T-Splines vehicular modeling challenge winners

The winners of the T-Splines vehicular design challenge: 

#1: Tommi Laiho (Audi A6)


#2: Jamie Barajas (retro Camaro TA)


#3: Fabio Rios (C-Buggy by Citroën)




The models were judged by Kyle Houchens of The Outside Digital Art and Design and James Carruthers of Hydraulic Design. Comments from the judges: 

#1: Tommi Laiho
"Wow...we have our winner...totally legit automotive design, great use of the tool, great topology, and several areas that would be really hard to create in NURBS. Beautiful highlights and continuity."

"I think the proportions are a little off for an "A6," looks like a smaller car. Impressive level of detail. I think some of the surfacing could be 'crisper,' but would have to agree on it being the winner."

(Tommi created a video of his model, posted below:)


#2: Jamie Barajas
"Really nice model...Some continuity issues around the rear end near the lower corners, and if you convert this to NURBS it makes a huge mess. Gotta give him props for the model, it's a beauty."

"Wish there were some wheels on it and there are some quality issues on close inspection, but at first glance I was like "I've seen a picture of this car, did you make it?"

#3: Fabio Rios
"Steering wheel is really great--nice topology, great use of the tool- great example of surfaces that would be tough to model in NURBS, totally legit automotive design." 

(Fabio created a video of his model, posted below.)


Thank you to everyone who entered our contest (see other entries here). The purpose was to give a chance to test T-Splines on a complex design. Our three winners each receive a T-Splines T-Shirt, and the first place winner also receives a free upgrade to T-Splines v3 when it comes out late next year.

Note from Matt
Since the purpose of this challenge is to learn, I wanted to make one observation on a comment from the judges about Jamie's model: "Some continuity issues around the rear end near the lower corners, and if you convert this to NURBS it makes a huge mess."

From glancing at this model, it is clear that the designer has experience in modeling with subdivision surfaces. This is beneficial, as many techniques used in subdivision surfaces are useful in T-Splines as well. However, there is one simple but significant difference between T-Splines and subdivision surface modeling that, from my experience looking at models, is subtle enough to be often overlooked by designers: T-Splines let you end detail in T-points, which gives you a smoother model and better conversion to NURBS.

Here's the original file, with some pinching at star points, which have been used to end detail. In subdivision surfaces, using star points are your only choice for ending detail, and they result in a less smooth surface (G1 smooth).


I went in and deleted some edges.


This made the detail "tee off" into other isocurves, but these are actually still star points until I run a command (tsLayout) and click on the points to switch them to T-points.


Inside the tsLayout command. The blue arrows show which points I have clicked to switch them to T-points.


Now I have T-points, which makes a smoother surface (C2 at the T-points).


Models which use T-points for ending detail instead of star points convert to NURBS more nicely. To compare, here is the original model, with more star points, converted to NURBS. There are 198 patches, including many small ones.


Just by introducing a few T-points, I was able to make a much smoother surface, which converted to NURBS with only 163 patches.