Gaussian Motorbike
 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...kenewwheel.jpg

Kinda low poly model of a motorbike (1010ish, wheels and all included) -- the tires I needed to rebuild using "create polygon" tool... and they look kinda -- unrounded. Is there any way I can smooth it out without adding polygons?

Reason for asking -- heard something about "smoothing groups" and I have no clue wtf that is.

Tried bumpmaps to add in a cog-type shape to it, with teeth and such -- but it didn't work out too well.

ok so you want part of the model smoothed whilst the rest looking blocky... sorta.

this is assuming that the model is a complete set of gemeotry sharing the same transform node.

theres two ways to approach this:

short way:
i would do a part smooth operation, meaning select the faces on the tires (or areas you want actually smoothed) and then smooth it under polygons.
go into the attribute editor, locate the smooth operation tab (polySmoothFaceX) and under continuity reduce it to around 0.15 (play around with tab to get the effect of smoothness your after)

you can do this with the rest of the model too.

the end result, you'll have a fairly nice smooth of tires with the main body keeping its original shape but looking more.. intuitive (cant think of a word right now lol)

longer way:
convert to sub-divs and shape the form, keep switching back between poly and sub divs to get the shape your looking for.

(keep an eye on poly count)

Edit: grammar corrections :P

I would use NURBS due to the simple nature of the shapes and then just play with the tesselation attirubte to achive a less tangeable look?

Thanks for the Nurbs suggestion, but its to be imported into UnrealEngine.

(Actually it started out as Nurbs from Rhino)

Ide say soften|Harden edges would be a big thing here.

Select an edge(or several) And goto Edit polygons>Normals>Soften|Harden and play with the settings(they have an all soft and all hard button too). That might be what your looking for..

Will the unreal engine support soft face normals? If not, then you may to increase the geometry with smoothing in localized areas.