I added another set of CV’s across the front the windshield. I moved
points to match the blueprints, It’s a bit tricky in this area. Make sure
is rounds out to the middle and adjust any of the rooftop points so they flow
in the same directions, keeping a 2 sets of points near the A-Piller for a rounded
edge around the top of the roof side rail.
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Another hard spot is the rear fender edge, there is a hard edge from the bottom
of the side window to the rear over the rear wheel arch, I added point weights
that row to make a nice edge.
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Front fender needs to be shaped to flow like a bubble around there and meet
the hood area, these are areas that you might need to examine from photos, I
used them allot to understand how it works, same with the rear fender
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Little bit more point pulling around the bottom of the A-piller and rear fender.
Keep pulling points little it matches what your after, I added more CV’s
from front to rear near bottom of the front bulge, about where those grills
are. This is the complex part, but also fun, keep pulling points until your
happy its done. Save versions as you go.
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I now Mirror it, and merged the two halves. I notice I was having a hard edge
down the middle so I added a row of CV’s with symmetry on, so each side
gets a row, I wanted them near the middle so I had them blend out into the rest
of the surface, then I made the center upper edge a periodic edge, this will
close the object at the top edge or bottom edge, I wouldn’t worry to much
about the bottom, but I would do it anyways. This just smooths the two halves
together better.
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Adding Details 1
This section is mostly on splitting the wheel arches and understanding methods to splitting.
Mirror and merge your 2 halves and Save the file as title-version-2.3dm
If you find problems down the road with the basic shape you can go back and
change it and merge the file back into the newer versions.
We are going to add wheel well openings and any other body deviations, because our body surface will be created from lofts I try to keep it to the basic shape of the car.
Its always a good thing to check your wheel arches a few times, most cars have a curves side from top to bottom, not all of them but there are quite a few that do. You will notice mostly on the front of the car that some have little flairs over the wheel arch, these flairs are mostly there for when you look at the car from the top view so you can’t see the tire, also would be safe to say it keeps any water from escaping the wheel well and splashing up onto the windows. Cars without these types of covers/ lips/ flairs should be looked at closer, because the top of the arch needs to be flat with the tire or perpendicular to the ground plane. If it exceeds that then you will have that improper look of the car looking kind cut funny and you’ll be able to see the tire from the top view.
Also take note that when splitting out that wheel arch opening that you don’t
cut/split into the other body panels like the hood. You may have a hood that
dips down really low. Using a curve projection will help in situations like
these. Projection can help in checking all sorts of areas and testing what direction
you should split from. Like making the split out for the windshield will tend
to take a few directions to get correct, sometimes from the top or the side.
I tend to stick with the top view of the car for the windshield and the side
view for the side windows.
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I started with patching the rear of the car, I made it not tangent to the body
surface
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After I patched the rear, I move the rear body edge but selecting the CV’s
and moved it about 2 inches away from the patch surface. I then scaled the patch
surface down a little.
I then used a BLEND from the edge of the rear of the car body and the patch.
I adjusted the BLEND so it was rounding into the patch surface and flattened
out into the body.
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Now take the Patch surface and scale it 1d from the middle to the top, scaling
it away from that blend we just made, and then do the same in the other direction,
this is a quick way to offset the surface. I then moved it about 0.25 inch or
so into the rear.
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Now blend those two edges from the blend to the patch. The makes the rear slightly
recessed into the body, I noticed this from the photos I had.
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Turn on the Blueprints layer so we can project curves onto the body surface.
I will project the wheel arches that we traced.
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Now that the Curves are on the surface I have something to split the body with.
NOTE: this is a good time to save 2 new files, a backup and a working file.
Once you split this baby there is no turning back, unless you were smart and
saved a file. =D
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Now its starting to look like a car, I split the body and now I save my file
called split surface body. Now let the fun begin.
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Now create a curve that follows the bottom edge of the door, as seen in the
blue prints but make sure it passes over the wheel arches edges. Offset the
curve about 0.3 for the seam that will be created there. This will make the
belly of the car separate from the top half.
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Now create 2 curves for the rear and 2 for the front of this seam, I tried
to make it like a lip that round into the body edge and on the other end rotate
upward so you can not see into the car through the seam area. The use the edge
of the body for a rail and sweep that with the two edges, using the Sweep 1
Rail command.
NOTE:After the body was split delete the little trim pieces as you go.
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You can see the upper and lower Sweep 1 Rails.
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Do the same thing with the rear door seam and engine bay seam. I offset the
blue print lines, they passed through the top edge and lower split edge. Making
it easy to just offset and split them.
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Create a key shape for these 2 seams, like this shape in yellow, this will
require using Sweep 2 Rails to make the seam filler. Do this for both Door and
engine bay seams.
This key is the profile curve for the 2 rails that are the two edges of the
body.
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Now go through and split the window and doors out using the same method
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I went through and split the windshield from the top view and split the door
and windows with offset curves. Then I moved the side window glass into the
body about 0.5 inches or so. And I used a blend from the door edge and the window
edge on both the windshield and side windows.
