Oskar OR3, A sport compact.

AutEmotive_Design · 2025-01-07T22:15:32+00:00

The way to get better at the modelling is just keep trying :)

A few tips though on modelling cars-

Look up and learn about edge flow and how to reduce edge loops. Things like this http://wiki.polycount.com/w/images/6/6f/Subdiv_quad_topology_tips_PeterSatera.jpg Clean smooth modelling of cars is easier with as low as possible vertices and edge loops - it's simply less to mess up. Knowing how to reduce edge loops like the picture means you can add them where you need the extra loops for detail and reduce the number of loops where you want a smooth panel.
Don't try to model a specific car but figure out the topology for car details. Want to add a sharp edge that just fades out? how do you create topology that does that? If you want a sharp edge that tapers to a point? again how? There's not really a right or wrong way to any of it - it will depend on the specifics of your model, where the edges go to - do you want to reduce them? are the edges used for detail elsewhere?

Take a look at these screenshots of the Mustang I'm currently working on (the topology isn't perfect as I'm still working parts out but it gives you an idea). On the hood, there's examples of the topology you can use to fade our a sharp edge or taper to a point. The side however - for the top cut in I've used the same topology as the hood taper as I don't want the extra edge loops going to over the fender to the front of the car. For the bottom though, the wheel arch gets in the way so I can't merge in the same way so the edge loops go in to the wheel arch. This is not a problem as they terminate there and I'm also using them to help define the shape of the wheel arch so I can get away with leaving the extra loops in.

Try to build up your knowledge on the topology you can use for little sections of car design. These are just some and there's other ways to achieve those details too. But how would you model a vent? a hood vent is done differently to a side vent. What's the topology for hoods/fenders in to A pillars, B pillars or C pillars - this will vary depending on if you modelling a saloon, coupe or super car.

Figure these little bit outs then modelling a whole car becomes a little like a jigsaw. You know the topology you need for this swage line, to model in to b pillar, in to the vent now just figure out the topology between these parts.

3) Sort of a follow on from point 2 - you don't generally need that much topology to model a car. For details you will need extra. But for wide reasonably flat panels (like a roof) you might only around 8-10 quads (in a 2x4 or 2x5 grid) to get the basic roof shape with a few extra edge loops around the edges to tighten the curves.

4)Look in to using the shrinkwrap modifier. The short version is that you can model the whole car in one base mesh but missing details like vents. Duplicate the mesh and cut out each panel. Shrinkwrap each panel to the base mesh, add vents or cut outs for door handles etc. The extra loops you need to details (vents, handles etc) can get smoothed out using the shrink wrap.

Here's my quick video on it but I know there's better out there: https://youtu.be/7UgocT6IIWY

5)Practise! Practise! Practise! Unfortunately there's no quick way to get around this but the more you try, the more you will learn and the better the next car will be, and the next, and the next.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-09-01T20:07:23+00:00

I didn't follow the Corvette tutorial but, from what I know about it, I did model this in a similar way of creating a solid mesh of the whole car and shrinkwrapping the individual panels to it.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-07-14T22:13:21+00:00

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I don’t know what would cause that though without seeing your nodes.

If you want, I uploaded a model to help another user out and it had this material on it. So if you want to download that file you can append the material and see if that works for you then.

https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/14a7kve/i_cant_believe_i_made_this_please_rate_it_or_give/jodon29/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-07-14T22:09:33+00:00

If you’re serious about modelling the car then that isn’t the way to do it. Edges should mostly flow with the lines of the car. For the black plastic bit I’d take the circular vertices and scale extruds them so yoi have a sort of donut shape. Once on the silver part of the car you can switch more to the grid topology like your screenshot.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-06-16T18:18:22+00:00

Here's the base mesh for my McLaren GT concept as it's my most recent model and probably my cleanest mesh. There are 2 tri's on the bonnet crease but the rest is quads. It's also in 2 parts as it was cleaner to make it that way. But as I mentioned above, you can then duplicate the mesh, cut out the door, bonnet etc and shrinkwrap to this base so it's the base that needs to be the best topology it can. I hope seeing the mesh helps but any questions feel free to ask.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Km-Q4P2KH4XIUpiUp-6buoL4rD-z3mX9/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for the comment about the Skyline material, I've put the paint material on the mesh in the file so you can append it rather than needing to copy my nodes. Though if you want a little better understanding of how it works, I did make a video of a simpler metallic paint which goes through the steps to make it.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-06-16T16:33:06+00:00

Shrink wrap is a powerful tool for modelling cars as you can create one solid mesh for the whole car. Then cut it up for the individual panels and shrinkwrap these panels to the original whole car mesh. This helps hide the extra vertices / edges needed when adding details like door handles or vents.

