#development2

The Staff Roll from Story of Eastern Wonderland showcases a different shottype for Reimu C. As pointed out by nmlgc in his blog post rec98.nmlgc.net/blog/2024-04-11, the purple projectiles were missing the circle from the top.

Finalizing and Reflecting on the Journey

In the last of the blogs, I will explain the last steps of model making, the rendering process, and the hypersport vehicle modeling experience in general.

Rendering and Presentation: The model was also created in Blender with the Cycles renderer. I decided to make the lighting as authentic as possible, so I would accentuate the looks of the vehicle. Because of the limitations of my PC, the rendering took a long time; however, the time was worth waiting.

Looking Ahead: Affiliated future projects will extend from it in terms of skills to be developed here stressing texture painting and animation.

References:

Refining and Detailing the Model:

When the mesh and tyres were done, it was time for additions of most interesting features of the hypersport vehicle.

Adding Details lit elements included Adida’s headlights, grills and aerodynamics of the line. Subdivision modifiers were applied for the essence of making smooth surfaces as we worked through the model without distorting its geometry. Additional edges were created where necessary whenever edge loops were created.

Challenges and Solutions Getting normal looking details is next level where we are need more poly count but still manageable for current generation hardware. At times I had to look at the reference images to make sure I was right; I made slight design alterations via proportional editing tools.

References:

Tackling Complex Details: The Tyres:

Among all the components of the vehicle, the tyres caused many problems during the creation of the models. Here in this blog, I will explain how these challenges were met and what has been learnt in the process.

Modeling the Tyres: In particular, the creation of specific tyres depended on the elements of Blender, namely array and curve. I built a single element of the tread tyre pattern and scaled it through the tire circumferences. I chose this technique to make sure I was accurate as well as timely.

YouTube to the Rescue: When modeling with this approach, I came across some challenges especially when it came to ensuring that the treads where aligned. A video tutorial from a dedicated YouTube channel of automotive 3D modeling was used to give the comprehensive instructions. This was of great help particularly when dealing with complexities in the modelling of tyres.

Lessons Learned: Deficient in my knowledge, I kindly learnt that during tyre modeling the most preferable and effective work is divided in to modules and that there are different online resources to find solutions to the challenges encountered.

References:

Design Academy. (2022). Blender Tutorials: Advanced Tyre Modeling. [YouTube Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com. [ 7 Januay 2025]

Building the Foundation: Crafting the Basic Mesh:

Preparations done and references at hand, I proceeded to build the initial shape of the hypersport vehicle base mesh. In this phase the large forms of the design were blocked in and the peripheral structure was clarified.

Creating the Base Mesh: I began with basic primitives that Blender offers; cubes and cylinders. These were scaled and aligned to the proportional measure observed in the two reference image plates. Especially, the symmetry of the body of the vehicle was clearly emphasized.

Challenges in Mesh Creation: Of these, one of the biggest challenges was the transition between surfaces especially in the aerodynamic shape of the vehicle. Another difficulty was keeping clean topology and that is very important for texturing and animation stages.

Progress Snapshot: At this stage of the design, the primary concepts of the hypersport vehicle design were established so that further refinements could be done during elaboration.

Inspiration and Initial Research.

The creation of 3D model of the hypersport vehicle is an exciting as well as a provocative task. In this post, let’s get into more details about how research and references are set, which forms the basis of the modeling approach.

Ideas and references collection: However, prior to venturing into hyper modeling, I obtained ideas from real hypersport automobiles. I aimed at getting an example picture that captured all round views; front, side view, the top and rear view. They were orderly arranged by PureRef due to their significance in the mentioned recitations. Through this step, I was confident and gained a proper plan for modeling.

Why References Matter: Reference images are the source of correct modeling in 3D technology. Subgroups like the proportion and detail and the relationship of various elements with the complex design help. For this, I had to search on sources such as pinterest and unsplash for image retrieval as they provide high resolution images which is very useful in the later mesh creation.

After finishing this second development project I have been able to gain a better understanding of various sculpting workflows, as well as a further look into the realm of stylized art. This project has let me expand my skills with sculpting. At the beginning I had very little to no experience in Zbrush, and within just a few short weeks I've been able to produce a High-poly sculpt that I am really proud of! This has opened up a whole new realm of opportunity both with stylized and realistic work no matter what I choose to pursue.

As always, a few things to improve upon are:

Texel Density - too dense for decent quality up close

Polycount - Individual track pieces significantly weighed on polycount

Improve and Refine sculpting techniques for a stylised approach

Significantly improve stylized texturing.

Once again, a few things I would have liked to add:

Rigging and Animation

Renders inside Game engine

functional parts (hatches, exhaust, etc.)

- Texturing -

Using a very similar workflow as used on the previous project, I started with the base stylized smart materials, building up layers of edge wear and dirt. finishing up with some hand painted camouflage to break up the colour

Base metal with edge wear

Outline to extenuate damages

Green camo paint added

Red camo paint added

Dirt/Grunge added

Whilst I am happy with how the texturing turned out, unfortunately I only had so much time left with my project to tweak this. As mentioned earlier, this development project I was focusing on learning the sculpting techniques in Zbrush, so I'm very glad I managed t get a final piece out of this.

- Rendering -

All renders where set-up inside Marmoset Toolbag 4, and tweaked in Photoshop

- Citations -