Hi,

I have seen some complex cars in the gallery section (like that Audi) but I couldn't find any thread or tutorial explaining how to model them. I have no problem doing "blocky" cars or mobile phones but when it gets more complex like a real car, I fail badly... I must say that I am completely lost...No matter what method I use something will go wrong sooner or later...Is it me or Moi doesn't have the right tools for that kind of modelling?
Please if anyone can explain me what method to use I would definitely appreciate it.

Thanks

Hi Bogdan, MoI has all the basic construction methods for getting the basic surfaces in place, but it is missing a few tools to handle refining surfaces where they touch so that they fit together in a very smooth way.

So you may have some difficulty with removing some creases between panels, but the basic construction of panels etc... is definitely possible.

However, modeling a car is a quite difficult task, you should be prepared to spend quite a lot of time working on your modeling skills specific to this kind of shape before it will become anything near easy to do.

Your best bet to get started is to look for Car modeling tutorials online that were done for Rhino, like the one mentioned here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1267.16
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=898.2


Those may help you determine a workable strategy for approaching it.

It's not an area that I have a lot of experience in so, I'm afraid I won't be able to help you out a whole lot with that, but I can probably help you if you get stuck with a particular stage or single part that you are working on. If that happens, please post the .3dm model file for the piece that you are stuck with, that helps a lot to understand what you are running into.


I think there was also a small book tutorial for car modeling in Rhino that was published a couple of years ago, I can't remember where that was from but if you track that down it could be helpful, also try Google searches for stuff like "Rhino car modeling" to possibly find a bunch more stuff.

- Michael

Scroll the second message's address given by Michael ;)

Well I tried the one on rhinotv (a Sedan model) ... and it was just impossible to follow, there are too many missing tools.
The main one are :

Continuity (at least G1) when creating 2 rails sweep surface.
Continuity when creating network surface.

There are also using a 'fair' tool (not really sure what it is, some kind of smoothing curve command ?), and many rebuild tool (surface / curve) ...
So I give up after the first network surface :(

I know MoI toolset wasn't focused in this area, but I realllly hope this kind of tool (especially the continuity stuffs) will appear soon :)
Top priority for me (with a patch tool and a more advanced surface blending one that allow multicurve) , ... it's even more important (for me) than the object layers management.

Hi PaQ,

> I know MoI toolset wasn't focused in this area, but I realllly hope this
> kind of tool (especially the continuity stuffs) will appear soon :)

The rebuild one is probably not too far out after I have a good location to put it in some kind of advanced tools menu, probably after some object properties work is done. But it will be a bit longer for the other ones, those are not particularly easy areas. I do plan to have them eventually though.

The missing continuity stuff does not generally prevent you from creating a surface, it will prevent you from getting smoothness, you can still build the basic shape with creases between the different panels though.

But if you absolutely need the continuity control you will need to use Rhino or something like Alias or ICEM Surf for that currently.


> Top priority for me (with a patch tool and a more advanced surface
> blending one that allow multicurve) , ... it's even more important
> (for me) than the object layers management.

I've definitely had a lot more people put object management as a higher priority...

Sorry it is just too difficult to do everything all at once... ;)

- Michael

Hello again,

After a few good hours of trial and error of figuring out what method works best I came up with this...



All I can say it is time consuming and I think I'll stick with Sub-D modelling for complex models such as this one and do the stuff that MoI is ment to do in MoI :)

Thank you very much for your time.


Bogdan

There was a very nice thread showing how a VW Beetle was modeled in NURBS here:

http://forums.polyloop.net/travaux-cours-finis-3d/1765-vieille-cox-nurbs.html

Although it's in French and modeled in Amapi, you could see how curves are strategically placed to support every surface applying a combination of tools. This actually sparked the thread I started several months ago about the need for a Network Surface tool, if you remember. That's the time when the Network surface tool was born in MOI. That thread probably precipitated it. I used the back of a computer mouse for a sample, though. Lol.

Sure, not everything in the Beetle thread is Network-applied, but you could see that the techniques used are very translatable to MOI.

Hi Blend.....

the link is broken for me....

re. broken link - the whole of polyloop is down at the moment. They have just changed to a new server so maybe it is teething problems ? Give it a couple of hours and try again. (Hope it gets going again soon as I am also interested in this thread).

Hi,

I have found a few "the making of" articles about modelling cars with nurbs in Rhino here at http://www.suurland.com/
Look in Portfolio section and have fun.

Bogdan

Try this one:

http://www.carbodydesign.com/

Look under 3D tutorials for both NURBS and Polygons.

