BMW M3 E46

Production Log

Welcome to my page about the BMW. On here i will be showing off my whole progression of how i started the model to where i got to at the end. I will be using videos to show how i make the body of the car and then give you some screenshots of how the windows are made and little extras such as wing mirrors, tail lights, headlights and more. I will make sure to be clear enough on my explanation to ensure that you understand how difficult or easy these models can be and hopefully give you an idea of how long it can take to model these cars.

The BMW is the very first car that i had modelled in 3ds max and it was a little bit of a challenge at first as i have never modelled a car like this before in my whole time modelling. When i first started the planning stages of this project i really didn't have any blueprint modelling in mind so i ended up modelling a BMW with a cube and reshaping it to what i thought looked alright and good enough.

The whole research side of this was started from Miro where i had listed a bunch of cars that me and my team thought would fit the style of our game. On this page we had originally posted 8 cars as there was going to be 4 player cars and 4 AI cars, but due to time management we had to lower that later down the line. When we had finally come up to a great list of cars that we were happy with, thats when i started to model.

For the first car i started with this BMW in 3ds max. At first i just went straight into it without looking at tutorials, so i didn't quiet have a great idea on how to model cars. The first step i did was to get out a cube and just reform the shape to look more like a car. The first thing i did was create some swift loops on the cube to mark off where i would like the car to be raised. After they were in place i just started messing around with the whole shape by lifting up faces, moving vertices and extrude parts to help me gather a look of a car, in this case the BMW. After i got the rough shape of the car that i was happy with i then moved onto the wheels.

The first step

The first stage of the wheel was for me to create a cylinder and the cap the top faces off that way the topology was still good when i deleted the top and bottom faces. When that was done i made sure to create some tyre treads for the wheels so they werent so basic.

The tyre treads

Moving on, i started with the tyre treads to give the tyre some shape. The way this was done was by swift looping the side edges which would allow me to select multiple faces. I would then loop select the edged faces and then extrude it in to create that little indent.

The alloy

The next and final step i did was create the alloy for the wheel. i did this by creating a new cylinder and then extruding from the outer faces to create the spokes. When the spokes were in place i smoothed and rounded the front face of the middle of the alloy to create that centre peice.

The exhaust

The next step i worked on for this car model was the exhausts. I looked up online for some exhausts to help guide me to model them. I started off with a cylinder for the main base of the model and stretched it out as well as flattening it a bit to create the roof shape of it. I then got another cylinder and just extruded and rotated it to create on side of the exhaust pipes. Once that was done i finally got another cylinder to create the end pipe of the exhaust and this was done by insetting the top face and extruding inwards to give that hollow look. After creating the new car model i realised this exhaust was not really low poly enough to fit the cars low poly look.

The Upgrade!

When i first created the first BMW car above, i started to hate on it a lot as it just seemed too blocky and had no shape to it. The main thing i hated the most about the car above is that it didn't look like the car i wanted it to look like. In my opinion it has some of the cars features like the front grill but it just wasn't good enough to me. This is when i wanted to change, so i started looking into how to model cars in 3ds max and came across some videos of blueprint modelling. This is where people model things from an image and i thought that this would be perfect for me. Now seeing as this is my first time attempting to model against a blueprint, i didn't really expect to come out with a great result but i gave it my best shot.

To start off with things, i grabbed myself a plane (primitive) and lined it up to all the sides of my blueprints that i placed down so that when it comes to modelling everything lines up correctly. When that was done i started modelling away. At this point it was just fairly simple to me just moving the verts to the correct places. The one thing i did struggle the most at first is correctly matching the verts to every image. I found this difficult as i got lost with what line on the image lines up with the other line on another image. The next thing i started doing was tracing around the windows. This to me was fine but i ended up filling them in later which caused me some issues.

Filling in the windows caused me some issues. The issue with the windows being filled in, is that it makes them attached to the body of the car. This lowers my limits to giving the windows shapes because when i want to move a point, it will mess with the rest of the cars shape. However if i made the windows a separate object it would allow me to give the windows more curvature without messing with the body of the car. I did this in future car models. But with that being said, i extruded in the windows to create shape. Moving on from the windows i started colouring the car and adding in the front grill.

The final step at this point in progression is tweaking the car as it looked way too long and it seemed a little bit too thin so i made it a little bit wider.

Adding details

Moving onto the extra details, i started to work on the headlights, side mirrors and rear lights. This part was extremely easy to do and i didnt really come across any struggles. The only concerns i had is if i did some stuff differently but other than that these models came out looking good.

Creating The Headlights

The first step i worked on was adding the three BMW colours on the front grill and then detached the two front faces where the headlights would go. When that was done it would create two holes in the front of the car leaving space for the lightbulbs to slot in. The detached faces would then be changed to a glass material which was done by making the material transparent and giving it a black tint.

Before that was done i first selected the looped edge with the border tool and i would then extrude it inwards as this is where i would put the lights. After that was extruded i would then cap the end of so that you wont be able to see behind the lights in the end product. I did realize i could've just inset the front faces and extrude them, rather than detaching them and then extruding them in. But it was too late for that now.

moving on i would start with the light bulbs them self so that way there is something to look at on the front.

LightBulbs

The light bulbs were the easiest models of the whole car to make. To make the one on the right i grabbed a cylinder and inset the front face. When that was done i then extrude it out to create the front and then i inset it again and finally extruded it but inwards to create that tube look.

To create the one on the left i grabbed another cylinder and inset the front face. I then dragged that in without extruding it to create that curve look. I then finally inset the inner face and extruded a small circle from the middle to create the little bulb. These were then placed in the holes i made at the front of the car. I then gave both models some materials and they were complete.

The rear

For the back end of the car i found it really simple to do. The rear lights were done by selecting so faces on the back of the car and extruding them out and then i just gave them some materials and they were done. The licence plate was modelled with a seperate cube. The cube was made into a rectangle shape and then i inset the front face, when that was done i then extruded it inwards to give it that outer lip. For the little light bar above it i just grabbed some more faces and extruded it out. When that was done i grabbed all the front faces and resized them down to create this shape of it going small to bigger.

Moving onto the wheels

Here is a video of how i made the wheels and how they ended up looking. I am very happy with how these wheels had turned out and how wheel i traced these models of the image. I think that the wheels are accurate enough to the image itself. The things i wish i had changed about this model is that each seperate model doesnt seem to line up well enough. What i mean is that the spokes for the wheel dont match up with the inner alloy and they just collide through it make it look some what weird. I do understand that this is all low poly and not everything is meant to have high details but that's something i would change for near future. Another thing that i have noticed with the model is that the center part of the alloy is not circular and its not something that is going to be seen but if i want to be the best of the bests then that's something i need to take into consideration for near projects. One final thing i would like to point out about this model is the tyre itself. This part of the model i was very disappointed with as i didnt put any effort into modelling it. I just slapped a cylinder around the alloy and said thats done. I wish i had done at least some tyre treads or gave the wheel abit more of a curvature around the outer edges.

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