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Car Modeling
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By Matthias Püski

Today we're going to make a car.

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This tutorial requires basic Blender modeling skills that can be found in other tutorials around the web. Before trying this, you
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should already know the following :
Guide

● Basic Blender handling (Views, Buttons, Navigation with the mouse)

● Mesh editing (Duplicate, Extrude, Scale, Grab, Rotate)
Coming Store-2005 ● Subsurf modeling with the Loop-Cut-Tool (CONTROL-R)
Become a member ● Mesh deformation with the PET (Proportional Editing Tool [V-Key])
● Use of the Spin Tool
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Now we delete the right edge and create some more edges with CONTROL-LMB so that the shape fits with the side view of
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You may define any weird car shape you can imagine, I decided to make very basic shape for simplicity reasons.

Now we switch to top view end extrude that flat shape a few times, so that we get approximately half the width of our car
to be built. Now push the SubSurf Button and close the side of the car with new faces. You should also define the holes for windows,
headlights and backlights. It should look like this:

Now it's getting more difficult:

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Now we'll arrange the mesh with the face-loop-cut tool and remove the faces where we put our windows, head- and backlights. At
this time it's really important to know how subsurfs actually work. Shortly explained: The more vertices you have on a surface, the
harder the edges will be. When you are going to model the wheel houses, I would recommend you to create a circle first an then
connect the other vertices to it. Build everything in squares and don't ever use boolean operations, because the mesh would
probably turn into a mess.

So far it should look like this:

Below is another view from the front, back and side.

OK, folks, it's not getting easier.

Select the vertices that are going to be your door, and separate them from the mesh with P-Key. Now we have to arrange a few
new loop-cuts around your door hole to get "harder" edges. Now select the door, go to EDIT-Mode, select all vertices and extrude
them a little bit do give real depth to your door. In the following image I've marked with red color how the loop cuts should be
arranged.

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The following image shows only the single door in EDIT-Mode. Again, pay attention on how the loop-cuts are arranged.

Now you can model the mesh (you should have already heard about proportional vertex editing) so that the curves look
right. Add some more detail where needed, but don't worry about the windows, we'll cover that later on.

Once you are satisfied with the shape of your mesh, here comes the most important part: Switch to the top view, select all vertices
and duplicate the complete half of the car. Now we mirror the mesh. Still in top-view the copy with M-Key Global X and position the
copy so that it fits exactly in the middle (shown below).

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There are two possible ways to join the two halves together.

Just in case your modeling is accurate at the middle edges of the half (that was not my case) you may put the two halves exactly
together select all vertices with A-Key then press W-Key Remove Doubles to remove the duplicate vertices. Otherwise you have to
close the mesh by hand with new faces. Delete the two middle lines of vertices and connect the gaps with new faces.

After the two sides of the car are joined, you should smooth the Mesh, and then again in EDIT-mode recalculate the normals
(CONTROL-N) to remove some ugly artifacts. The result should be similar to this:

Now we're going to insert the window glass. I simply selected all vertices around the window holes, duplicated them and
then separated the with P-Key. The according faces have to be created with the F-Key. This approach is really important since the
bend of the glass has to be the same than the bend of the door and the window hole.

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As a last step I added the tires and the rims. You can find a tutorial on how to build them here, but for the moment the
tutorial is only available in German.

This tutorial has now reached it's end and I'm certain that you can model the remaining peanuts. There are mirrors, the interior, the
car dashboard, the exhaust pipes, the wheel nuts and so on. Your creativity is only limited by your imagination.

Article Copyright © 2004 Matthias Püski

Copyright © by Blenderman.org All Right Reserved.

Published on: 2004-08-25 (7364 reads)

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