Below are two progress renders:

I’d say I’m about 85% done now. There’s some details I still plan to add, a few areas need touching up, and the weapons need textures… Other than that this asset is pretty much completed.

From this point on I wont be posting anymore renders from 3DSMax. I will be posting in-engine images from UDK. They will give a better indication to how the car looks.

-Johnny

It might not be apparent in this images, but those checkerboards are ruler straight!  Thanks Pelt Map!!!

I should hopefully be posting final, textured, renders and in-engine screen shots of this asset by Sunday night.

[This post was edited by Johnny on 2/5/2010]

As for me, I have finished the modeling stage of the car and I am now knee deep in Mudbox and photoshop. I will be posting my progress sometime before next Monday.

Click the image for full size.

I’m pretty much 100% done with the model, I have a few poly’s to tweak that you can’t on the bottom, and then it’s off to mudbox for some sculpting. After that I’ll be working out the final details in Photoshop. Can’t wait to finish and drive it around in Unreal!

Click the thumbnails above to see a full size image. The armor still needs a lot of work before I’ll be satisfied with it, but I will admit it’s looking better than I had anticipated so far.

Started work on the weapons for the Riviera. In the film, the car only has machine guns. I plan to up the ante a bit and add a few RPG’s to the roof, and possibly a door mounted weapon.

The plan is to have the armor and weapons modeled by next weekend so that I have plenty of time to texture, rig, and setup in UDK.

Here are a few progress renders:

There’s still a lot to do before I begin to add the weapons and armor. I want to make sure I have the best possible base mesh to work with before I move on to the fun stuff…

For the Proof of Concept I am creating a few simple assets. These models will most likely not be used in the final project.

Asset Name: Steel Trellis

I created the Steel Trellis with the mindset of building assets that can be used in multiple configurations, and would be easily multiplied to create different structures.

Examples of multiple configurations.

Asset Name: Finish Line Lights

These lights will be used in unison with the Steel Trellis asset to create a starting/finish line for the Proof of Concept.

An example of how the assets can be used together.

Here is a quick progress render for the Riviera. I would like to be further along, but Turkey Day cut into my project time.  I placed black planes into the window areas of the car so the render would look better until a true interior exists.

The team is looking into how to setup destroyable assets in UDK, so for the time being I am keeping the various sections of the car separate.

Race is the key word in “Project Death Race.” So it’s not at all surprising that a vehicle or two will be created for this project.

After discussing who will be making what, I decided to take on the task of creating the 1966 Buick Riviera. Known from here on as the 666′ or the “Rivie.”

1966' Buick Riviera as seen in "Death Race"

To get this asset started I searched the internet for some decent pictures of the car to use as reference. Hoping to at the very least find a nice profile shot.

I found what in my opinion was the holy grail of reference images:

1969' Riviera reference image

I shrunk the above image down in Photoshop before posting it here.

As with anything that seems too good to be true, there is an issue with the image I found. The car in the movie was a 1966, and the car in the image is a 1969… But after close inspection of the cars I noticed that the only major difference is that the 69′ Riviera has a larger bumper than the 66′ and that area of the car is going to be covered in steel plates. The shape of the car is the same so I’m not too worried.

I doubt fans of Death Race or Buick Riviera’s will come after me for not being 100% true to the source material…