But I didn’t refrain the urge to do a test render, to see how the car will look. It’s a simple test : only a white plane above the car to light it, scratch-made shaders. The white areas are still clay-rendered because of the lack of shaders for those parts.

Model progress is different on the two pictures, the second is the latest : it shows headlights and details in air intake (radiators, grilles, bumper)

What do you think ?

I needed some time to decide if I should do a simple targa version, like a Toyota Supra (i.e. with minimum roof removal) or a more open version like a Porsche Carrera GT. The simple targa would have been more easy, as the Lotus Elise is already one. But I hope I will be able to achieve a better design, at least let’s say more elaborated. Well, something like nice engine cover (like Carrera GT or Bug’ Veyron) with amazing air intake (like Zonda Five Roadster)

So before drawing my concept, I will focus on getting a spline cage right. No blueprints for this one : I asked Hennessey a couple of weeks ago, no answer but they were kind enough to add my e-mail address to their mailing list

I started then to fully remodel the hood, front bumper, front fenders. Then time has come for sides : doors, side skirts, rear fenders, top air intakes. I just keeped the previous rear end, as it was already good enough in my opinion, and the engine cover.

Here are some clay renders of the model, I hope it shows the new surfaces quality clearly.

It’s definitely a long-term project : I started it almost 2 years ago. But I’m still fascinated by this car : so impressive, so powerful, so extreme. I think I will get back to it soon

For an upcoming tutorial, I created a wire cage of my C5 Tourer (that is, the wagon) using this blueprint :So I studied a lot of DTM reference pictures, and modified the wire cage to turn it into a DTM Coupé.

Of course I changed some stuff during modeling, and more will be changed until the contest comes to an end. Here’s the current state of the model :

This model once won the “Light is Right” contest at www.SMCars.net, but only with one vote ahead !

You’ll find it in the Free Models page, as well as my previously released car, the Marcos 1800 GT.

A .zip file is available for download. It contains a .blend file, which is a Blender file. Download and install Blender first to read the file. The .blend file is organized using layers :

• Layer #1 contains body panels and interior.
• Layer #2 contains chassis with technical stuff attached to it.
• Layer #3 contains wheels.
• Layer #4 is just a test of a chassis with welds on it. No need for it, only layers 1 to 3 are required to gather the full model.
• Layer #5 are my blueprint box and a wire representation of the chassis.

All required shaders are included. Please pay attention that this project was conducted using YafRay 0.0.9, so it won’t render “out of the box” properly without it (YafaRay won’t do the job here)

Feel free to post your thought about it below, please just keep in mind I didn’t have enough time to complete the model : for example, the engine is missing.

First and second pictures present some details in the door bay. Third one shows the beginning of the windshield.

My goal for this project is to model as detailed as I can. Not every single nut and bolt, because I don’t have access to some kind of assembly / dissambly guide, but at least the most detailed model I’ve done ever.

So I choosed a modern and famous car, because it’s far more easy to get good reference pictures of such a car, whereas the Marcos was really rarely shoot in details.

For a short time I considered learning Rhino just to give NURBS modeling a try. But I don’t really want to afford the license, and I don’t want neither a trial time-limited version nor a warez software. So I’ll stuck to Blender, and will try the new develoment branch of Yaf(a)Ray, the successor to YafRay (because YafRay doesn’t work any longer with newest Blender, 2.46)

Also, alternate goal is to create my own shaders : no reuse of previous shaders is possible, because of the new renderer, and no use of a off-the-shelf shader library, because none exists yet for Yaf(a)Ray !

Stay tuned for updates.

The grid seen in background has 10cm steps. The model is unfinished but anyways it’s the best blueprint for Ariel Atom 2 I have ever seen – as it’s the only one I’ve seen !

Thanks to the whole SMC community, because I really feel like I’ve learnt there almost anything I know about CG and car modeling. Also, congratulations to Niray, who designed the medails for the official SMC contests.

I think I won’t enter the next contest, because I really need more than 2 months to complete a project. So the next one will be a choice on my own : 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 Roadster.

Stay tuned for more information about it !

Here’re my final renders :

I also posted these pictures, as they show pretty well some features of the car :

Rendez-vous in one week for the results !