August 29, 2016 : Spline Action!
I recently had a project that required a detailed model of a car. At first, I was hoping to use an existing model in Lightwave’s Content Library, but that was a dead end. As a result, I modeled it myself – which is something I have never done. Below is a render of the wireframe:
The model is based off the Mazda 6, with an added logo on the grill. The modeling required plenty of splines, a technique I never really used. In fact, I had to reacquaint myself many of the tools related to splines. Fortunately, I was able to pick things up quickly because there were plenty of splines used. Below is a Modeler screenshot with all the splines selected and the car model in the BG layer:
After Modeling everything, which took about 40 hours or so, I threw it into Layout and did some rendering (well technically, I did some minor rigging and animating first). I used the multi-pass rendering technique described in a previous post. The result is the render shown at the top of the post.
No doubt, detailed surfacing would have increased the amount of time needed for the model, but fortunately that was not part of the scope of the project. I did end up adding a small color correction in After Effects (the Curves effect). Below is a shot before and after the correction:
The effect was subtle and done to better match the car to the video’s color palette. All in all, the use of Splines was challenging, but I can definitely see it’s power. It would be interesting to see how I can apply the technique to other modeling; but to be honest, I think I am still much more comfortable with ‘old-school’ box modeling. Although, never say never…
posted by Pi Visuals at 2:58 pm
Tags: After Effects , Lightwave