what do I do to design cars for a living?

[M!ke]

Actually, it was quite a while ago when I made this decision, but now I am finnally going to ask about it.

Any people with any idea on how to get started with this profession, please feel free to tell me how to get started.

[mentaleruptions]

A pencil and a sketchpad is what u need then draw down some ideas im sure that will get u going .

Mental

[CVO Chris]

Hmm, Engineering Science, Mathematics, 3D CAD, Physics and Art are just a few guesses of what you might need. Can't be specific though as I've got no idea.

[M!ke]

i do alot of sketching
I already have a few good ones, if I had a scanner I would show you one.

[aversion]

as chris said you're going to need a lot of technical knowledge and skills with CAD stuff. You'll need at least a batchelors degree, there are special courses at most good art colleges for tech/mech design. I know someone who went to the royal college of art in london on a technical design course and he said almost everyone there doing car design was sponsored by a manufacturer, so that's somethign else you could look into.

[M!ke]

I got that part, and their are two colleges, one in Detroit, and one in like San Francisco that people go to and are recognized mainly for designing cars.

I'm planning to go to one of those colleges, unless some one has any other good colleges...

[lafunk]

you definitely need a degree in engineering. just because you know some cad program doesn't mean you can just design a car! that's going to take a lot of hard work and about 4 years of university.

[M!ke]

that's why I'm going to college in Detriot or San Francisco, I read that most people who go there usually end up designing cars.

[lafunk]

do you have the grades/brains to be in a school like that?

[M!ke]

I'm on the honer roll, college prep., and in a something called upward bound, it is a program to get poor*, but smart people into college.

Upward Bound is not for stupid people, it is sponcered by the government to give students a little college experiance before going there


*OK mabey poor is overdoing it, I'm not poor, actually i am quite well off, how about low income families.

[M!ke]

I'm sopposed to turn off the internet now, but if you have any more suggestions e-mail me at mikelith@yahoo.com

[gerbick]

turn off the internet?

CAD/CAM and learning programs like Alias Studio 10, Pro/E, among other programs would be advantageous.

Oh, and learn how to sculpt clay - for concepts, that is...

[justice strike]

actually designing isn't being done by humans perse anymore... you just give a basic figure set the values (like resistance etc..) and the computer generates a design. I't isn't really possible to make a design yourself... ofcourse the interior design is a other question.

anyway this means you'll be handling alot of mathematics and engineering.. and actually not so much design.

[Jemadah]

Hello Mike,

I recently went to the Video forum in wembley in London, at this conference there was a Maya Demo by a car designer which was rather interesting. If you want to get into Car design I would suggest that you get into 3d Modelling, as this forms the basics of most design work nowadays, The proceedure from what I gathered is to model from scethes, There are many sites that give you car blueprints enableing you to get practise in, one of my favourites is http://www.suurland.com/ where a vast archieve of most car blueprints can be found and is a great place to get started and to also see some fine example work.

The guy whos site it is is called Thomas Suurland.

These 2 pictures are 1 of his blueprints and one of his 3d models.





Peace out..

P.s its very good to be focussed on an idea of what you want to do..

[hurricaneone]

That Beetle image is very nice. The light reflections are excellent.

Not done in Maya (I don't think anyway), but fun to check out all the same are the images at http://www.turbosquid.com. The links been posted before, but it has some great work.

[TallGuyLittleCar]

art center in pasadena has a transportation design program that is often recruited from

http://www.artcenter.edu/

I looked into it, but then discovered that not only can I not think outside the box. I seem to be stuck in the fender of an e-type