Actually I think you mean the central division on the X and Y don't you. I could do that as well.

Mental ray might, you may get weird artifacts on your render

Eagle eye LOL im as blind as a bat:)..........this was rendered in mental ray..............dave

Managed to get more things done on this car, fixing up the door window frames, adding side door hinges and window wipers.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0182a.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0187a.jpg

I've even put in some stuff underneath although I'm not sure if that's very productive.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0190a.jpg

I'm still in the process of fitting out the cabin interior...

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0193a.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...tory_0194a.jpg

There's plenty of things that need to go in here but I'm getting sick of modeling this thing. I really want to move onto lighting and texturing. I'm hoping to use 3Delight.

This is looking great, can't wait until you render it. :)

man this is a balltearer of a model mate....well done so far.

cheers bullet

I haven't been posting lately because I've been just getting on with making this thing. But I took the time to save screen shots as I worked so I can show you some of the stages. This is the indicator lever (I guess).

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...eering_004.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...teering002.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0245.jpg

Then there's this thing which looks like an air conditioner or venting system on the ceiling of the cabin. This might look like the beginnings of a Boolean operation but the little cylinder is just there as a reference object that I use while I use the interactive split tool to make a hole there. I love that tool.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...eering_006.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...ering004-1.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...ering007-1.jpg

I also made the sun shades but didn't document it.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...eering_011.jpg

This next detail is where two ventilation inputs will be put, but I haven't done them yet.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...eering_012.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...eering_013.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0250.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0251.jpg

Why not show this as well.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0249.jpg

At this stage I decided to re-visit Vray and see if I could get it working. Here is an early render, the material I'd been using looks almost metallic using Vray.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0252.jpg

You might notice that I've remodeled the front windows to make them rounder in the corners, they where very sharp before, that sort of thing can happen when blue-prints are part of the equation.

I went with a 2 tone paint job, using Vray's carpaint material, and for most of these renders the chrome is quite unpolished, I've since been refining that.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray076.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray079.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray082.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray088.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray091.jpg

I've just added a little detail to the headlights, screw holes.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0253.jpg

You can almost see them in this render, and the chrome here is more polished. There's some render artifacts on the big logo.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray097.jpg

Vray has super smooth AA for the most part, but sometimes I get this artifacts and I'm not sure what they are.

For example, on the glass here there are these lines...

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...n/Vray092b.jpg

I moved the camera in close and you can see tri poly artifacts.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray092.jpg

In this case it might be my geometry, or a Vray quality setting. I'm still learning.

have you checked for duplicate faces around those areas? looks kinda like that?

Thanks, I'll look into it. I've started back on the interior, I think I have a good idea now to the level of detail I want to take this thing.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0254.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0255.jpg

I finally figured out one of the solutions to my glass problems, Creating the glass object a custom Vray property, that gives it it's own Vray render flags, so you can turn off cast shadow and all that stuff.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray098.jpg

Looking good! Question. Are you going to dirty it up or is this gonna be a showcar?

I'll make it showroom condition first, to be safe, as an asset. Then I'll resurrect it and see what else I can do to it as a prop. There's still so much to learn.

Looks great djwaterman! Did you use mentalRay ?

Nice work deej...real bloody nice man.

cheers bullet

Thanks Maya friends, I'm always encouraged to continue when I get comments. The color renders are using Vray, it's not fast like I was led to believe, but the render quality is hard to turn away from.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray103.jpg

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray104.jpg

I'm having trouble pumping more GI into the interior (these shots were corrected some in Photoshop). Currently it's just GU lighting from HDR environment. I think I will start adding lights and rely less on the GI.

There is still plenty on things needed on the interior, at the moment I crop out all the unfinished parts which limits my framing. Also my renders suffer from the modelers disease of trying to show off the modeling and not the car.

Managed to get some interior door done.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray108.jpg

And then put extra detailing on the seat. It's starting to look quite smart in there with all the two toning.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray111.jpg

Makes me think I should put white walls on the tires.

LOL white walls...now you have had some strange coffee...LOL...though it probably wouldnt look out of place. Can I say that the screws you made look a little 'squarish' or is this just the angle of the shots?

cheers bullet

They are round as round can be, honest. Eight sided discs with smoothing on and rounded like thumbtacks on the front. I'm disappointed if they look square! That's not the intention at all.

Here's a serious question about UV's, I want to put a leather bump on the upholstery, I'd like to use a normal map and do it with UV's. As you can see my seats are 2 toned, meaning some of the polygons have one shader and the others have another shader. But they are one piece of geometry.

So what's the best way to think about UV's in this situation.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...UVproblem3.jpg

Can I discount this idea for a start, selecting the whole thing and giving it a UV map. That seems easiest but I'm not sure how that could work given the object has 2 separate shaders.

