giving me Dr. Seuss vibes for some reason haha.
oboshape Damn you work faaaaast. Really like how you went all out with the animal inspiration, like how the fangs connect to the wheel and whatnot, cool stuff!
tthepainter Cheers! That was the vibe I was going for so I'm glad that came across.
ddoulos4iesou Hearing you on the blights of dyntopo, at over 5,000,000 verts myself, but that's mostly because for whatever reason I thought 3 pixel size was sufficient in a worrying amount of situations. Never done retopo so I can't defend it in this situation, but multires is great (if a bit of a memory hog at times).
jakeblended First thing's first: take a break from Blender. Tend to my hobbies and other studies that I've neglected for weeks and work out again.
After that? Well I haven't finished the Mesh Modeling Bootcamp or the Acting for Animators class yet, so I'll wrap those up and then after that God knows, maybe I'll try to understand sculpting more? Maybe I'll tackle animating head on? Hell, maybe even trying to get back into concept art and drawing again so I can be a more well-rounded creator? Not sure which I should do first. Have a couple friends who've "employed" me to make some models after this class is done so I'll at least have something to do in Blender in the coming weeks, but actually learning wise I'm not sure, there's so many options.
I totally understand how you feel with the confidence too, it was by far the biggest block for me. Hell, the biggest block for getting started with Blender in the first place. Week 1 comes around and I look at all these blueprints thinking "There's no way I can pick one of these that I'll be able to make, I should just give up." but by the end of that week I had that and a bunch more references. Week 2 comes around and as I first start pulling around verts in the vague shape of a bonnet I get flustered, confused and annoyed, thinking "There's no way I'll have a car exterior done by the end of this, I don't understand the topology or how the shapes work and my blueprints are all crooked, I should just give up," but by the end of that week I had the exterior done, fully jam packed with details and shaded. Week 3 comes around and as I start looking at the details necessary to pull off a convincing interior I get intimidated and doubtful, thinking "There's no way I'll be able to make this interior, there's so many things you need to address, not to mention my idiotic self picked a limo so I have even more stuff to model, I should just give up," but by the end of that week I had a fully detailed and somewhat shaded interior. Once again, like clockwork, week 4 comes around and as I nervously toy with the sculpting tools I get overwhelmed and perplexed, thinking "I just can't get on with sculpting, my surfaces are all bumpy and I can't make a coherent shape to save my life, I should just give up," and whilst the end of that week isn't here yet, I will say I'm quite pleased with what I've created thus far.
At the end of the day, the biggest barrier to self improvement will always be your self doubt. Not to sound like some sort of armchair philosopher or something, sorry if it comes across like that, but over the past five months I have continually surprised myself with what I am capable of, and I'm sure many of you feel the same.
That got... long, but hey, my message got across at least!
dieedi Oooooo this is looking nice, I can really respect the retopo too, keep it up!
Day 4 done!
Well that's the main thing done, pretty much! Not gonna consider this my homework yet though, I still feel there are some improvements to be made and there's still a few days left to do so. I actually got frustrated with the stinger tip gun thing and attempted to mesh model it instead, but after feeling like that was cheating of a sort I attempted to sculpt again and genuinely liked it, second time's the charm it seems.
Good stuff to all of those who have managed to finish and good luck to those still stuck in the trenches attempting to create their masterpiece!
Sorry I didn't follow the assignment, people sculpts look so cool, it's just that I wanted to shade, light and render my model so bad before the course was over, now I wont have time for the sculpting part. :(
Why are you never satisfied with your own work? this always happens to me. I can only see what it could have been. Anyways, here are the final renders. I wanted to make an environment, like some compositing on a street, but time is short, I went with a simple studio setup.
Really cool moth with this class, Kent. Thanks for making it happen.
Homework submission week 4
You can probably see it's a bit rough, because I was very busy this week with the UV's of my hoverbike, but I did find some time to do this sculpture. It sort of surprised me, I didn't think it would be this fun! I'm currently more focused on poly modeling, but I'll be doing this more in the future.
The sculpt took me about 2.5 hours.
@theluthier Would you be interested in monitoring a vehicle texturing thread or would this be more something that would have to be created by us (since you are probably also busy with other things for CGC)? It would be really cool to have a 2 to 3 week curriculum for texturing with Blender or Substance. Something like: week 1 for UVs (depending on the vehicle), week 2 for the exterior and week 3 for the interior.
Homework submission Week 4:
After a few discarded concepts I decided to go for a car-marine. I was inspired by old episodes of Top Gear where the trio tried to build amphibious cars and always managed to send them to the bottom of whatever puddle they wanted to stay afloat on. I thought this might make it easier for them. The idea is that it can drive on a road and when it enters water, the wheels retract inside the fuel tanks and the whole thing is propelled with the tiny implements in the back. Not the most realistic of concepts, but it was surprisingly fun to make.
I have also fully finished my Fiat 500 project. I've improved the interior materials, rendered the whole car again, and uploaded it to Sketchfab, where it can be freely downloaded if you'd like to play with it. There is the link to the gallery project.
Homework submission week 4
For my sculpt i tried to do an AUDI Podracer.
Homework submission Week 3
My free time has run out. So i am submitting this wip as is. I will definitely continue to work on details in my free time.
Homework submission Week 4
Got this is mind during the last stream. Should be hover bike, but to be honest it looks like a toy horse :D
To wrap up. This was such great time and a lot of fun. Never thought of such great community. Thanks guys for your support and good job everyone.
jakeblended by the work you have put in and shown over the month Jake, it really comes through and I love it :), your more than capable of achieving anything you set your mind to. To a point where I seen your truck and thought, i want to get to that stage at some point ;)
Confidence and intimidation demons are most definitely banished :)
Think for myself im going to go back and try some hard surface with smaller objects and practice more with loop flows / junctions until they stick in my grey matter.
I like the sound of animation, but I want to get a good handle on modelling and sculpting first before moving forward.
jakeblended I plan to continue to work on the car interior and exterior, animate it, render it. Create some kind of advertisement video. And if i have enough of the car modelling i started an archwiz week before the class so i can continue there :)
Homework Submission Week 4
Enjoied this exercise. I tried out some different Brushes, especially the mask brush.
This is my 4th example i polished the most, some kind of a flinging drone.
And here my first 3 attempts on a Train. Here i just tried some shapes. These are not polished, just for Concept.
Was a fun class, i still need to polish up my car exterieur from week 2.
