Create a Tire with Treads in Blender

let's go ahead and work on these tires I think these are pretty cool these have some really interesting details to them but let's see if we can find another reference image looks like maybe this one might help yeah this has got some nice contrast between the treads and the tire here so we can really kind of see what the shape of them is so it looks to me like we've got well it's a repeating pattern so we've got this piece in this piece and it repeats all the way around the tire and also it's mirrored and flipped 180 degrees and copy it all the way around the tire as well so it really looks like we only need to create two pieces these two pieces here for the tire treads in addition we've got these bolts here we're gonna use the same trick we used for the brackets around the window blocks here we're just gonna duplicate and rotate around the center object but we're gonna use an array to do that and I think we can use an array for the treads as well so let's see if we can do that I think first of all I'm just gonna take this tire and I'll just build off of this let me first move it out of that scene collection it looks like we're in the vehicle main here so I'll take this and right-click and I'll say move to collection and we'll move it to the actual main scene collection up top so there it is here I'm going to call this tire so we know what that is and then I'll go ahead and hide the vehicle main and the chains we don't need that and also I think we don't need the cat fills here on either side so I'll go to face mode and I'll hit that C key again for the circle select tool and just click and drag all of these hit X and delete faces and I'll do the same thing over here because I don't think we need those right now or at least we want to rebuild them in addition I want to add a mirror modifier so whatever I do on one side happens on and to do that I'm gonna need to split it in half so let's press ctrl R and add an edge loop down the center and then I'll hit enter two times to ensure that exactly down the center of the object now if I go to face mode I can alt select between two faces to select that whole face loop hit X and delete bases now let's go ahead and add a mirror modifier to this right here not much happens which tells us that it's probably the rotation let's try it ctrl a and apply the rotation sure enough there we go I'll also turn on clipping because we want the points in the middle to merge together and all right so here we are I'll turn on the Edit cage on the other side so we can see it I'll go into edge mode and alt click this edge and now I'll begin right about in here so this is where we're going to begin creating that tire let's go to the front view here and so we want it to be about this width so something like this we need to extrude out and kind of curve the top and the bottom of the tire here so let's go ahead and press E and X and pull out just a bit and I'm trying to keep the polygons roughly the same size as I go here and I'm gonna hit E and X and pull out just a bit and then I'm gonna hit the S key and scale in just a bit to kind of curve the tire just a bit and let's do that one more time e X pull out and then I'll hit the S key and scale in just a bit like that so we've got that basic shape of the tire there okay now we need to get all this in here so what we should do is go ahead and hit e and s and scale in some maybe like this maybe I'll pull out just a smidge it a little bit there we go and then let's see where we need to go let's go to the side view and it looks like we need to go all the way into here that's where that RIM begins I think right in here right there so with this selected still I'll hit E and s and I'll scale in just a bit like this there we go we should probably push in some right since it's kind of moving in toward the rim there and then let's do that again e s and scale into about there and also push in just a bit like that okay let's see how we're doing here yeah I think that's a pretty good shape for the tire let's bring back the vehicle main here and let's just take a look at it yeah I think that's working pretty well okay so hide that vehicle main again and now we want to work on the wheel and the wheel begins with this small ridge here I could create a new cylinder and try and fit it in there or I could just extrude off of this and then split it off as its own object let's take a look at doing that I'll tab into edit mode and let's alt click this edge and I think we just need to pull out so E and X and pull out some and then Ian s scale in a bit and then we want to get this it looks like it kind of curves in or or pushes in a bit before it comes back out with this rim where all the bolts are so let's press E and X and push in and then let's hit s and kind of scale it in a bit and then let's hit a and s just to give it a little bit of a indentation there and then let's begin bring it back up so I'll press e and X and pull out but I'll also scale in with the S key kinda like that see how this works about like that maybe then let's get this piece where that first row of bolts are I'll go back to the side view and yeah I think this is pretty good we can see that first row of bolts there so let's hit E and s and scale into about ear like that and then it looks like it pushes in again so let's hit E and X and push in about like that and now we need to get that place where the inside bolts are so let's go ahead and hit E and s and scale in to about right there and now let's pull that center piece out e X I don't know how far do you think it goes something like that okay now let's hit e and s scale in and I'm going to do that one more time I'm gonna hit ES and scale in and then I'm gonna merge these points so if this still selected I'm going to press alt M and choose to merge these points at the center and there we go okay so we have that I think that looks pretty good we've also