"Remake re-model"

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_023.jpg

If people saw my workflow they'd have a laugh.

I had to figure out how to do these vents without doing to much damage to the surrounding panel.


http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_024.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_025.jpg

Unfortunately I have to go in and finesse each one individually, the bottom two are done with seven to go.

Vents look good man, nice and consistent all the way through.

Thanks for saying, actually after I did those bottom two I realized I could do it in a more production line method so I remodeled them back to their original state and followed through on all of them in a quicker and more consistent method. Less divisions to.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_027.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_026.jpg

Those vents were the things I had eyeballed as being difficult, so they're out of the way now. Yay!

Last one today, the fuel lid, doors and door handle inlay.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_028.jpg

At some point I'm gonna have to work out how to do some clay type renders, these screen shots are getting a little dull.

Looking good so far. Have you decided on the final look you will be going for?

There is a nice, short tutorial "Ambient Occlusion Render Layers" you can look into for that clay type renders. (Under the free tutorial section).

It's gonna look like I haven't done anything, but I've spent many hours thickening all the panels and fixing up all the stray vertex's that went in all kinds of wacky directions after doing extrude operations. Basically it was boring, fiddly, thankless work that had to be done (I think).


http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_029.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_030.jpg

If I decide later to model up the interior this will make it easier, anyway I always make cars with thickened panels, I don't know if it is standard practice but that's my method so I'll stick with it. I'll probably start on the window frames next, or the VW emblem, or the wheels, or bumper bars. Maybe I will just take a brake from it for a while.

(I just discovered the soft wireframe option for the viewport so at least they screen shots look a bit nicer.)

Sorry, I didn't see your question. No I haven't decided on anything other that making the mesh replicate a particular type of Kombi that I have reference photos of. It will probable just end up a shiny showroom style render but it could go into rusty and worn territory, depends what I learn about rendering and texturing in Maya.

Looking great man, can see that you're learning a lot. Giving the panels depth can be some REALLY tedious stuff, I hate that part :P

I did more body work instead. I call it making the model airtight so that it will cast proper shadows.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_031.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_032.jpg

Who knows how detailed I'll go with this model, the chassis might never get more detailed

I've been working on the door frames and how that all works with the body shape, alterations were made as I realized some things were not as I had imagined them to be. All that area is looking more solid and defined now.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_033.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_034.jpg

Also put in the little indentations in front for where the window wipers connect to.

I did some major revisions on the angle of the windscreen frames where the roof and door all meet up, you won't notice but you reach a point where you realize the blue prints might be a little inaccurate and just start going by reference images. So to make up for the fact that these changes aren't very noticeable I've tested out the occlusion rendering.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_035.jpg

Oh you might notice that the doors have a new frame bit added.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_036.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_037.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_039.jpg

I'll do the wheels next, can't leave it hanging in mid air like that. I've a perfectly good set of VW wheels made in Lightwave, but this is Maya so I suppose I have to make em here or it will feel like cheating.

This...

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_047.jpg

...freakin wheel, caused me so much confusion and turmoil I almost wanted to divorce Maya. Basically something I thought would be fun and easy turned into the exact opposite of those two words. Mostly it was just down to my ignorance of the software, but there were a few things that were just plain infuriating, like the interactive split tool sometimes working and sometime not, and a clipping plane that wouldn't let me get right up close for detail work. I also didn't realize that when you make a disk, you have to drag it out and delete the sides and unwanted cap or else you will be working with a doubled up poly turd. But that's all done now and I've calmed down. I learned from those things.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_046.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_045.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_043.jpg

And the whole time I had that previously modeled Lightwave wheel teasing me saying, "go ahead, use me, you know you want to." Glad this website exists, I doubt I could keep going without it.

You know how to adjust the near clipping plane now? And I've never used a disk, it just seems weird and confusing.

Yes I think I know about the camera clipping plane, I put the minimum right back to zero, but it still clips if you go in real tight. The disk (cylinder) primitive is not hard to use at all, it's just like dragging out a box, but you just have to know that if you just want the disk part you need to delete all the sides and stuff. I guess this would hold true for a box or any of the other primitives. My frustration is because I think I'm getting on top of Maya and then I'll discover that I'm indeed ignorant of some important aspect, it's like a slap down.

Also, because I modeled the wheel separately, I think I might have been fighting a scaling issue, in that my wheel was actually tiny, so some of the tools might've had issues with that. I discovered this when I imported the wheel into the Kombi scene and it was a small green speck in the center of the scene that had to be scaled up.

