This is a test render of the tire and wheel I'll be putting on my roadster model. I made the wheel in Rhino. The tire is based off of litst's tire. I can't figure out why the edges of the tire are angular and not smooth and round. It's a shame the torus preset in the spline modeller can't make perfectly round shapes(they end up slightly squared). I've got a billion questions to ask in the Rhino forum about the wheel. But why is the tire not smooth, I set the surface fidelity to 900% and it still looks bad. kaom

kaom, I know the feeling about the spline modeler! I've had many encounters with it! Unfortionately I don't have any tricks to get rid of that square shape either. I've found that surface fidelity really doesn't matter all that much either...I've created splines with the fidelity cranked up all the way to 10000% and they still came out edgey. I don't know if this is a bug in the programming of C or what's going on. You might want to switch the spline to a vertex model and subdivide and so on from there...Good luck to you! Nice looking wheel btw. I'm working on a car model myself...1957 ford the thing has WAY to many curves though!!! It's possibly the hardest thing I've ever modeled! Good luck to you!!! Jared

rockjockjared, Are you saying that I should convert the tire to a vertex object? If so, would I just subdivide it then apply the smooth edges command? I don't have too much experience in the vertex room, cause it always used to crash on me. What exactly should I do in the vertex room to it after I convert it? Thanks for the encouragement, I appreciate it. I can't wait to see you 57' Ford, cars are one of the biggest challenges I've faced yet in 3D. kaom

that's just a suggestion. You might want to grab a hold of litst and ask him about that one, I always have problems with the torus objects though. Since you have Rhino you might try importing the tire from there...just another suggestion, I've never used it so I have no clue how to do this...but from the looks of the mag wheel, you do! I'll keep you posted on the cars...I'm thinking of doing 3 of the models that they came out with that year...they are all fairly similar. Once again good luck! Jared

Attached Link: http://www.chez.com/litst/index/downloads.htm

Kaom, you did use the torus function, right ? If you look at my tire, you'll see that i used an extruded circle instead . This technique has the advantages to let the circle stay round and to give smooth edges ( i'm at 500% fidelity for close-ups ) . It doesn't work in any case, but it's good enough for a tire . I think i can guess why you get sharp edges with torus extrusion . When you increase the surface fidelity, Carrara makes the cross section smoother, but not the extrusion path . The torus is based on extrusion, so that's why ... It's just a guess and i may be wrong, though . And it doesn't explain why toruses get square . If you really have to convert your shape to the vertex modeller, then follow this : - convert it using a high fidelity if it helps . But it's not necessary, since the mesh will be subdivided . - in the VM, select all and weld with a custom tolerance of 0 . This is to get rid of some vertices that are doubled when you convert a spline to vertex . - Smooth all - Save your file, close it and reopen it . This will reset the normals . - Now you can subdivide the mesh as much as you want . If you have Carrara Studio, then prefer Amapi to subdivide the mesh : the subdivision algorythms are much better . I'm joining the link to the tire file again, for those who'd like to download it . litst litst.@freesbee.fr http://www.chez.com/litst/

litst, This is your tire but I moved some points in the spline room to make the profile of the tire lower. That;s why I'k so confused. I didn't use the torus preset. I tried to make a tire follwing you direction and it's solid. I don't still don't understand how you made it, mine end up being silod. I use a circle preset, symmetrical envelope, and add points, but it ends up being a solid cylinder, not a hollow tire.What am I doing wrong? I want a tire that looks like what I've got above, but smooth, please help. Thanks kaom

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=106&Form.ShowMessage=337923

Oops ! I've forgotten something :P Check out my last message . litst

I've noticed the same "squaring" effect when RayDream 5.0 does a torus extrusion: any part of the cross-section close to the sweep path circle is nicely round, but parts further away from the circle start to square off. The problem seems to stem from the fact that the circular sweep path is only created with four points. Here's a work-around: On the circular sweep path, add points at the 45 degree positions. This smooths out the extrusion further away from the sweep path. Repeat and add points at 22 degree positions around the circle for even more smoothness, etc. See image for an illustration of the steps (RayDream 5, sorry no shader...) Hope this helps!

Great trick ! Thanks for sharing, Transitine :)