got it over here on the other side however I don't think it looks quite like this on the other side because if we take a look at it kind of underneath here that's not exactly how that looks so I think it needs to be a little bit different on the inside than on the outside so we're gonna have to do a couple of things to be able to edit that inner part of the wheel as I mentioned I think I want to split this out so I'll tap into edit mode and I'll just go to this edge right here alt click that edge so it's all the way around there like that and I'm going to edge split that so it's two pieces of the same object so let's press ctrl e and go to edge split right here now those are two different pieces so if we go back and now select this part with the L key you can see that's its own piece all right so let's now press the P key and split it out for its own object choose selection there and now so I think we can maybe grab that edge right here yeah there it is we go to wireframe we can see it there and then I'm just going to hit E and X and just push this in like this that's about all we need we don't really need them to connect so now let's go back to solid view tab back into object mode and there it is so now it's its own object so we could call this so this one is tire this one could be wheel let's call it wheel and now we can go in and modify this but we have to apply that mirror modifier so I'll click apply here and now if we come into here let's grab these faces here with a circle select tool and press ctrl+ on the numpad and I'm going to extend this out to about here and hit X and delete faces now we can take this edge right here wherever that inside edge is there it is right there and we can kind of work on this it looks like it may go back a bit and scale in some and maybe let's push it in and X and push that in maybe scaled in a bit and then I think I'll just close it up here so es scale it in like that push it in by then I'll hit E and enter alt M at center so there we go we've just closed that off right so let's press shift s1 to get the cursor into the center of the grid and I'm gonna go ahead and hide the wheel and the tire for now while we work on this and I'll click on the scene collection up top to make sure that it pops into this area here when we create a new object so it looks to me like it's just cylinders it's kind of hard to see but maybe the bolts here are six sides let's try that shift a mesh cylinder let's change the number of vertices to six I'll change the cap to triangle fan however we don't need it on the bottom so I'll just grab these once again with that circle select tool and delete those faces let's scale Dinsey with s and z so maybe about like this maybe a little bit smaller let's try this okay so now that we've done that let's create another cylinder and for this one let's make it well let's do 12 sides and we'll scale it down once again we'll get rid of the faces on the bottom here like this let's put it in place so let me just bring it down about right here and let's scale it down it looks like maybe about like this more about that let's give this a try there we go so that'll be our bolt that will then place all the way around the wheel here let's combine these together with control J and then I'll call it bolt move the origin to this bottom edge so let's alt click that edge shift s2 to move the cursor to it and then we tab into object mode and move that origin to the 3d cursor I think that'll just make it a little easier to move around in place all right let's bring back the wheel and I'll go ahead and bring back that tire - let's turn it in the y-axis ry9 zero let's scale it down quite a bit and let's come over here and try and put it in place so if we go to that side view with the three key and go to wireframe let's see if we can find where to place this maybe we can put it right over here about this big like that let's try go back to solid mode and then see where we are okay so I think that's a little bit big let's try this yeah I think that's right maybe a little bit bigger let's try this and rotate it in the X Rx and just kind of put it like that let's try that okay so there's that bolt let's also put one inside there to let me bring this up a little bit more like that let's also duplicate this and put one inside here like this something like that and I'm gonna take it I'm gonna move it up just a bit like this you were to spin so it isn't exactly like the other one all right so now that we've got those two let's figure out how to use the array modifier to create all of these in a fairly simple and efficient way the first thing let's do is move this 3d cursor into the center of say the tire right in there that's really kind of the center of everything so let's move the 3d cursor to this shift s2 and then what let's also do is let's create an empty we're gonna need just like we used an empty with the array modifier for the chain we need an empty or another object that we can turn and rotate the array around a center point so that's what this is going to be so with the cursor there in the center of the tire I'm going to press shift to a and create an empty plane axes right there so there it is now in addition I want to take the pivot point or excuse me the origin of this object that little orange dot right there and move it into the 3d cursor so let's go to object set origin and origin to 3d cursor there it is now we also need to make sure that our rotation and scale are applied here if I hit the N key you can see that we have quite a bit of rotation and scale here so let's press ctrl-a and apply the rotation and scale there we go now we've got zeros and ones there so now we need to do is just add an array modifier to this object so with that selected I'll go to add modifier array and let's bring this out to I don't know a count of six for now so we can see the array there currently we have it set to relative offset and we don't