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3D Modeling Techniques > Making of Quad Bike - 3dsmax tutorial (Posted By: 3dmonster)
:: Post Date: 2007-06-15 21:55:54 [Post Comment] [Post Articles]

Making of "Quad Bike"

Software Used: Autodesk 3dsmax

Author: Ali Ismail

Contact:ali@aliismail.com

Author Website:http://www.aliismail.com/

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Making-of : Introduction

This will be a brief explanation about making of the quad bike. I like quads, but you won't exactly see me riding one (too scary for me ;) ). Anyway it was needed for a small project -- a presentation of a quad and motorcycle race track; it needed to be animated as well.

Reference

As usual, if you need any decent realistic existing model you need good reference. Unfortunately I couldn't find any blueprints for the quad, but I did manage to find a decent front side picture. A tip is to not only look on the official sites, but also consider Google image search or anything similar; amateur images are sometimes better because they don't make specific effort to have the product perfect -- they show it for how it really is.

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As you can see, it's far from a perfect reference. Therefore, when modeling you always have to be careful and look at reference images taken from a normal viewing angle and check to see if it's the same or not (simply use your eye), you can pretty much say that modeling without decent blueprints isn't certainly your first choice, I can already hear someone out there saying "duh"... :) anyway.

A little trick also is to put the reference image as a background then use a camera to try to replicate the original one, and see if there are major proportional differences (camera match).

Modeling

I've had no problems with modeling, the only difficult thing was the lack of good reference which makes modeling more time consuming. I made all the basic objects using editable poly as seen in the following:

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Then I started adding details also using primitives, splines etc.. and adding simple modifiers to primitives taper, FFD etc.
I also made 4-5 types of screws and small objects so that I can quickly start copying and instancing them, this adds a good amount of details very quickly.

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For the more fine details, I collapsed the poly objects and used Boolean to cut them quickly and then edited the mesh to fix the Boolean distortion. That way I made front light holes and practically all holes in the body (it's basically the polygon way of NURBS trimming, but always remember that Boolean is problematic and should be avoided if possible)

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It might cross your mind that adding too many details will take a lot of time, but when you are copying basic objects and making details out of primitives, it really doesn't take that much effort. I modeled the wheel details because a quad wheel certainly cannot be represented by a bump map.

Texturing

For texturing, I'm afraid I didn't spend too much time on it as I had to finish the model quickly.

I unwrapped the model quickly and concentrated on the parts where there would be details, then went to Photoshop and drew out the stickers and other detail., if I had time to do it again, I would probably unwrap it and add proper dirt or make a blend material and add dirt to give dirt a different material.

I also gave some parts blend materials with masks to give (for example) the Polaris logo a different material from the body.

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Rigging

For the rigging and controllers, I used simple techniques to do it.. I used 3dsmax 5 which still didn't have a reaction manger and I did have to use wire parameters.

I will try to explain some of the tricks I did just to let you know in general how its fully rigged.

For the front axis, see the following:

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And here is how it was done. I just placed a bone for the horizontal axis and a bone for the vertical one, gave both of them an IK chain. I connected the horizontal IK controller with a circle, but for the vertical IK controller, I connected it to a dummy object connected with the horizontal bone. So when I move the circle it will act as a real axis. The following image makes it more clear.

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For the spring itself, as you've noticed from the previous images, it does work as a spring. I just used wire parameters and made the position of the circle control the height of the spring

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For the back spring, it was the same as the front, but instead I made a metal chain which actually loops correctly when the back wheel rotates.

I made the chain using path deformation and then controlled the percentage of path by the rotation of the wheel -- simple but it works.
Steering was also rigged.

To control the rotation of the wheels according to the steering, I used a strange method to quickly make it without using wire parameters and figuring out the right axis and parameters.

I placed 2 dummy object in front of each wheel as seen in the image and constrained each wheel to look at target to the dummy. Then I linked the dummy to the steering, that way when the steering rotates, the dummy will move with it causing the front wheels to rotate accordingly.

I hope this image makes it clear.

The right way to do it would be to use wire parameters or max reaction manager (set driven keys in Maya) or an orientation constraint if possible.

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I made dummy objects on top of the geometry so that I can see them instead of the high poly object when animating .

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Rendering

It was rendered using Brazil, nothing special in the rendering scene though.

Simple Brazil scene with Indirect illumination, an HDRI skylight, a couple of fill lights and some objects with Brazil utility material.

Materials are standard materials with falloff reflections for some parts, Brazil accepts standard max materials also.

I used the boxes you see in the picture and used this brazil utility material with them in order to emit light and reflect on surfaces similar to studio lightning, I use this technique a lot when rendering industrial models.

The fill lights don't make a huge difference, but they give a warm feeling to the scene. I usually choose colors like orange green and even purple for these lights, with a low multiplier.

I have tried mental ray as well as Vray and Brazil to render products and Brazil was the easiest to use and obtain results. But the result you get with Vray and mental are outstanding as well.

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That's pretty much it. I hope you liked it.

Here is the second quad I did for the same project using same techniques.

Comments: (Currently there are 9 comments.)
- [Anonymous]nancy ( 2009-03-18 03:23:45 ) [Post Comments]
- itz good but explaination is not tht clear......
- [Anonymous]jak_p ( 2008-10-20 04:49:29 ) [Post Comments]
- tanks
- [Anonymous] ( 2008-06-12 20:45:43 ) [Post Comments]
- very nice! hope you could show the whole design drawings with detailed measurements
- [Anonymous]vinod ( 2008-03-21 14:03:18 ) [Post Comments]
- verry good
- [Anonymous] ( 2008-01-30 08:16:42 ) [Post Comments]
- Very nice. Thank you.
- [Anonymous]setheichel ( 2007-11-24 01:35:59 ) [Post Comments]
- please detail the tutorial furtherly!
- [Anonymous]sony ( 2007-09-05 01:24:56 ) [Post Comments]
- Please details tutorial..
- [Anonymous]insan ( 2007-08-25 23:28:27 ) [Post Comments]
- good job
- [Anonymous]Ayayay ( 2007-07-30 23:29:30 ) [Post Comments]
- Cool...good work, not difficult, but good looking...I just didnt understand rigging...have to learn it more

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