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Comment by AlexMuir | Hacker News Reader

The honest truth: This whole car is headed for the scrapyard at the end because it's not worth the extra time ($$$ per hour) while we film to mark parts, directions, alignments etc. I mark things when there's time. We're also modeling the whole thing in 3D and I'm sure the guys doing that will be mixing the bolts and fixings up. I'm kind of interested in how well it runs after this reckless teardown and rebuild.

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Ah, there is a commercial angle to this. Ok, that explains it. I've done a couple of rebuilds and marking parts is something I do religiously otherwise the rebuild won't live long.

You could probably get some $$$ back if you put the car up for sale (as a "for parts or not working/not roadworthy", to avoid any possible liability issues) --- I don't know about the market for Miatas, but I know that there are automotive collectors out there who are interested in cars that have "interesting" histories.

>We're also modeling the whole thing in 3D ...

Can you elaborate on the process for this? I'm curious what software you're using, how many modelers you have, and if you're using 3D scanning equipment.

Modeling everything by hand has to be unimaginably laborious.

Incredible work by the way, you've already sold me as a customer. :)

We're making it all by hand because it needs to be relatively low poly for the app and website :) I'll write about the process when we've figured it out completely. I'd say we are about 70% done on the modeling. Rigging and animating is a whole other animal.

This was the state of the engine a few days ago - all internals are done. https://twitter.com/howacarworks/status/895417122385481728

Very nice.

In that case, I suppose the most utility 3D scans would have is as references to enable a faster low-poly modeling workflow.

Then again, scanning would likely incur a non-trivial time cost—one that can't outweigh the very benefits the process affords.

We use photogrammetry for the block, head, dashboard and transmission. It's invaluable for these organic parts. Then retopologized.

BLENDER IS AWESOME.

Blender is amazing. Check out the new Eevee realtime renderer[1] in 2.8 as well! It's astonishing :)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAVjwXEjDdo

I'd be as much interested in a 'making of' as I am in the final product you are making.

The amount of things to do on this project is incredible. When I embarked I thought we'd shoot 'making of' stuff all the way, but the reality is that even filming the film is hard enough work - to film the filming of the film would just be too much. I'd like to go back at the end and cover how we do some things - we really learned a lot. The other reason it's hard to do a 'making of' is that I actually don't know how to do this stuff, so we'd waste a lot of time explaining how to do it, only to discover a better way two weeks later.

> The other reason it's hard to do a 'making of' is that I actually don't know how to do this stuff, so we'd waste a lot of time explaining how to do it, only to discover a better way two weeks later.

That's exactly why a making of would be interesting. Here's an idea: shoot all that stuff anyway, with a single fisheye camera so that if you ever decide to do a making of you at least have some raw material to work with. Documenting this work that you are doing would have lasting value.

You are spending so much time and money tearing that poor Miata apart.

What inspired this?

It's a Miata, so it was probably inspired by hate.

I kid, Miata fans.

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