The way I have done this...because trying to draw lines in PS is a pain is this....UV the top and bottom of the seat as seperate pieces. THEN whilst in the UV editor...pick all of the blue face and cut the UV's...then just move them to one side and presto...easy as in PS then! No trying to draw lines.....hope this helps.

cheers bullet

EDIT: select the faces in perspective...sorry mate...then cut and move

First try a auto map for some thing like this
Once you have UVed the whole thing you have two choices for one shader 1 create a shader with a ramp or 2 texture in photoshop (just use the square slection mask in ps and fill with colour in a new lawer) Straight lines in PS hold the shift key as you draw you might want to turn on the grid (view/show/grid). ..............dave

Edit:to do a controlled curve line in a layer use the pen tool to make your curved line then sellect the brush or pencil you want to use then go to layers/paths at the bottom "stroke path with brush" done. The stroke to path is usefull for doing things like stitching or lots off rivets, create a brush that looks like a stitch or rivet then change the spacing in the brush settings as you use the stroke path

thas another way dave...I tried that on fiddly assets in PS and it was a pain in the butt...IF the faces are on 'joins' with different textures I found my method much quicker and simpler...again this was on a building so it worked for that kind of geo.

If you go daves way make sure you have a good size res....and if you make a mistake with the pen tool (dave?) I believe holding down CTRL you can move the anchor points etc...as well you can add or delete anchor points with ALT and SHIFT..I cant remember...dave may know these shortcuts?

cheers bullet

I guess my question is related to the fact that the object already has the color taken care of because of the poly-faces having been assigned blue and white shaders. If I UV the entire object, will that kill the separate materials and treat it like one whole material?

I don't mind if that's the case, my color Diffuse UV map would just have the two colors painted in, and the normal map would cover over everything.

(all I know really is that Maya has cool tools for UV's, but they are quite mysterious to me at the moment, I'd like to step off on the right foot before attempting it, so I'll do it what ever way is the best approach.)

Also I'm pretty good with PShop so you don't need to step me through that so much, Maya is what I need coaching in.

UVing it will not change the fact that you have assigned two shaders to the faces of the mesh when you do your bump you will have to assign it to both,you could make a copy of your mesh then UV one and do a transfere maps to the one UVed that should give you one texture..............dave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...Y&feature=fvwp

Thanks for clearing things up for me guys. I've been exploring the whole UV thing the last few days and I'm really starting to understand it more. I was able to get a good UV set for the seat and get some leather texture onto it.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...n/Vray119a.jpg

I also added an actual light into the scene to get illumination into the cabin. It's a HDR map of a studio reflective umbrella.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...n/Vray120a.jpg

I also UV'd the floor mat, did you notice? Probably not. Then I moved on to the tires. I decided on a different approach for the UV than I would normally use. Usually I'd planer map the side wall and cylindrically map the tread. This time I wanted to have both in the same map. This meant that the tread and sides could just be a long strip. Here's a portion of how the map art looked.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0256.jpg

Which mean't I could easily design my own graphics, just typing them on in P'shop. Here's an early test render to make sure placment is working.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray121.jpg

With a normal map.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray122.jpg

This is the current look with diffuse, reflection and normal maps.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...an/Vray123.jpg

Still experimenting with the maps but this will do for now.

Awesome work!

Thanks. Here's the tire in situ.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...n/Vray144a.jpg

very well done dj

cheers bullet

amazing work so far , love it

looking awesome!

Wow this is realy great!

Thanks, its getting there. I'm now trying to neaten up the whole model structure, so my car is all grouped together and I find a lot of other stuff listed and don't really know what it is. I'd like to delete it as I'm sure its just left over references or something. In the screen grab here all the selected things are what I want to keep, and all the other stuff is a mystery to me.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0257.jpg

They seem to be empty folders but I'm scared to delete them in case there are consequences. What do I do?

Not folders, but transform nodes. I think they show up sometimes when you duplicate stuff and group stuff and delete history and connections get disconnected. Save a new copy of your scene and delete them, no harm done. The ones with plus signs beside them, open them up and make sure there's no geo or anything below. Delete history on everything before you clean up because there may be some lingering connections. Don't know if you still want that side camera.

The way I do it...select the whole model...then delete ALL history...then select whole model again...open outliner, the ones 'deselected' are ones I delete...to make sure of some Im confused I grab the move tool and see if any geo is connected. This is a fail in Maya...just another thing you have to sweep and see

cheers bullet

Okay, that cleared that up, there's also these things, again I have no idea what they are.

http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/...story_0258.jpg

Can I kill them too?

I think those are sets. I don't know where they come from unless you created them yourself. You can't delete the two default ones. You can try, but it won't work. I don't know about the rest. Probably safe to delete them, but again, just make a copy of your scene first.

hey man quick question , where did you get the good year reference pic?? did you make it yourself? or is it from a website? would be nice to get some decent Tyre thread references. lol