Literally reinventing the wheel.

Several days later, I don't have nearly as much to show for it as I'd like. I've made and destroyed three different models so far, and I'm working on number "about-three-and-a-half-ish" right now. The more I make them, the more I realize that I hate the design and need to learn more. Seriously... while I'm picking up on the nuances of Blender, there's so many options that it's still unwieldy to use. Watching a 20 minute tutorial takes upwards of 2 or 3 hours, and only scratches the surface of one particular thing (usually without actually explaining the "how and/or why" part of things).

I know I harp on this a lot, but Blender is nigh-impossible to to use without tons of external help and support. An example I came across earlier; want to open a background picture to trace over? First, you have to push N to open another menu (by default this is turned off (Seriously? A hidden but important menu?)), check Background Images, expand that menu, click add image, search for the image, apply the image, expand the View menu, change the opacity (default is 0; completely transparent) and size (default is miniscule), accept the changes, AND THEN you have to find it. Because it's a 2d image in 3d space, it's only viewable when the camera is locked to one of the 3 planar views. All of this to open an image you can't even manipulate. But I digress.

The first design was a flat skeleton that didn't have any textures applied to it (because I couldn't figure it out). It had the basic shape right but wasn't more than a flat white bumpy cylinder and box with 2 tubes on it. The second model was about when I figured out how to smooth the surfaces AND add colour. Still a far cry from where it needs to be, but inching closer.

Model 2: For legal reasons, this is not a Segway(tm).

See that tire texture there on the right? You'd think it'd be easy enough to line it up proper and texture the wheels, but then you'd be wrong. I can't even recreate how awkward it looked, but take my word for it; it looked less like treads and more like bluish marbling. Horrible. It had to go. The third design was a smidge better. A couple minor changes to the body (seen below), but nothing amazing.

Model 3: Untextured

Model 3: Textured, still horrible.

I tried adding a brushed-metal texture to the frame of the body, and the result was... less than desirable. It's like I'm slowly progressing through history; starting with Starfox SNES and ending up just before Quake with all the visual effects turned down. The current version has a long way to go, but has stepped up another generation.

Model 3.5: Gentlemen, BEHOLD!

This was another case of things being non-intuitive, but at least I figured out how to design proper tire-treads from scratch without textures. This was a complete rough-draft design, they're not great, but I'm not too worried about it. I'm actually fighting the urge to go back and re-re-re-redo them. On a tiny screen, no one is going to be able to see the tiny details like sidewall writing. The next thing to tackle today is finishing a new rim design. Then the main gearbox/motor/platform assembly, the steering column, and the finally the handlebars. Only then can I worry about other things like level design and assets.

Given the current pace and workload, I may have to pare back the total number of vehicles. I had planned for 3-5 different selectable vehicles but right now I dunno. I'm more concerned with getting 1 vehicle and 1 track finished and working, at which point I'll have figured out enough infrastructure to add more later.