Hover Car Design

Hi there,

I’ve been busy recently working on my little racing game project. Most of the work has been coding the engine as I had the hover car and a track already modelled, the work resulted in a simple prototype.

What’s been bothering me a lot is that I didn’t really like the hover car’s design, the topology is very messy as I didn’t plan too much before actually modelling, and to make matters worst, I was relativelly new to blender. Now, I feel like trying my hand at this hover car one more time, and see if I can improve on my last attempt.

Everything is going as planned now, though I hope I don’t mess with the topology eventually… :smiley:

Here’s the update.


As always, any tips are appreciated.

Good day!

Made some changes, I’m definitelly gonna redo the front as it just looks awkward. But overall I’m liking the car, and enjoying modelling it. After I finish the front I’m gonna do the door and add some thrusters and lights, I’ll keep this thread updated as I progress.


Cheers!

Nice! I live the idea!

I like your design!

Thanks BShep… I’ll keep working.

The design is great except for the front. It feels like it doesn’t fit to the rest of the car.

It’s hard to explain but to me the car looks stupid or unintelligent (Car fronts resemble human faces…), which is quite the opposite of the beautiful lines on the rest of the car

[QUOTE=’[hris;2730271’]The design is great except for the front. It feels like it doesn’t fit to the rest of the car.

It’s hard to explain but to me the car looks stupid or unintelligent (Car fronts resemble human faces…), which is quite the opposite of the beautiful lines on the rest of the car[/QUOTE]

Ah yes. I see what you are saying. Maybe just smooth out the lines where those indentations are in the front. Like instead of making them squarish, make the corners rounded and just everything nice and smoothly curved.

[QUOTE=’[hris;2730271’]The design is great except for the front. It feels like it doesn’t fit to the rest of the car.

It’s hard to explain but to me the car looks stupid or unintelligent (Car fronts resemble human faces…), which is quite the opposite of the beautiful lines on the rest of the car[/QUOTE]

You’re right, the front does look comical, that’s why I felt like changing it. Thanks for pointing that out, and also the beautiful lines! :smiley:

Anyway, I erased the entire front of the car and started from scratch. I think it’s much improved now and I can move forward with the modeling process.




OT: Have you learned about the new bevel feature when you prees ctrl+e on blender 2.70? That stuff is pure sorcery… :stuck_out_tongue:

Cheers!

Looks great!

yes that’s waay better. Looks really good now, great job

bevel feature? wasn’t that in blender prior to 2.70 already?

Thanks for the compliments guys,

With the body mesh complete, I decided to start working on the small details, this is an update of the front.


There’s also another feature I decided to add to the hover car. As the wheels are replaced by thrusters designed to keep the car hovering on the ground, the thruster engines dissipates lots of heat as a result, so, I’ve decided to place some fans to help pull the heat out of the car’s interior. Those fans will, hopefully, give the car more of a cool and futuristic look.


I’m still drawing some inspiration for modelling the fans, so I’m still not sure how the end result is gonna be like. Tough something along these lines would certainly be cool.


That’s it for now,
Cheers!

[QUOTE=’[hris;2731176’]yes that’s waay better. Looks really good now, great job

bevel feature? wasn’t that in blender prior to 2.70 already?[/QUOTE]

I used to work with blender 2.63 until recently, and no bevel… :frowning:
Every time I wanted to add sharp edges or seams, I had to select edge rings, subdivide into many mesh loops and then slide… used to drive me crazy… but it’s all good now… :smiley:

you have no idea how much you just blew my mind. I’ve used bevel a lot but i never got the idea of sharpening subsurf edges. (Although this might be the best use xD)

I’m always thinking outside the box… :smiley:

Wrapping up… last details.




I don’t want to keep adding too many details that won’t make a difference for far away views as my model is already reaching prohibitive (around 30k) poly-counts for a game. Before adding the thrusters and the fans my model had like 17k polys so I might reconsider adding those feats.

Setting up lights and shaders now…

Cheers!

It’s a cool design! I really like the way you make it look alike modern car, but still I think it could hover. So good work!
Maybe the number of exhaust is a bit over a top as it’s otherwise quite sleek and even minimalistic! It throws the balance off.
And it definitely looks better and more futuristic with that “jet cockpit”!

Appreciate the positive feedback IconW, means a lot!

It’s not a exhaust pipe, they’re actually the forward thrusters, there’s gotta be something to move the car forward, since it’s basically flying and doesn’t have wheels. But you gave me a lot to think in terms of the contrasting simple design of the car body and the complicated design of the thrusters, I felt like revisiting it.


I think this merges better with the overall design, I even did a taillight’s retouch… and better, my polycount actually decreased… :smiley:
Thanks for that, I’d have never noticed it.

Looks better! One big thruster fits a lot better and feels more sleek. Maybe make it able to turn a bit up/down or even sideways. Maybe something similar like 2d/3d-vectoring in fighter jets. Just some ideas.

Thanks for the idea, but I think vectoring would make more sense for a cylindrically shaped thruster, instead of what I have now… besides, I think adding vectoring would require some kind of mechanism designed to move the thrusters up and down… this certainly would up my polycount even higher… which is no good for me…

I’ll update in a few days.
Cheers!

Working on the scene… I’ve decided to keep it close to the real world instead of placing cars in futuristic space station, I guess it’s easier to relate and gives a sense that it’s - maybe? :smiley: - something we’ll be actually seeing 10 years from now.


Still thinking about the background, I’m thinking about a desert one, I like deserts… :smiley: