Corvette

Case Study Gallery: 2000 Corvette - Lightwave Using the MicroScribe® System and MUS

Courtesy of Jim Larimore

Figure 1 - Splines down the main seams of the automobile

Figure 2 - The front of the Corvette nearing completion

Figure 3 - Swapping texture back and forth from LightWave to Deep Paint

Figure 4 - 6 - Final renders of the Corvette

Figure 5

Figure 6

"The following explanation is designed to give you a good idea of how a 2000 Corvette model at 1/18 scale was digitized into LightWave using the MicroScribe and MicroScribe Utility Software.

I first took and captured points down the main seams of the automobile as shown in Figure 1. These points were connected by splines in order to better visualize the automobile and to allow the creation of polygons through spline cages later. You might ask why did I model a car out of polygons? Good question, I won't again. This is a long process that actually got extremely good results. My main goal coming into this project was to create the best looking car with the fewest polygons in order for it to still be viable for game usage. The final car ended up only being around 2800 polygons which is relatively modest considering the detail on the lights and tires as well as the underside of the car which is rarely more than a couple polygons with crude textures placed on them.

After I had a spline cage I was happy with, I built the car as if I were assembling a real auto. I went panel by panel ensuring that I had enough polygons to ensure the detail needed for lights and the vents in the car. In Figure 2 you can see my near completion of the front of the auto. I then modeled the wheels and rearview windows by hand as they were either too small or tucked in an awkward space to effectively scan. To save polygons I planned to use bump maps to describe the seams of the hood and doors on the car instead of the many polygons, which would be necessary to create a groove. This turned out to be a bad idea. Calculating it out, it would have only added perhaps 400 polygons to the car and would have looked far superior, as a bump map would need an extremely high resolution to not appear blocky.

All in all I find this to be an extremely efficient way to create a low poly car. My plan was to take the car into Deep Paint 3D and Deep UV and place the bump maps in the desired locations as well as all other textures needed. The program turned out to be extremely efficient, it's just that my seams require more detail than a bump map can provide at a reasonable resolution. Figure 3 shows me in the process of swapping texture back and forth from LightWave to Deep Paint. This process seems finicky at first, but actually makes sense if you get used to it. The other final 3 renders (Figures 4-6) are after textures, bump maps, specular highlights, and reflections have been added."

download a zip containing a .IWO file of this model