In this section, you're going to discover how to texture your car. Or, to be more precise, rediscover what you know. , because, surprisingly perhaps, texturing a car is just the same as texturing any of the other things you already made. If that wasn't good enough news, then I can tell you that you already did most of the hard work when you set up the orthographic views in the first place. All you need to do now is:
- Open up your original file in GIMP.
- Find (or take) some photos of your car.
- Paste them over the top of the line drawings of the front, top, side and back.
- Stretch them a bit.
- Smudge them around like you did with the wrench in Chapter 7,Quick Standard Assets.
- Reload the image into SketchUp.
And as if by magic, your textured car will appear!
Finding well photographed car images can be difficult, because you need several views of the same car. The best thing to do is either get them from professional texturing sites, or take them yourself.
Note
The manufacturer's website will often contain excellent images, often including near-Orthographic views, too. Use these to practice with, but don't upload them to 3D-Warehouse, even if your car is just one part of a larger model. These images are copyrighted.
Type car texture into the search box and you'll find hundreds of them for around $5 each.
Finding cars to photograph is actually far easier than it sounds; they're everywhere! You don't need to find a friend with the car you want and ask them for permission. The fact is, people leave cars lying around all the time. You'll have the best luck in big parking lots. Here's how to get some good photos:
- Wait for an overcast day
- Borrow the best camera and telephoto lens that you can
- Find a car that you like, with plenty of space around it
- Stand as far away as possible to take your shots, so that distortion is minimized
- Kneel so that your camera is level with the top of the hood
- Take the front, side and rear views
- Take a few close-ups of the badge, lights, and wheels
When you're done with your texture, you can sell it on TurboSquid, too.
For the purposes of our tutorial, I found the texture using a third method. I phoned someone in the car industry at www.thecarspy.net who agreed to allow us to use their photos. Find their photos on Flickr.com by going to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecarspy/sets/. The photo set you might be particularly interested in is the 2007 Mercedes Benz CL63 which bears a striking (if not perfect) resemblance to your SketchUp model. When you open up the set, you will see a plethora of car views and details. You can download the ones you need and give credit to the copyright owner in your work.