want that we need to turn that off and we need to come over here to object offset and once again we can use that eyedropper to then select the empty there we go now if we select the empty and I'll go to the side view here now if we select the empty and we hit are let's see what happens I'll hit R and rotate and you can see the objects rotating around that center point now how many do we need that's a good question so if we kind of go I don't know around 15 I'm gonna I'll press the control key and now we'll snap to 5 degree increments so let's say we put it at 15 degrees for the rotation now if we go back to the bolt object and begin playing with the count I'll increase it from 6 let's just keep going on around here 24 so I rotated the empty 15 degrees and then I brought the count up to 24 and that seemed to work pretty well yeah there we go okay now we need to do that again for these here for the inside bolts but I don't think we can use this same empty object here we're going to need a new one to be able to rotate independently of the outer layer so what I'm going to do is just hide this one here I'll just hide it and then let's create a new one shift a empty plane axis so now this is empty 0 0 1 now let's do this all again I'll select this one let's take a look at it oh it's got rotation and scale again so let's press ctrl-a and apply the rotation and scale now let's move that origin to the 3d cursor object set origin 3d cursor now let's add an array modifier to it we've got to count of well let's go 6 again here let's turn off relative offset turn on object offset and with the eyedropper let's choose that empty 0 0 1 now if we select that empty let's take a look at how we do this let's press R and rotate this around like this now how far should we go here we went 15 degrees before what if we go 30 degrees I'll try that and then let's select the bolt and increase the count I'm thinking 12 maybe let's try it that looks pretty good something like that so we've got 24 of the outside bolts and 12 of the inside yeah let's let's go with that all right so what we can do now is go ahead and apply these array modifiers and then join all of the bolts to the wheel object so with this I'll select this row of bolts and I'll click apply and then I'll select this row of bolts and I'll click apply here now we can just select these two empties right here and hit X and delete and there we go so let's now combine these I'll take this row of bolts and that row and shift click the wheel now let's join it all with control J there we go and let's see if we can smooth these a bit too I'll come up to object and shade smooth that looks awful so let's go over to object data and turn on Auto smooth and it looks a little bit better so here's with no smoothing whatsoever right here let's bring it up until we kind of have something that we like here no I don't want it that far so I kind of want it well it's kind of hard to get exactly what you want for everything isn't it we may have to use the sharp tool here let me add a little bit of a bevel to this right here let's tab into edit mode and select that edge and then I'll press control B and pull this out just a bit and then let's add a few edges here a few segments there we go I think that helps some let's bring it up well that's not bad in terms of the bolts and the smoothness of it I feel like we need to add a sharp edge on the outside here let's try that let's tab into edit mode and alt-click this this edge right here and let's press ctrl e and Mark sharp there alright and then let's also do it ear let's try this see how that looks they give it a little more definition it kind of does but maybe we don't need that one right here let me take this one off and see I'll choose clear sharp there let's try that that's actually not bad yeah think I kind of like that alright now for the tire treads let's take this tire and I'm gonna go ahead and smooth it shade smooth just so we can see how it looks there okay and I'll also apply that mirror modifier we don't need that on right now so I'll apply that now how are we going to create these pieces here what's interesting is we really only need to create two objects this and this and once we do that it's just a matter of duplicating repeating mirroring etc to get all the rest of the treads so just like we've done several times before I'm going to go ahead and just use a polygon plane to get that basic shape and then we'll apply a solidify modifier to that so I'll maybe grab this point here and press shift s2 to move that cursor there and then let's press shift a mesh plane and here we go here's our polygon plane I'll turn it in the x-axis our x90 let's scale it down and I'll bring it out just in front of the tire there okay so now that we've got that let's go to the front view and I'm going to scale this down with the S key and then let's try and figure out about how big it's supposed to be if we look at the reference image it really doesn't give us much information there about the size of the tread so we're just gonna have to kind of eyeball it here and I'm thinking maybe about that size really let's kind of go with that and then let's tab into edit mode and grab this edge and I'm gonna move it in like this let's hit e move this up it s scale in rotate a bit e and move that up like this let's try this something like this let me scale this down a bit I'll scale that up a bit so you may have to do a little bit of tweaking here to get the shape the way you want it and that's fine okay so now we've got let's say we've got that shape in place now we need this up here or this right here let's say right here so to do that one it looks like it's about the same size coming off of there so I'm just going to hit extrude and pull this off like this tell us about in the center let's go to wireframe and see if I can see that centre line there it is right there so I'll move it up to here just almost to the center