Bacardi

Yas.
Fresnel and refraction index 1,5 for glass (Bhodinut is best: has a gradient)
color only in transparancy channel

bit reflection, not too much

The secret lies in the lighting: create a disk primitive, and move it upwards. adapt size as you fancy, and make editable. This gives four points and a central one. drag this into DiCloner and add a light. This gives a kind of global lighting. Adjust lights (colour, intensity,...no shadow)
Then add a spot front left with shadow and see that its beam passes through the glass.

For the sphere I used MeshBrush a bit after seeting to 144 instead of 24.

Rantin Al

Stu, Thanks for the link. [righton] I've signed up for a quick lurk. 8[ Looks like it could be fun.

I did find lots of useful info over at Renderosity but I couldn't find any specific tutorials for the headlight glass, so I just made my own version. I've got a couple of ideas to work on later for making the real thing.

Rolling out to the test track soon. [bustagut]

Erik, I just get ripped into programmes which interest me and twiddle every button and slider in sight, and I guess that C4D comes under VERY INTERESTING.

It has been a fun month tho' and I'm looking forward to getting into the animation gizmos.... and the rest. :B

Anyway, here's another couple of shiny bits of trim added, and a bit more refined illumination. Just a simple 4 rig with 1 key light and 3 fills.

Al.

Bacardi

[righton]
no words needed!

I totally understand what you're trying to say.
It has been an on/off thing for me with 3D in the past, but one day I saw the "light"! Meaning, that I'm slowly getting the hang of it, but in no way I'm an advanced user or talented artist.

I had the same experience with Photoshop; lots of frustration in the beginning and suddenly you know how all the pieces fit together.

The best advice I can give to people who want to start with 3D; don't expect results very soon, only then you will see results sooner than expected.

And this is what I'm working on now; one of these car tutorials.

At the moment I'm not modeling what I like to model, more what I 'need' to model to learn more about modeling and all the things involved. I don't care so much about the final result, I care more about the NEW things I learn each time.

I'm probably not going to finish this one, since the rest is all about rounding edges and adding some details.
I might consider to do some practice runs with lights and textures on this one and that's it.

Of course I'm going to finish the wheels; now that part of the tutorial is quite interesting!

Rantin Al

GfX@rt, go on.. finish it, you know you want to!

One comment / question:

You have chopped the glass from the model. Would it not be better / easier to leave the 'plug' complete and set the polygons for the glass with a transparent texture.

This eliminates the realignment problems for reglazing the whole car.

You may just have hidden the glass! But this is just a comment from a 3D Noob.

Cheers Al.

I agree Al, but it's like I said, I don't so care about the 'looks' at the moment.

Important for me is that I learn which tools to use and how to use them.

My modeling approach is; make things the way they are (obvious), but do that in every area. Take for example the car lights. What makes them look the way they are?
Well, the light contains a reflector, a light bulb, the outside glass has some bumps, texture, etc. If I were to make a realistic light for this car, then I would focus on the glass, the reflection and in less details on the light bulb.

At the moment I don't concentrate on specific models (light or car for example), but on the tools and approaches in the different tutorials.

I can be very patient, because I know that it will pay of in the end.
So you won't see any models created by me for quite a while, unless I'm doing one of these tutorials of course.

"Study before pleasure" is my motto when it comes to 3D.

Bacardi

This is turning into a fascinating discussion. I understand both points of view. Arndt von Koenigmark for example starts modelling a head with an eyeball as, in his opinion, it's easier to build the eyelids around the sphere than to have to adapt everything later.

Indeed; exact placing is one or the more difficult things. Then the four viewports come in very handy, and, finally, the structure manager to set exact values to points after double-clicking the value one wishes to change.

Me, I've always been into fantastic art, so that's what I try to model, and to do so, I take a bit here and a bit there and try to model that. Most of these, I don't show, as they are like sketchings. Not that what I show is finished, far from that. It's more a question of staying in touch, and sharing specific findings. Not the idea of even wips, let alone finished works!

A tool I would like to see in Cinema is a combined AddPoint and CreatePolygon. Best now is to use extrude points and edges, but being able to create in one time with adding four pointand voil?, there's your poly, would be grreat!

I agree Erik. Don't forget that you can save yourself some time when you create polygons by using the bridge tool; you only need to draw two sides of a quadrangle, but I guess you already knew that.

Rantin Al

I'm still finding out what the actual methods of construction are myself. I did the side runner boards three different ways. Likewise the headlight, sidelight and indicators.

Only by learning what the tools can do can you learn the best/ quickest/ easiest way to achieve a final result.

The Adam Watkins handbook has a good ethos:

"Work from general to specific"

Anyway, tonight I return to the real world to give my brain a rest.
Can you hear that pint of Guinness being poured? %} I can!

Al.