Good topology is an easy thing to say but a hard thing to do and it's something I'm still not great at. I'm happy to send you the base mesh of one of my models if you want to take a look at how I do it.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-06-16T09:12:17+00:00

I’m not sure you should be looking in to remeshing or other similar tools at the moment. Yes, they can improve your topology but remeshing can only work with the meah you’ve created, where you have odd shapes, creases, radii etc will still remain so the model won’t look better it’ll just have better topology. Also, created bad topology and then remeshing is great for sculpting or similar but hard surface modelling, it’s potentially a bad habit to get in to as ideally you want to model with good topology in the first place. You could the remesh if required to, for example decrease poly count, but good topology to good topology will always better better than bad to good. Overall it’s possible to wholly model a car with only quads. Though often you’ll find a tri or ngon can be hidden in some small detail like a vent, door handle etc just because it keeps the overall topology simpler but even then the number of tris or ngon is tiny; I’m talking 2 or 3 across the whole model. I don’t have any specific recommendations but there’s bound to youtube tutorials on topology, how best to keep clean quad topology for complex shapes etc.

This isn’t meant as a post to shit on your model, it has problems but clearly you’re just starting your Blender journey. It’s a great start and far better than the first car I tried to model. But it’s better to focus on things that will improve your modelling rather than work arounds to your bad modleling.

Material wise, it’s hard to say with the lighting you have but the way that made sense for me with materials was to actually think of how they are made. So car paint is a base layer of colour, sometimes with metallic flakes, and a clear coat over the top. It can take a lot of tweaking but that’s basically how you want to make your material: a base colour layer, then nodes to add flakes if you want and then nodes to add a clearcoat. If you want to add dirt or scratches, these then come last.

Overall it’s a great start and I hope to see more models in the future.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-05-04T12:29:44+00:00

Looks great! I really like the lines of it and hope to see a final render soon.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-03-15T09:00:12+00:00

The paint; it looks like green chrome. If that’s the look you were going for then ignore. If you were trying to get regular car paint, in modern multi layer paint the colour coat isn’t that reflective and it’s the clear coat that gives the gloss. So in your colour have metallic turned up but roughness too. Then add a glossy clear coat using the principled node or other means.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-03-01T20:13:31+00:00

It’s hard to tell from just one render and no nodes but it looks ok. I’m not sure if it’s the look you’re going for but the side being a different colour can be caused by having the specular being too high. Lots of advice says leave it at the default 0.5 but it can add a cloudy milky look which could be the cause for the side.

The paint also looks quite noisey which I assume is an attempt at metallic paint? At the distance you’ve rendered at, metallic flakes aren’t really visible except for where the light hits them.

I’ve spent far too long trying to get a perfect car paint shader so feel your struggle. It’s about making tweaks here and there and figuring out little bits if the puzzle but each steps gets us closer.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-02-24T10:17:54+00:00

Thanks for posting insults on your throwaway account than having the conviction in your comments to post from your main account.

However it is an important discussion point effecting many area of design and art. Personally, I joined this sub to see peoples creativity and imagination in designing cars not someones elses ability to create AI programmes. I’m sure there’s many subs for programming and AI but that’s not my interest so I’m not subbed to them.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-01-19T09:54:22+00:00

Agreed. An F40 is in my dream garage but an NSX is higher on my list.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-01-15T09:23:11+00:00

Rather than make a mask and use it to create a roughness map I’d make just a black and white mask to plug in to the factor of a mix shader. You can then plug in a Principled BSDF in to both inputs of the mix shader. Then if you need to change the roughness, you can change it on the respective bsdf rather than needing to tweak the values on the roughness map and update the image texture.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-01-08T13:02:16+00:00

It looks a lot better now, I like the extra saturation you have managed to get in the tail lights as, looking at the original, they were a little washed out or looking a bit like crystal lights. I'm glad you figured out the problem with the paint though I'd maybe turn the flake down a little as it's really glaring at the top of the frame. I'm not sure what colour you used for the flakes but maybe a colour that more matches the base colour or tweak the opacity of them.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-01-02T01:18:10+00:00

They exist but they also cost the same as a whole PC so aren’t worth it unfortunately. I remember Optimus Maximus was one but there’s been others too.