Polyloop is come back!
Curiously tutorials archives are empty of images?
I will ask to the administrator why
Old Cox
original thread is here http://forums.polyloop.net/travaux-cours-finis-3d/1765-vieille-cox-nurbs.html

Try the link in my first post which is this one:

http://forums.polyloop.net/travaux-cours-finis-3d/1765-vieille-cox-nurbs.html

Hi Bogdan,

>>All I can say it is time consuming and I think I'll stick with Sub-D modelling for complex models such as this one

I can understand some frustration when attempting such models, but it is more a case of finding direction to produce a model with the tools available.
Most tutorials for car building in nurbs are based around Rhino, which IMHO is one on the best surface creation/editing programs, but even having that program does not then give the user the ability to build such models, only more advanced tools.
I have played around quite a lot now with MoI and do push the program, so maybe I can help out?


>> and do the stuff that MoI is ment to do in MoI :)

That is a little concerning to me, as I always prefer to do what I want/can in such a 3d program, not what I am told I can do by some limitation due to missing tools.


Let me have a look around for some car blueprints that others can also follow (and that will not be too time consuming) and I will start a WIP for a car.


Regards,

Hi Steve,

> That is a little concerning to me, as I always prefer to do what I
> want/can in such a 3d program, not what I am told I can do by
> some limitation due to missing tools.

I'm surprised this concerns you - there really isn't any one single program that exists which contains every single possible 3D design and analysis tool combined within it.

All programs are missing tools of one sort or another. If one program works better for a certain particular kind of process or certain kinds of shapes, then it will probably work better to use that program for those particular kinds of things.

That's just a pretty normal process, I mean if you want to hammer in some nails use a hammer for that, not a screw driver or a drill press. Does that mean that a drill press is useless? No, not at all...

- Michael

Hi Micheal,

Maybe you misunderstood my reply to the statement made?

I can basically produce any model I want in MoI that I can in Rhino, it is just a case of working around some missing tools.

Please re-read and you may see what I meant. If not, then maybe I made an a statement not understandable?
Please take my comment in respect to/as reply to other comment

- Steve

Hi Steve, sorry I have misunderstood you there.

I'm not sure I follow which part is a "little concerning" then, is it something related to MoI's development which you have mentioned in the past, or do you mean you are concerned that Bogdan may have made an incorrect conclusion?

- Michael

Hi Micheal,

>>I'm not sure I follow which part is a "little concerning" then,

That Bogdan has MADE an incorrect conclusion.

My "little concerning" was based on the statement:-

>>"and do the stuff that MoI is ment to do"

That is why I was going to build a car in MoI, and show its construction. My only problem being my available spare time, and finding a model not too complex that it causes more question than should be.

Maybe just not bother eh?

Hi Steve and Michael,

Thanks for taking your time to reply to this thread.
The reason I have started this thread is that I wanted to know more about building complex models using nurbs and I have thought that will be helpful for others that might happen to be interested.
I have picked as a subject a car, for the reason that if we look around, almost everybody, when do start 3D modelling, you guessed it... is gonna pick a car as a subject.
By no means I have ever underestimated MoI in any aspect, since I am well aware about its tools and to be honest, I really love it.
I could have picked a much more easier subject, like a WV Beatle for example. But I wanted to push my skills and MoI as much as possible and I have picked this BMW M5; here is the blueprint: http://www.the-blueprints.com/index.php?blueprints/cars/bmwcars/10989/view/bmw_m5__e60_/

Thanks again.

Hi Steve, I understand you now, sorry I leapt to an incorrect conclusion there.

A sports-car type thing does tend to be a pretty difficult thing to do, there are many aspects of it that are kind of similar to sort of face / character modeling that sub-d is so good at, like it tends to involve kind of organic shapes that need to blend completely smoothly together in many different directions.

That kind of full-directional blending happens just automatically with sub-d, so some of the same things that make subd good for faces also make it kind of easier for this as well.

But it does seem that most of the people who do a whole lot of car design stuff actually do use NURBS for it, but I think it tends to take a more carefully thought out modeling strategy to make it work well.

Once you have some experience in those kinds of strategies, then some of the NURBS type design tools can let you go quickly at that point since you then build kind of individual panels of the car really quickly from some curves instead of needing to do a large amount of individual point manipulations.


The tricky part is that for someone who already has a background in sub-d modeling, they don't have to adopt a significantly different strategy for doing the car, but for NURBS modeling it takes a lot more new strategy learning.

It kind of demands the more advanced type of NURBS modeling where you are working on an individual surfacing level and not really at the solids and booleans type level. The solids and booleans type level tends to be a lot easier (lower learning curve I mean) for someone to get up to speed on who is not familiar with NURBS. A car is more like jumping directly into the deep end right away...

- Michael