BMW Z4 Coupe

# 1 06-06-2006 , 02:13 AM

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Here's my latest project, the BMW Z4 Coupe. It's in the very early stages right now, but I thought I'd get the thread started. These are just the very basic initial surfaces, with no fillets or cut-lines yet, but you can get the idea. It's all NURBs as always, and the materials were just for a quick test render. Comments welcome.

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# 2 06-06-2006 , 02:20 AM

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nice start man love the paint on the car. cant wait for more updates.

wip
Kleemann cl65
my concept car

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# 3 06-06-2006 , 02:26 AM

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Lovely as always. I wish I could model using Nurbs

Lamborghini Mucielago

Ferrari Modena 360

I create feeling in others that they themseleves don’t understand.

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# 4 06-06-2006 , 02:35 AM

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glad to see your back in swing of things ..was getting worried ..god love it so far ...cant wait

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# 5 10-06-2006 , 06:49 PM

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I've been busy at work, so I haven't had much time to work on this. Here's a small update. Almost finished the front headlights, I just gotta finish up the lower signal lights. Textures are just for the test render.

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# 6 10-06-2006 , 07:08 PM

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wow very nice ..I am impressed with this model ...cant wait for updates ....cheers

Lamborghini Mucielago

Ferrari Modena 360

I create feeling in others that they themseleves don’t understand.

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# 7 10-06-2006 , 07:39 PM

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v nice as always dilberts

what happened to the last car u were on i cant remember u finishing it?

also where the heligh light is there are those dimples did u use a bumb or model it??

thx
pbman

Now at SMU doing BSc 3D Computer Animation so its hard to get on here
My wire render tut https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=20973

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# 8 10-06-2006 , 09:08 PM

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pbman, the last car I was working on was the BMW M3 CSL, but it was a poly model. I've pretty much given up on polys now, so I started another with NURBs. The lower headlight dimples are a simple bump map that I threw on for visualization. It's nowhere near the final look, but bump maps are alsways good for texturing your lights.

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# 9 10-06-2006 , 09:12 PM

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why did you give up on polys. I know the guy that inspired me to do my modena used nurbs also so why is everyone who uses maya models cars with nurbs

Lamborghini Mucielago

Ferrari Modena 360

I create feeling in others that they themseleves don’t understand.

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# 10 10-06-2006 , 09:25 PM

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ericmattison, polys are fine for modeling for visual artwork, but they just don't cut it for engineering and accurate product visualization. Most industrial design is done with NURBs so that the model can be exported to rapid prototyping software, where tolerances for surfaces can be as low as 0.001 cm. That means that your surfaces have to not just look smooth, but have to be tangent/curvature continuous to a very low tolerance, that you'll never achieve with polys. I'm heading in the industrial design direction, so NURBs is just the way to go. Also, once you get to know how to use all the tools, you'll find that NURBs are so much quicker and intuitive than polys. You'll find the guys who actual work in the industry are all NURBs modelers.

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# 11 10-06-2006 , 09:37 PM

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By the way, as a side note, I recommend everyone pick up the new edition of "Digital Lighting and Rendering" by Jeremy Birn. It's an excellent source for lighting techniques and reference. I've just been noticing a hell of a lot of HDRI rendering on this forum that looks just hideous. There's a reason why 99% of product advertising is shot in studios, under studio lighting. Throwing an ugly HDRI onto an IBL node very rarely does anything for your model other than make it look fake. Just my opinion though.

If anyone's interested, the last render used a large area light, with 2 directional lights casting soft raytraced shadows, and took about 15 minutes to render. Without the shadows, it takes about 5 minutes.

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# 12 10-06-2006 , 09:56 PM

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added bous of usin nurbs is model looks smoothed from the start

dilberts ur renders r nice!! - r then in a box or is it just a plane with the setup of lights u suggested?

Now at SMU doing BSc 3D Computer Animation so its hard to get on here
My wire render tut https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=20973

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# 13 11-06-2006 , 12:30 AM

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The model sits inside a modified flattened sphere that has a ramp on its color node, to give the fade into darkness. You could use a single curved plane behind the model also, but I set it up with a sphere so that I can render a 360 animation without having to mess with the background.

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# 14 11-06-2006 , 02:03 AM

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Just about finished the headlights. I just have to tidy up a few edges here and there.

Back to the poly/NURBs discussion, this piece of the car is a prime example of how NURBs can have huge benefits. I don't even know how long it would have taken me to model this headlight in polys, but I know for sure it wouldn't have been as accurate, and all the subtle little fillets would have been almost impossible to get right in polys.

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