Phase 6: Modeling the wings.

Create the wings side support with simple squares for the rear and two patches for the front. Two parallel squares are enough to create the fixture parts for both front and rear. Draw  a three points curve, give it a aerodynamic shape. Extrude it once or twice depending whether you want it bendy or not. Place  the created wings at the correct position on the car body. Make sure the fixture part touches the body. Note: My current wings are really simplistic but they do the job allright. I didn't have any pictures of a real F1 when I modeled them but only screenshots of F1GP2 .. hence the simplistic shapes ;-)

Phase 7: Creating the tires.

Create a 4 points circle. Extrude , translate  and scale  that circle profile to obtain the tire shape.

Phase 8: The alloy wheels.

Using the model menu, create two 8 knots circles in the XZ plan. One fro the outside and one for the inside of the wheel. With the add tool , create a three point loop. Move the knots to obtain a suitable shape. Make a copy , flip along Y, then translate along Y to get a symetric position of both loops (so you can rotate around the origin). Make three copies  of the two loops together and rotate them around the wheel. Create a long curve  and use it to create patches (zigzag weld it around the wheel as show on the right). Weld the inner circle too! Extrude  the outside circle once to obtain an little bevel, then twice to create the inside of the wheel. Note: When rotating an object, sPatch automaticaly compute the rotation center as the geometric center of the selection. By creating a symetric copy of the loop, this center becomes the origin, making it easy to place our shapes around.

Phase 9: Bolts to hold the wheels.

Create a 8 points circle and use the peak tool on it to get sharp edges. Extrude , translate  and scale  that octogon profile to obtain a nut shape.

Phase 10: The driver's seat.

Use the add tool  to draw the ouline of the driver seat. Make sure it's symetric either by using the grid or by drawing one half the clone , flip, translate  and weld. Use the add tool  to draw a curve representing the bottom of the seat. Use an appropriate number of points to ease the incoming welding operation. Create curve segments  and use them to create patches (by welding them horizontally as show on the left). Extrude the outline profile, move  it sliglty backward and scale  it down to give some thickness to the seat.

Phase 11+: all the rest.

This tutorial covers the creation of a simple F1 model. It gives general instructions, and is meant to guide you through, to show you how things can be done in sPatch. It's now up to you to add all the missing part of the car. Wheel support triangles, steering wheel, extra aerodynamic curves ... 

Render your model

Now, that our Formula 1 model is complete, we can use it in some kind of rendering package. sPatch exporting directly into Pov files, let's use Pov-Ray! A minor drawback in sPatch is that the export function groups all the layers in one big union (up to now: ver 1.0b3), making it difficult to apply different textures to your model. There is a way around it though, till mike clinfton implements a layered export function.  Export only output the visible layers, so to render your model with different textures applied to different parts, apply this following procedure:

 

	Select each layer one by one. Make only the current layer visible.
	Export the current layer into a new pov file. Create a new Pov file for each part of the car you want to assign a different texture to (like wheels, tires, seat...).
	In the Pov-ray files you generated, add a #declare a_name = before the generated union and remove the pigment and finish lines at the end of the file. Also remove the camera setting and the lights form the file (keep a copy of that part somewhere).
	Create a new Pov file in which you include all the exported files from sPatch and your texture file. Copy the original camera and light setting you saved (they are a good start!).
	Now use your declared objects with object { a_name ... etc ... } and apply your textures to them ... RENDER!! :-)

Conclusion

If you are a Formula 1 fan, you could argue that this model looks nothing like a real F1. It's got no air entries anywhere, the wings look funny ... etc ... I know all this, I just wanted to show how easy it is to model nice curvy objects with sPatch. Moreover, I'm still working on that model and will soon create a set of nice image map to stick on it to make it look even better.

return to part 1