and rotated a bit like that okay now let's take this and let's split this I'll press ctrl e and edge split right here now if I deselect it and select this I can move that off there we go so let's say we've got that yeah let's go with that for now we can adjust this quite a bit even after we apply the array to it let's press ctrl R and bring this down about right here and then if we select this edge we can hit E and pull out just a bit like that and then I will select this and this point right here and press alt m and merge at last right there so that creates that basic shape it looks like it just has kind of an angle coming out of that right there so I think that's doing pretty well I think maybe maybe I'll move this back some in this down like this kind of hard to tell but we can play with it till to our hearts content that's for sure maybe move that up all right so let's say that that's the basic shape of our tire treads here and okay let me move this up I think this needs to be a little bit farther apart there we go okay so there's the basic outline of our tire treads now what I'm going to do is use a shrink wrap modifier to take this and mold it to the tire a little better so with this selected I'll then come up here and click add modifier and shrink wrap and then in the same way we've done before let's click that eyedropper and click on the tire and there you can see it's been conformed to the shape of the tire there now let's click on this offset and drag and pull it out some so we can pull it out out to where we think the tread would be maybe like that it's hard to know exactly how far the tread would be out at this point in time but once again once we get everything in place we can do a little more adjusting I'll go ahead and smooth this object shade smooth okay I'm gonna press ctrl-a and apply the scale just to make sure that that's done what let's do now is go ahead and apply that array modifier and see if we can get this tread all the way around the tire so once again I'll select that tire and let's move the cursor to it shift s2 will create an empty shift a empty plane axes there it is now if we take that tread and we come over here to add modifier and array there we can see it now and then if we increase the count oops let's click here increase the count maybe I'll bring it up to six again there we are now one thing I didn't do is move this origin to the 3d cursor we need to do that so let's go to object set origin to 3d cursor there we go now let's turn off relative offset turn on object offset and let's select that empty object now you can see what happened pretty quickly it went ahead and added a few around the tire let's select that empty and let's rotate in the x-axis I'll press our X and let's rotate around like this so I'm gonna rotate it back like this and kind of get the right spacing in here at least I hope let me try this Rx and I kind of want to get it right about I don't know right about there looks like it'd be okay for the tread for the spacing between the treads right and then now let's go back and select that and increase our count so let's just click and we're going to increase it all the way around here let's see if it comes out relatively even No so let's go back to 36 and then let's select that empty object and let's hit R and X and then let's there we go I just moved the mouse a little bit right there we go yeah that looks pretty good okay so now that we have that let's go ahead and do a little more adjusting on the actual original tread object for the shrink-wrap let's click on edit cage here so we can see it now this go to vertex mode and let's just start moving this around a bit because you can see when I move it around it moves everything around for all of the pieces of the array so I think like this yeah let's I'm just kind of moving these around tweaking these a bit until I get it kind of the way I want it let's zoom in here do you like that's pretty good right there now I think the next thing we can do is let's try and add a solidify modifier to this so let's come over here to the add modifier and let's choose solidify and that gives us some thickness to those treads let's come over here and choose only rim so it doesn't have any back faces and I'll click and drag on the thickness and move that in or out to kind of go into the tire there like that okay we're getting there let's go to object data and let's turn on auto smooth alright that helps alright now that we've got the treads pretty much in place now we need to think about how to get them over to the other side so they're in line all the way across the tire to mirror this over to the other side we're just going to need to take the original geometry and rotate it around the y-axis so if we tab into edit mode you can see here's that original geometry if I take this and I duplicate it shift D and enter and then I take away this array modifier I'm just gonna hit the X here to take that away you can see there it is selected that's our duplicate it's over here called plane zero one three what I'm gonna do now is just rotate it around the y axis so I'll press our Y one eight zero and there it is it's over on the other side now that I've done that it looks to me like these aren't going out far enough there's too big of a gap between these you can see here there's a smaller gap so now is the time to come in here and adjust this so I'll grab this edge here and just hit G and begin moving it out just a little bit maybe like this something like that let's try that so I'll take this and delete that duplicate I'll grab this original object again I'll press shift D and enter then I'll remove the array modifier and there it is right there I'll spin it around the y-axis are Y one eight zero and there it is now is that that almost looks like it's too much like it's too close so let's try this again I'm going to grab this and just bring it back so it's just a matter of tweaking is all