Hello everyone,
This is my current project, its an N14 Nissan Pulsar SSS. At the moment its sitting at around 3000 poly's and im not really wanting to go too much higher then that, mabey 4000 if there was a good use for them.
The reason im posting this is to get some advice from some of the more experienced car modellers out there. As this is my first attempt at modelling a car im under the assumption that there are certain ways to best do things, such as the wheels. For example is there a trick to getting the wheels looking nice and smooth without the use of too many poly's (i heard that for GT4 they did something tricky); and would it be worth modelling the brake pads behind the wheels?
Im serious about this model and I dont want to make it, and then realise all these things I could have done a better way... I would rather learn from others as well as myself.
So opinions and ideas are all welcome and very appreciated.
(i have removed the picture as it is now being worked on.)
Hey Red 5, thankyou very much I appreciate your comments. Your home page shows that your obviously talented at car models and thats exactly the type of response i was after.
I know i said i didnt want to go higher then 4000 poly's but im very tempted to start rounding edges such as around the corners of the windows and around the wheel arch's. One thing i was puzzled about was your comment on using alpha maps for the wheel arch's as ive never seen this done before. To me this would seem like the wheel arch's would not reflect the light properly????
The grill will definately be using alpha maps to get it looking shmick though. The wheels are at around 300 polys at the moment (spot on with your estimate) so i think i might take your advice and up the poly's all around.
One thing you could (or anyone in the know) really help me with are the lights. im puzzled as to whether or not i should extrude the lights a little just to stop them looking as if they are stuck on and too flat.
Oh and before i forget, if anyone knows a good link to getting really good car textures (much like on Red 5's cars) then send away.
And againthankyou for your response Red 5, it is greatly appreciated.
Hi Jebus, from first glance I see that you need to balance the poly's a little better across the entire model, meaning you have too much detail in some areas and not enough in others.
For starters with a 3k car you could spend about 300 poly's for each wheel/tyre and the rest for the bodywork, and as you've said, there are a lot of little tricks you can use to make it appear as though there's a lot more poly's in the model.
Try using alpha maps to punch out the wheels arches and vent/grill recesses, even use alpha to get rounder looking wheels/tyres... Polyphony are masters of these tricks and manage to get great looking cars with around 4-5k triangles per car.
Actually 3k for a car model is quite low for current consoles, you could easily go to 5k for PS2 and 10k for Xbox.
Keep practicing tho, maybe try a few different approaches to car modelling, there's plenty of tutorials to be found on the net.
Good luck!