The Second Pod Racer

My Second pod racer has been an enjoyable project, using my mood board I decided to go for a less round design to see if I could lower the polygon count further by not using so many curves, which to me means more polygons!

The basis was a rectangular engine with large intakes which go through to the back where there is large rotary piece.
Again I started with the engine.

Step 1 was to create the basic shape, using two standard primitives, creating the curved sides using a large sphere and the boolean technique to cut into a basic box.

Had I redone this i would have used a Chamfer box, which would have created slightly softer edges, which would have been useful for the overall look, a lesson learnt for next time! but this would increase the poly count too.

 

this picture shows the beginning of my first engine, the 'intake' areas were created by insetting and then extruding the faces inwards. it was a balance between look and polygon count for the base of the engine.

The hard point was cutting the smaller intake in the blue section as it still had the main base section sticking through, to get round this I manually added vertex and cut out the piece I did not want

The next stage was adding the grills to the intakes, I created one and then cloned it for the smaller, reshaping as I went to fit snug.

The next stage was addign the 'exhaust' where the rotary blades will sit, This was a simple Tube. The Main error for the polygon count I made was here, it has a large number of faces, and also has used a smooth modifier to make the end more smooth, as it has a slight angle, The finished exhaust looks good, but at a hefty price! In the future i would not use so many segments, and try and manually make the end smoother then I have currently, rather then applying a smooth modifier which has smoothed the entire object and made even more polygons. I may even change this before the end.


The next stage was the exhaust rotary blade, Made from a cylinder, inset a number of times, stretched and then manipulated, to creat the smooth curved circle around the base, I made a sphere again and used the boolean technique.

To create the spiral, I used two shapes, a circle, and a helix, Using the Bevel Profile modifier to make the circle follow the helix shape, thus creating the spiral. this is wrapped around a standard primitive and alligned with the allign tool.

I have then added smaller details to the side of the ship, using standard primitives and the scale and general manipulative tools.

 

 The Ropes were hard to get right, I used the bevel profile technique with a pre drawn curve to create the organic rope shape, But to make two different ropes I moved some sections, but this had a slight impact on the smooth curve look.





 
I Felt the ship itself should not have too much detail, as I intend to use textures to provide the detail, and also feel the ship itself isnt the focal point of the model, it also will not be seen as much, and also will be closer to the camera from behind, I think a good texture on the back will be all the ship itself requires, leaving the detail to the engines of the racer itself.

The final Pod Racer -