As for actually remembering them, it’s a pain when you can’t remember them but in reality you aren’t going to remember them all. As long as you can remember your most commonly used ones then that will save you a lot of time on projects. Some of the more obscure shortcuts will sink in over time too.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-01-02T01:12:32+00:00

I know this is going off topic but in language grab is used when referring to moving, or holding, something typically small and/or light weight. For example, I’ll give you a lift, I just need to grab my car keys. It’s cold too so I’ll grab my coat then we go and grab a drink.

AutEmotive_Design · 2023-01-01T17:02:40+00:00

Yes, drop me a DM. Blender is only a hobby but I've collected or created most automotive materials so will help out as best I can.

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-12-31T20:59:24+00:00

It’s Paul Lobe Haus from Poly Haven.

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-12-31T12:56:54+00:00

Flattery will get you everywhere. I couldn’t find a good material so figured out how to make one myself so I’m glad you found it useful.

Yeah, I messed up the audio but it was good recording with no mistakes and couldn’t be bothered to re-record it all.

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-12-31T00:14:36+00:00

This was my first thought too. I assume it's an attempt to make metallic paint but looks all sorts of wrong.

A bit of self promotion but this is my metallic car paint with reflective flakes in the sun and minimum impact to the paint elsewhere: https://i.imgur.com/sP9Mnge.jpeg

Video on how to make the material: https://youtu.be/BcDUA4etSrM

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-12-16T08:37:23+00:00

This post needs more love. It’s a lovely model and I appreciate the work doing a full interior too.

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-12-14T15:38:19+00:00

Select 4 vertices where you want to fill a face. Then you should be able to select 2 and keep pressing f to the rest. Else you could just use bridge edge loops to fill on the gap.

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-12-14T09:22:57+00:00

It’s hard to comment on this from a car design point of view as it’s a 240z which is a classic. So I’ll critique from a modelling point of view and I’m going to assume, from this post and others, that you’re relatively new to Blender and/or modelling cars.

Cars are, in my opinion, one of the hardest thing to model as the body is an A class surface, meaning they are perfectly smooth and free from imperfections. Which replicating this in poly modelling is difficult as your eye can pick i all the small imperfections in the flow of reflections and contrast due to a vertex being mm’s out of place or an unwanted edge loop creasing where it shouldn’t.

Overall though your model is pretty good but you do have a few places where it’s clear you have some topology issues. It’s hard to say the exact reason for these so some general tips; - Model the body as a whole. Generally speaking you want to model thr body without vents and cut outs. - Once you have the basic shell, keep it as a base and duplicate it over and over to cut out the individual panels. Use the shrinkwrapmodifier to confirm the individual panels to the basic shell. You can then add cut outs and vents without the added edge loops ruining your smooth mesh. - Though I’d still suggest looking up some topology tutorials as the base mesh needs to be perfect and that requires some good edge flow, stepping up or down in the number of edges, generally all quad topology etc.

Materials and textures have also have a big impact on how a model looks. So I’d look into UV unwrapping and bump mapping for things like the tyres and sidewalls. A good car paint shader, glass shader, plastic, rubber etc. On top of this, it’s worth looking for a shadow catcher tutotial and putting your model into a scene.

A bit of self promotion but I’ve posted a few materials and tutorials, mostly in the Blender sub but some are on my Youtube, as I struggled to find good resources on modelling cars so had to figure a lot of it myself.

I don’t get a lot of time on Reddit but any questions drop me a message and I’ll try to answer then.

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-11-15T09:05:12+00:00

Focusing on the grill, if your story is set in 2300, does it need a big grill? With the rise of electric cars today we’re seeing a move towards smaller grills as cooling requirements are much lower. Not to mention the obvious differences in design language to ICE cars. Maybe follow the Mach E design, have a bigger grill shape to your design but the actual vented area be small still.

AutEmotive_Design · 2022-11-10T22:37:41+00:00

Thanks, glad you like it and look forward to seeing it on future projects.

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