Specialized Enduro
 

This is my first larger scale project. Fairly loosely based on an Enduro full sus MTB. Plenty of quite complicated shapes with organic type bends and sharper edges along with geometric shapes and repetition. Mainly poly modelled and not too fussed about poly counts (which is just as well because it is already at 80000) with some nurbs surfaces for good measure (rims, spokes).

Hoping to get it looking good enough to stand up to reasonably close examination (welds, spoke eyelets and bolts etc). Eventually going to render with MR and try to get some HDRI and final gathering going on.

Will try and share any workarounds and problems I encounter as I go. Any input much appreciated.

and a closer view

Looking good, but the tires could use some tread detail.

I like using a bend deformer to build my wheels, it lets me put in whatever design I want into a polygon plane, and then just bend it into the wheel shape.

Good idea, thanks! I was going to 'cheat' and use a displacement map but your method sounds much more purist. Will give it a shot.

Does anyone have any ideas about creating welds in poly models? using nurbs I have used the intersect surfaces and then extrude along curve but this doesn't work with polys.

I have managed a few of the bigger welds by duplicating the two intersecting parts and then perfoming a intersection boolean and deleting all faces except for the ones containing the actual join and extruding this to create a box extruding again on the newly created faces. Then I delete the original faces, perform a couple of smooth opearations on the object and then use the sculpt tool to give it some texture. I found that I had a lot more polys than I needed and the reduce function actually led to some nice randomisation further adding to the texture. The whole process takes around 5 minutes (per weld) and looks not too shabby.

I know on my bike the welds were polished down a bit so they aren't anywhere near as severe. But How close is the camera ever going to be to a weld?
If it is going to get very close I suggest actually building it into the mesh at the joints if you desire that much detail. If not then why not just toss a curve around the joint, draw up a funny object and then extrude it around the curve. You could also use some sub D planes around the intersections and add some quick variations to them.

Update
 

Been working late shifts the last while so not had a chance to do much to the model, starting to get some of the more interesting bits on now. Shocks, pedals and cranks are done. Quite happy with how its looking.

One question, how do you model a chain? I can make a single link no probs but when it comes to duplicating it along its path I struggle to get a decent result, any suggestions?

Should have modelled a car, at least all the workings are under the bodyshell!

Nice model, keep up and hope more!

Cheers!

interesting object your modeling, never seen anyone attemp a bike...

nice detail so far

Modelling Finished!
 

Finally finished my modelling. Got some texture into the tyres and handlebar grips.

Chain was a pain in the backside to model. Tried using the "align to curve tool"which did not give me any control over rotation. Ended up creating the whole chain and then rotated at the joints. Works for static shots, not sure about animation.

Really nice mate and much more details. Got my vote!:beer: when going to with materials and keep up!

cheers for the support, going to get some textures on shortly. Will probably have lots of questions regarding mental ray nodes and rendering, everytime I have tried rendering objects up til now they have turend out either all blotchy (though I am starting to get round this) or too "clean".

Applied the basic materials to the bike, got the colour scheme kind of how I want it. Experimenting with mia_material and tweaking it seems to have got rid of a lot of the "cartoony" feel I am trying to avoid (Fresnel reflection and anisotropy especially). Render times (preview: final gather 640 by 480) are around 30 seconds on my system which I can live with.

No scene lights, only using an HDRI forest scene from Dan Mayer (smashmethod).

Here is a closer view of the red highlight material, made using the DGS material. I really like this one!

I am going to add some sticker detailing now and hopefully the extra detail will add to the realism.

Also I realise I have been rendering at 920x720 despite my settings saying 640x480. Tried changing the settings but always renders at a higher resolution than I set - why is that? I have been unwittingly breaking the forum rules on image size with this one!

Modeling looks damn good, shaders are coming along. What are you going to do with the floor? I don't know if you can get away with a bike sitting on a plane in the middle of the forest :x

yeah a plain plane is a pretty dull, was actually thinking of moving to an urban background. Maybe a subway staircase with more atmospheric lighting. will have to do a few tests once I have the bike the way I like it.