This Blender 3D graphics project has been a long and sometimes difficult effort to undertake. Not that this has been a bad thing as it has expanded my skills greatly in using Blender 3D modeling software. I tried to make the images you see here as accurate as possible considering I did not have an actual VW Bug to look at and clear up any confusion I might have encountered along the way. But I am again rather proud of how it has turned out and I hope you will agree with my thoughts on this after checking out the images below.
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One of the big problems with creating what you see here was finding out that my computer simply did not have enough RAM to handle such a detailed model without crashing Blender. I would work on a section at a time to get everything the way that I wanted it to be only to find out that I could not render the final images you see here without a lot of effort by my computer to keep up with such a large amount of parts in the model. Having 12 gigabits of ram I thought would surely be enough to handle it. I was wrong of course after spending three and a half hours to render just one image.
I did some research online and found out that I could use the memory in my hard drive as virtual ram. I have not used my internal storage on my PC as I store everything in an external drive for safety sake. So I made the changes needed to my computer and boosted the RAM from 12 gigs to 192 gigs! Now my render times were down to one and a half hours for each image with no crashing!
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With the new setup on the computer I was able to finish the work I had started nearly three weeks ago on the Bug you see here. Total hours I had given up on counting but I suspect that it is close to 200 hours total not even counting trying to figure out how to render the images faster.
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I am really proud of how the interior of the Bug turned out. The dash is very accurate as is the steering wheel. As I said earlier I learned some new things along the way and with Blender that will help further on down the line when I work on my next 3D graphics project. The steering wheel that you see with the chrome horn half-ring and the steering shaft had been modeled all in one piece. Quite a feather in my cap if I do say so to get this all to look right.
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The gauges and the radio are correct for the model as are the knobs for the dash. The face of the radio and gauges I was able to manipulate on to the surfaces of the model using Blender. This process is called UV mapping. It sounds technical but really it is a simple process once you get into it and see the end result. Simply put it wraps a picture on to an irregular shape to make it look very realistic. Worth the little effort it took to figure out how to make it work and look this good.
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In this image the tire tread shows up nicely along with the overall shape of the rear of the car. I really like the reflections in the chrome and of the fenders and body panels. This was all done in Blender using what is called Environment Nodes. Again a fancy name for putting your model into a dome shaped image of the outdoors and having it reflect sunlight and realistic images the way a real car would in the real world. Another nice feature in Blender that gives the model a more realistic look.
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In creating the VW Bug computer model I had to download over 70 photos of the inside and outside VW Bugs of this era the real in order to create as accurate an image as possible. For the most part I am very happy how it has turned out and like any project there is always room for improvement. The interior for the images you see here is near perfect and as long as I am not trying to get more detail of say.... get images of the engine compartment I am good with it all. I could spend another 100 hours in the model if I really want to get nuts over it all but I figure there is really no need as I have accomplished what I have set out to do and for now my expectations of how I wanted the car to look has once again been exceeded by my efforts. So smiles are in order for the day. Enjoy the images and I'll continue posting new Blender projects in the future as they pop into my head.
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