[WIP] Alfa Romeo Flatnose GT EV

[David53 (David)]

[WIP] Alfa Romeo Flatnose GT EV

So, having thought about tentatively trying out a model 911, I realised that I have literally zero idea about how to model a car, in NURBS or SubD.

I have always been attracted to Italian cars, particularly Alfa Romeos. So, I decided that sacrilege was in order, and I set about modelling my first car; but only as a concept piece really.

As for inspiration, given the problems with EVs weighing of order 2 tonnes, I tried to draw elements that work for creating maximum boot space on such unwieldy platforms. But the car I was really looking at was the Stradale 33; it is only a dream that I could have the creativity and understanding of curvature like Franco Scaglione. I accidentally ended up with a ‘flatnose’, so I adopted it into the name.

The rear was quite important. Much of the proportion and overall size was borrowed from the Audi E-tron GT, which remains really the only EV I’d actually ‘desire’, if one could desire an appliance. I thought it really works. But the design elements were some crazy mix of a Giulia TZ and a Ferarri.

It has a really ugly angle looking directly at the back, but I can live with it, as it is only 1.4 metres tall.

I cannot guarantee I’ll actually finish this, as I will likely run out of creativity/skill. The surfacing is a bit lacklustre, and I certainly don’t have all that much beyond G1 surfacing, and sometimes G2 where I can easily do it. I am still developing the rear light positions, so there will be cutouts where they clearly directly collide at the moment. No panels are joined either.

A while ago, I dreamt up a somewhat wacky, fantasy modular 6-motor EV6, just for some fun, which I’ll likely dump in there… if I get that far!

Once again, the renderer really helps rescue the shape and surfacing, provided by the wonderful bella.

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

cool project! … from my eye your rear fender is too flat in relation to all the other lovely curves you have going on in the rest of the car.

please keep us updated as this develops, thanks for sharing it!

[David53 (David)]

Many thanks!

Yes, I was in a bit of trouble with the rear end of the car, and I probably chucked in more modern elements than was really demanded.

I will attempt to correct this.

[David53 (David)]

Back end mostly reworked at the rear bumper. I think all surfaces are generally curvic now, even if it is only light. It was bugging me once pointed out. It is tempting to add lots of complex surfaces like many moden cars, with intersecting fins, straight edges, and creases, but for my own sanity, I must avoid this.

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

really wonderful project and progress!
I had an incredibly brilliant instructor at ccs when I was a car guy Named Ken Okuyama. (who went on to work at pininfarina, porsche, etc…)

One of his common criticism of student work was “too many lines… WHY YOU HAVE SOOO MANY LINES?! these lines OK…these lines TOO MANY…you go away, make these lines go away, then come back.”

I still hear his voice in my head when I’m sketching…

I think in general the car biz need a little more Ken pointing at their stuff saying “TOO MANY LINES” Even porsche the last bastion of beautiful simplicity seems to have fallen into the space of too many lines…

but I digress…

keep up the wonderful work! love the color and environment map… lovely reflections which to me is half of a what makes a great car great…

[David53 (David)]

Thanks Kyle!

The work of Pininfarina, Zagato, and Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera have always been very central to what I like in car design.

I am definately trying to avoid too many lines. Not only because I find it makes modelling much harder, but I just like to see them have some purpose if they are there.

This is a really rough render, but I have been working on the rear lights some, and I think I am pleased with the result. I really like some of the complex shapes in modern rear lighting LED reflectors, but I need to keep it plain and easy to do. There will be four of these units.

I also stripped the paint off and “reprimed” so to speak, so I can focus a little more on the detail, rather than being distracted with surface problems I keep seeing (and you can see here easily).

[Rhino_Bulgaria (Bobi)]

While I generally agree that the less details the better, I think that nearly half of Ken’s designs exhibit some unnecessary amount of details. Maybe his student’s design proposals were using an excessive amount of random shapes all over the car’s body, in order to achieve a visual complexity for the sake of complexity. Many modern designers tend to do that as a way to hide their lack of imagination.

Classic, timeless designs typically have one or just a few key design elements that make the entire car recognizable among the rest cars. On the contrary, cars with dozens of random crease lines look generic and just like the majority of the other designs that will never become classics.

[Rhino_Bulgaria (Bobi)]

If it was mine project, I would try to add more “visual weight” towards the front (such like Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, Dodge Viper, Corvette C5, Aston Martin Vulcan, Ferrary Roma etc) or rear end (nearly any modern rear-mounted mid-engined car), in order to give the car a distinctive look. Cars with a cabin in the middle tent to look less interesting and less premium to the human eye, because their front end and rear end are visually the same length.

As for the modeling technique you choose, considering that your wheel arches are so pronounced, I think that having a single editable primary surface with minimal amount of control points is a good way to achieve the desired shape of the main body shape. For example, here is one of my old projects made with this technique. Nearly 80% of the car is just one surface, with several other surfaces adding details around the roof and front/rear bumpers.

