Snow-Trac (WIP)

unigami

Here's the final image...Kerkythea render and Photoshop.

Last couple bits of trivia for you about these...info I found on a forum from a guy named Lyndon that collected them...

"Snow Trac's were built in "Batches". The factory made all the parts and "Stockpiled" them in a warehouse. The sales Division would request assembly of a "Batch" which would then be assembled from parts. Batches were generally 10,25, or 35. Their biggest single sale was in 1961/62 when the Canadian Phone company ordered roughly 100 machines. If you look at the production chart it's the only year that sales exceeded 200 machines."

"When VW discontinued the Beetle they figured that they wouldn't be able to get engines and discontinued the line. Later on it was indicated that had they known that VW production was going to continue in Mexico that they might have continued. The story is that the entire last year and a half of production was made from 'Spare Parts'."

Dave R

Extremely cool! Perfect!

I want a real one even more, now.

SketchUpNoobie

Excellent! The snow on the tracks is PERFECT!

pbacot

Beautiful. How did you put the snow on the tracks? (and tracks in the snow?)

unigami

@pbacot said:

Beautiful. How did you put the snow on the tracks? (and tracks in the snow?)

Thanks! I used the clone brush in Photoshop to clone snow from the ground onto the tracks, varying it with density, brush size, and shading.

For the tracks in the snow, I used some ski tracks that were already in the scene and moved them behind the crawler, and then used the clone brush to cover up the spot where they originally were.

hellnbak

This is amazing! Well beyond my meager capabilities. I'll give you five bucks to teach me your methods (not all at once of course, we'll have to work out a payment plan)

numbthumb

The best five bucks you´ll ever spend
Oh, and BTW, how much would you charge for your roadster?

numbthumb

I was only joking

@unknownuser said:

That's a bit OT but Hellbnak has posted his roadster model on the 3D Warehouse.

I know that - it wasn´t about getting his model for free. I was merely reffering to this part:

@hellnbak said:

I'll give you five bucks to teach me your methods

And sorry if it was misunderstood.

hellnbak

I knew numbthumb was only joking -- you gotta have a sense of humor nowadays (especially nowadays)

unigami

@hellnbak said:

This is amazing! Well beyond my meager capabilities. I'll give you five bucks to teach me your methods (not all at once of course, we'll have to work out a payment plan)

You've got to be kidding...that Roadster is waaay better than anything I've ever done!!!!!

numbthumb

Nice avatar, hellnbak (now that´s really OT)

And before I forget - congratulations, unigami!

hellnbak

@unigami said:

You've got to be kidding...that Roadster is waaay better than anything I've ever done!!!!!

Thanks, but your Snow-Trac is so clean, so perfect in every detail...my models are ok, but I have not been able to achieve that level of amazingness (is that a word? ). I believe in giving credit where credit is due. So there.

@numbthumb said:

Nice avatar, hellnbak (now that´s really OT)

Thanks. I don't normally smoke a pipe, but decided I'd go for it

SketchUpNoobie

@numbthumb said:

The best five bucks you´ll ever spend
Oh, and BTW, how much would you charge for your roadster?

That's a bit OT but Hellnbak has posted his roadster model on the 3D Warehouse.

SketchUpNoobie

@numbthumb said:

I was only joking

My bad.

solo

Sharing model?

Great stuff mate, and good render.

unigami

@solo said:

Sharing model?

Great stuff mate, and good render.

Thanks! I'm happy to share it...I put a copy of the .skp in my public Dropbox folder. You can download it here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3842145/snow-trac_final.skp

For anyone not familiar with Dropbox, it is a way to store files of any type and size in the cloud and sync them between multiple computers. I use it all the time, even with SU files. It is free to sign up and you'll get 2GB of storage space.

If you use this link to sign up, you get both of us will get an extra 250MB of storage space:
http://db.tt/Wj5fyuW

Bryan K

Wow!

I have question though: is the mountain background a flat pic or an HDRI?

hellnbak

Thanks for sharing your fantastic model! Don't know if you're concerned about file size, but I played with parts of your model and the results are shown below. And I only worked with the tires and the drive cog, I could easily get it down even further. Like I said, I don't know if file size concerns you that much, just thought I'd throw it out there.

unigami

@bryan k said:

Wow!

I have question though: is the mountain background a flat pic or an HDRI?

I used an HDRI probe to illuminate the model, but masked it out.
The background you see is a flat pic added in PS.

unigami

@hellnbak said:

Thanks for sharing your fantastic model! Don't know if you're concerned about file size, but I played with parts of your model and the results are shown below. And I only worked with the tires and the drive cog, I could easily get it down even further. Like I said, I don't know if file size concerns you that much, just thought I'd throw it out there.

Thanks...I wasn't too worried about it because I have a pretty good PC and it was orbiting fine with the shadows off.
I'm sure that a lot of the arcs are much higher resolution than they needed to be...I'm still learning how much I can get away with in rendering before seeing facets.