HOW-TO #1 / Building a Simple Headlight

If you're going to model a car more then 30 years old, it's going to have round headlights. Whether it's a 1930 Model "A", or a 1969 Chevy Malibu, it's got round headlights. So here's a quick and easy way to model a simple, quick, round headlight in Lightwave. This article is based on a 3d MAX article done by Alexander Timashev /ZerDo at 3DCar.com (http://www.3dcar-gallery.com/tutorial/less02.htm). This how-to will be completed in a couple of weeks. As always, click on the images to see bigger images. Scan down for more how-tos.
       
       
       
   
       

 

HOW-TO #2 / How's He Do Those Cars?

A quick overview on building 3D cars in Lightwave.

For me to sit down and tell you step by step how to build a 3D car would taken dozen's of pages. So instead I'll give you a quick over view on how it's done. As you can tell, I like to use Lightwave 7 as my preferred 3D program. Lightwave has a user friendly model building program and it's renders come out much more realistic (in my opinion).It's a great 3D program for the beginner to learn with, it's used everywhere from the "Enterprise" TV series to big buck movies.

As you can see from the screen shot above (click to enlarge) the car is made up of three and four sided flat polygons. To cut down on the size of the file, and to make the render time shorter, I modeled the tires/wheels separately. I only modeled the top half of the motor since the hood doesn't open you'll never see the bottom of the motor. This will keep the poly count down as well.

This model has a full interior for more realism, but if you wanted to cut down on the poly count even more, you could just 'blackout' the glass.

Then you apply textures to the surfaces to simulate paint, metal, glass, etc. This can be done using the texture settings in your 3D program, or you can map images onto the polys. That's how I got the "Pro Street" on the windshield. On motors I usually apply an oil filter decal image to the filter for a more realistic look. Movie houses have whole departments that do nothing but create textures for 3D models (something I hope to be doing one day).

Check out my "Textures" page for some samples.

Here's a "shadowed" rendering of the car. To pull and twist all these polygons into the shape of a car is a lot of work, I lost track at how many hours I have on this car.

You'll spend a lot of time correcting mistakes, cursing at the screen, and getting lost in the sea of polys.

One big tip, model only ONE SIDE OF THE CAR, then use the "mirror" button in the "multiply" tool bar to duplicate the other side. Then 'weld' the two sides together at the points the two halves join together. This will save you tons of time and work!
The tires/wheels usually take a lot of polygons to build, especially if you're going to model 3D tread patterns. I usually use texture and bump maps (bump maps are B & W images that help create depth) to create the impression of tread on the tires. My wheels are highly detailed, the wheels make a big impression on the final car.

Here we've set our model on a single flat poly. We added a front tire/wheel object for the right side of the car. Then we "cloned" the tire/wheel to make the left side. The same was done for the back tire/wheels.

Next we added a single upright poly for the back drop. Lighting consists of a combination of "floods" & "spots".

The completed scene is very realistic. The floor textures consist of a asphalt image combined with the "rubber" Preset under the "generics" tab. The back wall is a texture from Marlin Studios (see our "3D Reviews" page for more information).

 

This car remains on the Renderosity.com "100 most viewed images" list, and won a Silver Award at 3Dcar.com (see our "Awards Gallery" for link).This model is also for sale:

A FEW 3D CAR TUTORIALS:

http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/tutorials/


http://www.3dm-mc.com/tutorials/car3/


http://www.3dm-mc.com/tutorials/omegacar/


http://www.3dtotal.com/team/tutorials/minishading/minishading_1.asp

http://members.shaw.ca/lightwavetutorials/everyday_objects.htm#Vehicles


http://www.lwg3d.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16490


http://www.lwg3d.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16259


http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/infinite_nissan/infinite_nissan_01.asp

http://www.kurvstudios.com/lightwave/vehicle_modeling.php

HOW-TO #3 / "The Challenge" / 1 object, 1 light, 1 camera...

Creating a believable 3D image using nothing more then one object, one image, and one light.

A local Lightwave users group had weekly "challenges", and this was one of them. I had this great looking shot in my textures files and figured it would be perfect for the contest.
 The image (above). This shot of the great looking Europian door way was taken off a web site somewhere, but it has a sign leaning against the left side of the opening. I used Photoshop to remove the sign. To save time I "cut & pasted" a section of the opening just right of the door, flipped it horizontally and moved it over to cover the sign. This was my final render. As you can see, once I covered the sign I decided to flip the whole image horizontally. I also gave the door more depth to help imphasis the fact that it was now a 3D object. Of course, the dramatic lighting and heavy shadow helped get that point across as well. The Lighting. I only used a single overall light, but added a couple tricks. If you look really close at the picture, you'll notice I flipped it so that the shadow is now on the left. Then I placed my light to the left of the object. I also added a blue hue to the light to make it more dramatic in the final render.
The object. I started with a single polygon. Then I made a second polygon the shape of the opening. I combined the two shapes into one. Then I used "smoothshift" several times to recess the opening and give it that 3D look. As you can see, it creates that "clam shell" effect and gives the door it's depth. Rear View.

Side View. Ok, ok, I know a lot of you are going to argue the fact that it is more then one poly! I smooth shifted the hack out of it to get it's 3d door and walk way. But hey, I started with only one poly!
TAKING IT A STEP FURTHER
 Of course, once I completed the challenge I wanted to take my scene a step further. I went back into modeler and added a scond poly for the cobble street, added a hanging light at the top of the dome, and grass along the wall here and there.

 

HOW-TO #4 / Spot Light "Projection" Lighting

Creating some dramatic lighting with a single spot light.

Projecting an image with a spot light is a quick and easy way to add dramatic lighting or more detail to your scene. In this scene we are tricking the viewer into believing there is a large stained glass window on the wall across from the chair. Actually, it is a single spot light with an projection image. I down loaded the image of the window off the net.

We then used Photoshop to black out all the surrounding area. Under the spot lights properties panel we clicked on "Projection Image" and loaded our photo of the stained glass window. A simple, easy way to add more, with less work.

This is a quick and easy way to say, add a tree shadow to an exterior wall, or dramatic shadows to an interior wall.

 
 You'll notice in the second rendering above, that the image actually seems to be filtering through the light beams. We simply used the default setting for "Volumetric Lighting" on the spotlight along with our projection image. Both scenes were rendered with the "Radiosity" button on.
Here is the original image. I did some minor touch up in Photoshop, like sharpen the image, and turned-up the saturation to bring out the colors. Next I cut out the background and made sure my background color was black. This is the image I used in the spot light

For something a little different I tried a white background as well.

End.

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