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

@David53

The work of Pininfarina, Zagato, and Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera have always been very central to what I like in car design.

fun fact, in a box of old stuff somewhere, I have a personally signed rejection letter from Andreas Zagato… I shot for the moon as a recently graduated car designer in 1992 and was very kindly and graciously told no…

His letter was personal and he even included a hard cover book of the studios portfolio…you know… so I could see everything I was not going to be able to work on…

[David53 (David)]

Hi Bobi.

The reason the visual weight is so centre biased, is because of my wish that it is a 4-door 2+2. I definately agree with the longer bonnet otherwise. The plan was to make this a front “engined” car in a sense, and adopting a wider boot to offset some of the lost storage from the batteries. Actually, the last Alfa Romeo TZ3, being based off the Viper, certainly carried these propotions.

Modelling, I had never thought to try and do this using a single surface, and it makes perfect sense to do this for this shape. I had already started rebuilding the car before I saw your post, as the surfacing was rather shocking to be honest, and I thought I could do better.

My fear for me is that I’d end up in a complete sea of CV points that I couldn’t control. But I see that using Align and snapping with some curves could help me out to do this.

Thank’s for the advice, I think I’ll have a look into this route too, and see if I have success. It would certainly make… I’d hope… for surfaces that are always smooth, given I didn’t get a points mess. It’s certainly interesting, as my new version is always trying to maintain single-span surfaces, with induced continuity.

Thanks!

[David53 (David)]

Doh! Looks like Alfa themselves got there first.

Good grief! The limited-run Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is utterly gorgeous

Curses! Never mind!

[David53 (David)]

Unfortunately, I decided to rebuild this entire model.

I think I have been remotely, at least partially indoctrinated into sculpt and matching my way to glory.

All except the two yellow surfaces are single span surfaces, but there is still very sketchy matching up to do.

The reason for doing this was that as I got to the rear details and fillets, it was going all sorts of wrong, because of my multi-span surfaces. While the zebras and numbers still aren’t the best, I hope they will be easier to work with, and it certainly looks nicer to work with later.

I just have to be careful I don’t get fed up with my own lack of skill here, as I can see what I want, but often the surfaces say nope.

Actually, this has somewhat proven that Bobi’s approach of a single surface would likely have worked best for the body here. I was just trying to learn better surface matching and planning (or in my case, better brute forcing).

[Rhino_Bulgaria (Bobi)]

I think that you can still take advantage of usimg a single surface on the side, because your design is nearly flat there.

[David53 (David)]

Managed to get down to two surfaces on side of the complete rebuild. It is at complete single-span for the moment. I had some remarkable help from a member on the forum around a blend that I was really struggling with; and I am extremely fortunate and thankful for it.

There has to be a point here where I accept this as a first model of a car, and I will accept some lower quality tangency in order to make some progress. It joins watertight for now, so I will try and move on with the model. Bella has been appeased for the moment, and has ceased punching me in the stomach for surface continuity failures.

While I am enjoying the single-span surfaces, and it is a far suprior approach, I am tempted to introduce a second span on the surface [1,2,3] to bring edge 3 under control in its tangent.

Also, I do not understand why GEC RC3 has been immediately adopted into Rhino 8, and just get rid of the EdgeContinuity function. It is excellent!

Also, after seeing Holo’s work with Twinmotion, I thought I’d have a go!

What is more amazing, is that it works seemingly fine with my quirky Arc GPU, and it throws all the rendering through the GPU almost instantly as I make model changes, with the Live Link.

[David53 (David)]

I had to take a deep breath, and go back to basics with patch layout.

While I was sort of happy with the rear shape, I think that there were parts of it where I had clearly rushed into the details. I could sense subconscious judgement from Sky repeating in my mind.

Using Scott’s really nice Alias-like display here. Keeping the shapes more simple, and induce the detail later.

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

oh, good! I was hoping to see more updates on this project…

Keep em coming!

fwiw- the gallery banner scraper only picks up on the first image of a thread, so when you get to a beauty shot you want to share, edit the first post of this thread and make that image the first one.

[David53 (David)]

Cheers!

I must admit. When I got to refining the rear end, I got the jitters and backed away. I didn’t feel like I had the bravery to push on as it was. I knew I had to do some major resurfacing. It just took some time to pick myself up again and tackle it.

Hopefully this second time will be better, as it will be more simple, and hopefully working with single surfaces where I can.

[David53 (David)]

Getting some decent surfaces now, with acceptable continuities. Cyberstrak has been almost indispensable to the cause here.

It looks like I have a reasonably exotic 3-sided hole to fill, so I’ll go and have a think about that. Simply using a trimmed corner isn’t going well; and given the extreme of the curving here, I am not too suprised perhaps.

On one side, it is taking me many hours to do even small areas. However, the flip side of this is that I think this feels more “normal” as a progression.