Hood emblem.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_049.jpg

You can see here that the logo looks okay in an occlusion only render.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_052.jpg

But here is what it really looks like with a phong shader, quite bumpy and dented.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_053.jpg

I'll try re-making it later using a script called Membrane to conform it to the shape of the hood, and then extrude it to give it depth. Thanks to CTBram for the tip.

So I went ahead and re-made the logo as a planer mesh with more segments and used the Membrane script, you can see here that it has conformed to the shape of the hood.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_055.jpg

Then I just did a simple extrude on the edge

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_056.jpg

The result is way better without the lumps and dents I had before.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_057.jpg

Just a little bridge work between the V and W...

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_058.jpg

Much nicer than before, here's the link that CTBram gave me. http://mitchzais.blogspot.com.au/201...-membrane.html

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_059.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_061.jpg

That emblem is looking really good djwaterman.

Thanks for saying. Now I realize that I have come to that part of the project which is all about details. Below I have added the little insert points for the door hinges,

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_062.jpg

Then making the hinges and putting them in. This sort of small object stuff is actually where I start to learn how to work faster.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_063.jpg

I also start to find out if I have got the main body shape right, these smaller parts you don't notice when you start, so when you get to them and try to place them and they don't fit, you know you have problems.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_064.jpg

I've also added the roof gutter that runs around the whole van, it has two small drain spouts on either side at the front about the windshields, and I've started working on the front bumper bar.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_074.jpg

What I'm showing here are the window frames and rubber seals.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_075.jpg

I'm really beginning to enjoy the translate tools with their set to edge, face options. I'm also getting a better understanding of the tools generally. Here's a render with the frames and the start of a rear bumper as well.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_080.jpg

I'm going to get the door handles done now.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_081.jpg

wow looking really nice, love the old kombi! hope its going to have a 'Hippy Trippy' paint job man :)

When I learn UV mapping it could go in any direction skin-wise. I've done a door handle and here's another full render from behind.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_082.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_085.jpg

Just wanted to get some wire on occlusion renders out.


http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_092.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_093.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...istory_091.jpg

Hey, that's looking super sweet. Nice contour renders :)

Definitely starting to come together quickly now. Lovely clean wires too.

nice and clean mate...looks super...gotta love a slapbug

cheers bullet

Kombies have a huge fan-base all over the world. I've gone through many blogs and forums looking for images, it's been eye opening. Just showing off the front bumpers here.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_091-1.jpg

Rear bumpers.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_092-1.jpg

And this weird thing where some of the objects display white when put into an occlusion render layer. Does anyone know what that might mean?

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_093-1.jpg

First thing I can think is normals...?

Yeah it must be normals but I still haven't sorted it out. I had to stop for a bit but have recently started working on the front lights. After that there's some doors locks, tail lights, wipers and glass and that's most of the outside taken care of.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0100.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0107.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0101.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0111b.jpg

The front indicators need to be a little more enlarged though

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0111a.jpg

I'll do the driving compartment interior, perhaps a single seat in the back. I just want to move on to learning how to texture, I hear Maya have great UV tools so I'm keen to see how that all works.

Bigger.


http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0114.jpg

I might stop posting while I do all the boring bits of detail around the outside. Seems silly to put up images of small things since they don't alter anything much.

I've been building the dashboard and interior. Here's some progress.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...rman/dash1.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash02.jpg

I think interactive edge split is one of my favorite Maya tools.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash03.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash04.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash05.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash06.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash07.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash08.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...man/dash09.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/dash010.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0130a.jpg


Front seat in place

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0131a.jpg

The vents on the dashboard were not hard to do, but they were very repetitive and required a lot of back and forth bridging and deleting and re-bridging of polygons. And edge and point removal, I made use of Maya's Boolean operations to get all the divisions into the dash, and the duplicate special tool to get the vent proportions positioned before that.

Clean modelling man. Seems very accurate.

this is looking bloody cool mate LOL...surfboard on the roof and she will be the perfect Aussie wave hunter LOL.

cheers bullet

Looking great man, certainly have learned (maybe a better word would be improved. Not sure which :P ) a lot in the process.

It's not much but here are some updates,

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0133a.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0131b.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0136.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0142a.jpg

And decided on these round type tail lights.


http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0143a.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0146a.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0148.jpg

Truth is I got bored with it and had to step away for a while, plus some paying work needed doing.

If you do this to make the corners sharper it will not add to much edge loops............dave

Thanks eagle eye, it was like that before and then I deleted the extra edges, I could go back and put them back to keep it all quads (just between you and me no one will ever notice these things).;)