and you don't really know where it's supposed to be until you go ahead and spin that around so I'll duplicate it again get rid of the array ry one eight zero and let's see how that works yeah I think that's probably pretty good let's go with that so now we need to go through the same process with a new empty for the array so I'll take this empty this is just called empty and I'll hide it away and then let's go ahead and bring in a new one because I don't want to turn this old one because it will affect the original treads there so I'll press shift a and bring in an empty plane axes in there it is so this one is empty zero zero one now I want to take this and apply the rotation and the scale control a rotation and scale now I want to apply or add an array modifier to it I'll bring the count up to six again I'll turn off relative offset turn on object offset click the eyedropper and select the empty there we go now if we select that empty it R and X there it is we can see it going there now let's see where we need to put it I'm going to go to the front view but I'll press R and X so I can rotate it so it and kind of line it up with that original tread so I think something about like that let me bring it back just a bit whoops Rx I'm gonna go with that there we go I think that looks pretty good let's try it we can always adjust it a little bit more once we've added more of the count to it so let's select that tread and over here in the array let's increase the count all the way around I think we had 36 the last time let's see how we do here there's 36 and it comes out being just a little bit off so let's go back to that empty hit our annex and I'll try and match this up yeah there we go there we go that worked pretty well okay so there we have our treads now I think we just need to do some adjusting here so I'll select the original treads and I think I'd like to apply the shrink wrap I think we have it in the right place in terms of how far out from the tire it should be so I'll click apply there and then this solidify I think we can apply this we've got only rim turned on so I'm going to take this to the top of the stack and click apply here now if we tab into edit mode and go to edge mode I can select that edge right underneath here and begin pulling this in or out like this so let's go to that front view and if I pull this out some maybe I can also pull this out a bit like this and then side view and maybe we can pull it in just a bit like this so I'm trying to get it to kind of blend in with the tire there yeah something like that and now let's do the same thing over on the other side if I selected the other side and tab into edit mode there it is so let's go ahead and apply that shrink-wrap and we'll apply the solidify and we'll tab into edit mode and select that edge there inside the tire and pull that out I'll go to the front view and we'll pull it out so it's more in line with the edge of the tire there then I'll grab this one and pull this out like that right now we can pull that back maybe bring it in so I'm just trying to blend it in with the tire here that's all all right I think that's looking pretty good let's now bring back the vehicle main here and take a look at it yeah that looks pretty good now one last thing before I apply the array modifier I'd like to take this edge right here and let's bevel that I'd like to press control B let's just pull out bevel that add a couple of segments there just to round that out a bit and let's try over here this just looks a little bit too sharp for me let's do this one over here add a bevel there too there we go that worked pretty well let's now combine all of these into one object so we can place it for the other tires so we need to first apply the arrays let's apply this one and apply this one here then let's select both of those treads there and the tire and press ctrl J to join them together and we'll come down to the object data and turn on Auto smooth and if we bring it up to about oh I don't know 30 to 35 in there that looks pretty good yeah I think that looks okay in here I feel like I kind of want to put a sharp-edged right along in here let's say control e mark sharp let's see how that looks that helped there okay and so now this is all one object right well not yet because we have to join it with the wheel so with the tire selected I'll then select the wheel and let's press ctrl J there now we may need to play with the auto smooth again let's bring this down so if we adjust this smoothness over here the angle we really can't get it the way we want it for both the tire and the wheel when it's all one object so that's fine we can we can just take the wheel and split it back out or I can just undo it there we go so what I can do now is move these in conjunction with each other to the other parts of the vehicle let me uh select this empty and delete it and I'll grab this empty and delete it we can clean that up a bit now what let's do is take these two objects here and let's move the cursor to the center of the grid with shift s one now we need to move the origins of these to the 3d cursor go to object set origin origin to 3d cursor and then if we add a mirror modifier so we do that we have the wheel let's select the tire add modifier mirror and we have the tire over there as well so let's grab that temporary wheel and delete it there we go now we can take this tire in this wheel let's go to the wireframe and let's just duplicate it and move it over here so shift T Y and I'll just drag it over put it right in here let's get rid of those temporary ones here delete here and this one too there we go yeah so that looks pretty good I think as we texture these they're going to look pretty cool with all the treads

Channel: Darrin Lile

Views: 39,678

Rating: 4.9617348 out of 5

Keywords: video game, blender, 3d, animation, tutorial

Id: a90cYLEbpi4

Length: 40min 41sec (2441 seconds)

Published: Sun May 10 2020