How to Create Your Own Virtual Car

A growing community of 3-D artists like to create rendered 3-D images on their computers and place them on websites for others to appreciate. Many of these artists also like to use 3-D modeling programs to create the models that they use in these renders, sometimes even offering the models for sale to others. One popular model is a car. Car models range from the simple to the photo-realistic. The following steps will create a cartoon-type car in Hexagon, but with further refinement it could easily be made into a photo-realistic version.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer
• Hexagon

1. Take photos of a car that you can use as a reference for your model. The photos should be taken from the front, the side and the top (you will probably have to park the car under a window for this last shot). Load the photos to a folder on your hard drive.

2. Open Hexagon. Go to "Scene Properties" and click the "Browse" button next to each of the "Grids" listed. For each one, browse to one of the images you took and load it. You should load the front view photo onto the back grid, the side view photo onto the left grid and the top view photo onto the bottom grid. These images will show on the grids in the view and can be used as references while you are building your model.

3. Click on the "Primitives" modeling tab and select the "Cube" primitive. Draw the cube into the "perspective" view. Select the "Vertex" modeling tab and click on the "Surface Extrude" tool. Select the front-facing polygon on the cube and use the tool to extend it forward to form the front of the car. This forms new polygon faces that can be further refined using the "Surface Extrude" and "Tessellation" tools. You can also adjust the points of the model directly using the "Move" function of the "Universal Manipulator" tool. Extrude the back-facing and top polygons from the trunk and top of the car, refining them as well.

4. Select the "Primitives" tool and select "Cylinder." Use the "Scale," "Position" and "Rotate" functions of the "Universal Manipulator" to make this cylinder into a wheel. Repeat this for the other tires.

5. Select the "Materials/Shading Domain" tab on the left. Select polygons you want to be the same color, such as the body of the car, and click "New Domain." Rename the domain "Body," or another name of your choosing, and change the material color to whatever color you choose. Do this for each part. Save your model as a "Wavefront OBJ."

References

• Hexagon Manual