Bravo, Ed! Thank you for the time and effort to put this together. I'm sure it will be a huge help to people.
Ron

Frenchy -

I have two GIF animations in Part 2 to show moving control points on the SubD cage, as I think this might be a new concept for some people who have not tried the SubD scripts. Everything else is straightforward MoI tools.

In general, I'm not a fan of video tutorials for CAD programs. It's often hard to see what tool is being selected, and if you want to follow along, you have to stop and re-wind constantly. I'd much rather have a detailed written set of instructions and images.

However, if you see an area that needs more detail explanation, I'm happy to expand the topic and add GIF animation if appropriate.

Ed Ferguson

take your time :)
I will have no problem to insert them after the end of the translation! :)

Wow Ed! Great stuff. I, too, will be going over this with a fine tooth comb to select the good bits! Thanks much for you kindness and willingness to share to this community. :-)

http://visualizervf.weebly.com/ done ;)
So I can begin your now! :)
http://moiscript.weebly.com/la-voiture-de-ed.html

Thanks very much Ed for producing this great tutorial!

- Michael

Thanks Michael and everyone else for your comments.

I did not start out with the intent to finish the car, much less write a tutorial. But the more it progressed, the more I wanted to see it through to completion.

The tutorial is a byproduct of my own note taking. My learning style is to document a new process as I go, and end up with a personal reference manual.

With multiple software apps and programming languages I've had to learn over years, and the fact that at age 63 my brain is full, keeping notes is a necessity :)

Ed Ferguson

That is a great job Ed,

By the way even at 63 your brain is not full we just get harder at remembering.

Taking for the step we do is the way to go.

congrats, it is well done.

Hi Ed,

Thanks again for the great tute.

I'm the same way. I may go weeks, even months before opening a program again, and I find that by creating tutorials it helps me not only to learn the program but also to relearn it as I go back and review the them.

I'll be 59 next week so I know where you're coming from with regard to the brain not being quite as sharp as it once was. :-)

Banner Ed..... righteous job!

Awesome Ed! just Awesome. What would be more Awesome is if you could PDF it.

Cheers

Hi
I just had a go at using the sub D tools and they work well. I imported the obg file into Daz studio (embarrassing this bit about using DS) and Carrara and all the lovely smoothness had gone. Using Andrei Samardac's 'Organic method' I can make perfectly smooth models. Whats going on? What did Ed use to render a lovely smooth shiny car? Sorry to ask so many questions but its really hard to find out such things by searching using google.
Keith

Danny -

You can both view and download the PDF version of the tutorial here:

http://1drv.ms/1PNsXpQ

I updated a few images for clarity.

Ed Ferguson

Keith -

Here are my settings:

When performing the Subdivision step, set the slider to 100 and do not check High Quality Mode.

OBJ file format export settings from MoI:



If you post your 3DM file I can see how it looks in my render program, KeyShot. That can help isolate to either MoI or the render program.

I did see some minor ripples in my model early on, but not sure what caused them or why they went away. I strongly suspect some points may have not been in a straight line and the zig-zag caused ripples. Look at your points in all views and make sure everything is smooth and simple.

Also, do not use High Quality Mode when subdividing. My model looked the same either way, but suspect it will have (at least for my model) a better mesh in normal quality.

Ed Ferguson

Thanks Ed.

-

Hi Ed
Thanks for helping with this. I cant understand why I can get a smooth surface if I loft everything but get a lot of bumps and tears when I don't. Sometimes in Carrara I have found the vertices don't line up and that causes a black line when rendered. I don't think this is happening in this case as this is all one smooth object except where I have blended the windows. Both Carrara and Daz have smoothing options that make things worse rather than better.

I used the same output settings that you posted. At first I thought it might be because I selected too too few polygons.

Keith,

I'm not the expert on this but I'll tell you what I think :)

First, it would be good to have the model before it was subdivided so I could experiment with the structure. Not having that, I rendered the subdivided model:



I think the issue is caused by the roof line at the top of the windshield (top arrow) being pulled way back.



If there was an additional Split added on the door (at bottom arrow), and the split at the roof (top arrow) were not pulled back so far, I think it would render fine. My basic structure (before refining) is below:



Ed Ferguson

Unfortunately I saved over the pre-subdivided model. I'll have a go again and see if I can get a better result following your advice.

I did a bit of an experiment and for me loft seems to produce a smoother outcome. Both look fine in Moi but the loft export seems to be better.





The subdivided car always seems to have some artifacts even when I put the poly count to the limit and try smoothing in Carrara.






Whereas while the lofted car is not perfect its noticeably smoother. I think it might be something to do with surface normals?




I have learned a lot from your tutorial and the help you have given. If I ever manage to make this car Ill post it to this thread if that's OK.

I attach the pre-subd version of the one in the picture at the top of this post.

Keith,

I brought your model into KeyShot and it looks really smooth. I don't see any anomalies anywhere.

I'll have to defer to the experts as to why it doesn't render well in your program.

Your loft looks pretty close to the SubD version. I tried lofts before Max's scripts were available. I'd say making changes to the SubD structure is a lot faster (for me anyway).

Hopefully someone will have an answer for the render issue you're having.

Ed Ferguson