As the basic shape of the car is ready, I will save a separate scene with this geometry to later use as a base for the low-res model.
With the final shape improved, I can then move to modelling the medium size details, like intakes and outlets. Here is, for example, how I added one of the frontal intakes:
As you may already know, the modelling process should be done by using 4-sided polygons, generally called quads, to avoid any artefacts when applying Smooth on the mesh. Triangles are to be avoided; in turn it is preferable to use polygons with more than 4 sides if absolutely necessary. Usually, a 5-sided polygon doesn’t affect the smoothed shape too much, but checking if it does affect the mesh will determine if it is OK to use it or not. Here is an example of such a case (the selected polygons are five sided). The second image shows that area with one level of smooth applied. As you can see, the five-sided polygons do not affect the topology too much, so they are acceptable in this situation.
The Wheel :
The wheel will use a polygon cylinder primitive as a base. This cylinder will have about 4 times as many divisions as the number of spokes the wheel has. My wheel has 5 spokes so the cylinder will have 20 divisions.
I only keep a “slice” of this cylinder and instantiate it to reconstruct the wheel. This way I can work on one segment and visualise the entire wheel at the same time.
To make the wheel look more realistic I separate the tyre from the rim. Adding a “lip” to the rim will also help differentiate the two pieces.
Being a sports car, the rear wheel will have a “deep-dish”, accomplished by simply moving the centre of the rim inwards. Small details like this go a long way to making the car look believable!
There is no interior modelled for the high-res wheel as this area will be barely visible on the final car and therefore will not require any special details on the normal map. This is often the case with high-res models that are going to be used only for baking maps as there are some areas that need not be modelled because they will not influence the final low-res model.
