Vehichle Modeling for Game Development

Hello everyone, my name is Gjorgji Stevkovski,

For my 2024 Rookies Awards entry in the Game Development category I proudly present two meticulously 3D modeled cars: a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta and a 1955 split window VW Beetle. Driven by a lifelong passion for cars and a dedication to realism, I have poured my heart into capturing every detail and nuance to create visually stunning and lifelike vehicles. This project reflects my commitment to excellence in Modeling and Texturing and my love for blending art with automotive engineering.

Allow me to give you a little back story as in how I started my passion for cars. Ever since I remember about myself there has always been something in me that would ignite and send shivers down the back of my spine when seeing or hearing a special car. The love for cars may have been shown to me by my uncle who is a real petrolhead and has a great passion for cars and bikes. When I was a little boy (2-3 years old) he would take me in my stroller around the parking lot and I would name all the cars makes and models. So I can really say that cars have been a lifelong passion of mine.

Why the F12?

You may be wondering why I chose specifically the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta for my entry. Well to give you an answer to that question it is very difficult to put into words for someone else to understand unless you are a true petrolhead or have a strong passion towards something like me which I am sure you do. To me when it came to deciding what car to model there were 3 cars that imediatelly poped up in my head:

Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, Aston Marting DBS 2006 and the 964 Porsche 911 3.6 turbo.

These cars to me are THE cars, these models are my poster cars, the ones I always looked up to and dreamed of one day owning. The Ferrari F12 I remember it vividly when it came out and when I watched the iconic Jeremy Clarckson review of it on Top Gear. I fell in love imediatelly! It was everything to me done right, the car, the engine, the noise, the engineering, the passion with which Jeremy was describing the car....I felt like I was in the car. 

That is why I instantly knew I wanted to 3D model the F12, it was a car I absolutely love coupled with a strong challenge for me to model all the curves and those air channels. With its revolutionery ways of channeling the air around it and creating downforce, humongous air channels on the bonnet continouing to the fenders,  air flaps that open in the front splitter to create cooling for the brakes, the enormous hips in the back.... To me the whole package is almost perfect, how can you not love a V12 in the front, drive in the back, incredible symohony by the V12, curves for days, stunning interior and a gorgeous breath taking exterior.

So yes, it was a no brainer to me to model this machine!

For rendering I created two different scenes, one was made in Maya with the goal to make a scene that is located in front of a Ferrari workshop in Italy.

After this I wanted to experiment with Blender and make a scene interely using a dome and HDRI.

While modeling and texturing to me it was very important to capture all the tiniest of details.

On the next set of images you can really see some of the attention to detail that went into making this model, for all the little details in the headlights, taillights, wheel and brake assembly, rear diffuser and the meshes I went over to Substance Painter and textured it myself .

In the taillights you can even see the details in the correct pattern on the motherboard behind the LED turn signal, and also for the wheels I made sure to have the correct tire lettering, capture the holes for the perforated brake disks and all the correct fonts and lettering for the callipers.

All the modeling was made in Autodesk Maya using curves to get the correct shape and curve as well as the proportions, for the texturing I used mainly arnold standardsurface. For detailed work I used Substance Painter such as the headlights, taillights, wheel and brake assembly, rear diffuser, tailpipes and the meshes.

With this project I wanted to bring a different feel to it and after some research I was inspired by 1960s mafia movies with the whole mysterious and a bit darkish theme. For the vehicle in mind I wanted something that was not very associated with the mafia thus stumbling on the 1955 Volkswagen Beetle which I never really considered it but when I saw it I got inspired to take on the challenge to make it as mafia like as possible and create a scene that would instantly put the viewer back into the 1960s.

For this I had a very specific model in mind and that was a 1955 VW Beetle with the split window in the back, the polished chrome hubcaps and it had to have a two tone paint job as well as lots of metallic flakes.

For this I did the whole modeling in Autodesk Maya using curves and then creating a Loft between them which I would convert to mesh and continue modeling.

For texturing I used Substance Painter to get the materials I really wanted and then put the whole model into Unreal Engine to create a scene. For the background I used assets from Bridge to get the feeling of a 1960s New York buildings.

Thank you for your attention and good luck to everyone in the competition!