I was so jazzed about the Jetsons results that I had to try Fred Flintstones car. This is the result after about two hours. The proportions and colors are sort of screwed up but the result is great! -Kix

Very cool. Is this done in Carrara alone?

It's not all Toon Pro that give it the look, you are working some magic. The curves and the simple design give this a cartoon look as well. Is it sitting on a curved base or is it the camera? Great rag top! And soft shadows on the base. Could you post a non-Toon Pro render to compare again? It is almost hard to see the "3d" when it is TP'd.

It appears very promising. To get more of a toon look, and less of a 3D-generated look, one might add alot of bumps, cracks, roughness, defects, asymmetry, et al. I've noticed, in a sci-fi cartoon show by Matt Groening (don't recall the name of the show, only seen bits of it), that the 3D sequences are always jarring. unlike the drawn characters, the 3D objects are devoid of any hint of artistic intervention, completely sterile and non-engaging in their perfect symmetry and flawless smoothness.

Rsponses to questions and statements: (bstockwell) Question: Is this done in Carrara alone? (Kixum) Answer: Completely done in Carrara. The only change I've done is a gamma correction to make it brighter when I post. (ominousplay) Statement: The curves and the simple design give this a cartoon look as well. (Kixum) Response: Completely agree. The model is quite simple which really adds a lot. (ominousplay) Question: Is it sitting on a curved base or is it the camera? (Kixum) Answer: It's sitting on a simple square plane. (ominousplay) Question: Could you post a non-Toon Pro render to compare again? It is almost hard to see the "3d" when it is TP'd. (Kixum) Answer: Sure, I'll do it after I get home. The only non toon version I have of it is of the primitive setup which has all sharp edges. The entire model was recast with all the soft corners everywhere. I don't have a non toon version of that model. (Miss Nancy) Statement: It appears very promising. To get more of a toon look, and less of a 3D-generated look, one might add alot of bumps, cracks, roughness, defects, asymmetry, et al. (Kixum) Response: I completely agree. I haven't figured out what I'm going to do to add that level of detail. (Miss Nancy) Statement: the 3D objects are devoid of any hint of artistic intervention, completely sterile and non-engaging in their perfect symmetry and flawless smoothness. (Kixum) Response: I again fully agree. I've always thought that a cartoon should either fully adopt a computer 3D approach to the entire piece or should put a massive effort to camoflauge (sp?) the computer components better than I've seen. I would hope there are digital components in cartoons which have been very well concealed (how would I know right?). To continue this venue a little bit, I've heard that lots of cartoons nowadays are actually drawn at 15 frames per second. The frames are then duplicated to generate a final product which will fit into the NTSC 29.96 (something) frames per second. This makes the animators job considerably easier (cut by half) and the final product isn't so rough that it's wrecked. Generating a cartoon in a product like Carrara would casually be able to produce the 30 frames per second. In contrast to my current understanding of the 15 frames per second, the final product would look considerably smoother but may also come across as considerably more sterile (it would just feel wrong). I believe if the whole cartoon were generated using the same technology, it would soften the blow when produced in a purely 3D environment. Considering my simple 2D results in the last couple of days, I'm actually thinking of making a cartoon episode. It's only about 17 to 20 minutes of story. Who knows? -Kix

Kix -- Yeah, you're right. Cartoons (particularly American churn-em-out Saturday-morning type cartoons) are mostly drawn "on the twos." Some cartoons are also drawn "on the threes," or one new frame for every three frames of video (or 10 frames per second). (The 29.97 stuff is pretty complicated and not terribly relavent until you get into producing material for broadcast.) Some Anime is produced "on the fours." It's not entirely a cost-cutting measure, but rather can impart an interesting stylistic and almsot subconscious expectation about what you're seeing. I do agree that animating 3D ships ("Futurama" was the name of the Matt Groening cartoon, by the way) at the same frame rate as the rest of a show would make the images less jarring, but there's still the nature of 3D versus flat 2D cell animation. They'll never quite look the same. Think about Beauty and the Beast in the clock, or Titan AE throughout -- the integration of 2D and 3D is really tough. I'm loving your nostalgic vehicles, by the way. Great modeling and cool rendering. - Dex

Very nice image and interesting thread. Thanks Kix

I also am in a cartoon mood. I modeled this cartoon car after one I saw in a Scrooge McDuck comic book. I added the windshield and grill. the car looked a little to plain without them. The car was modeled using the Carrara 4 vertex modeler and rendered using Toon III. I hope you like it. I enjoyed making it. Keith

keithw, cool car! Here's the render as promised. This is a non GI render of the model which I started the thread with. -Kix

Here's the car after I did a whole bunch of modifications. I studied my references again and tweaked it into a form which looks a lot better. The canopy has a bigger window and is also shorter front to back. I've also moved the canopy forward and removed some of the attachment rings from the frame. I've also added rings for the side bars and extended them to poke out on the top. The biggest modification was modeling the side frame piece by generating an extremely simple square form and turning on the smoothing option. This is a HUGE improvement over the two spline objects I had overlaying each other in the original. There are other tweaks but none that are important. -Kix

Not to be redundant... but what better word than "awesome"!