As of this post, Blender 2.8 has been in development for quite some time, and it brings a lot of interface changes to the program (among other things). I’d been meaning to download one of the preview builds for a while now, and finally got the kick in the pants I needed when I started working on a new project with my Divide colleagues from Exploding Tuba, and we decided we’d use 2.8 moving forward. So as I explore the new interface, I’ve begun various projects and tests to make sure I understand how it all works.

This is one such project, where I tried to take the ancient, low-poly 4WD Truck from Stunt Race FX, and make an updated version to render. This was one of the few 3D games available on SNES, and being excited about that (and a fan of racing games), I played a lot of it.

As I worked on this, I tried not to think too hard about the clay models that Nintendo used in various forms to market the game. I wanted to make the render more true to what exists in the game itself, but with a few added details.

I did a second view of the back of the truck too, since that’s what you see most when you play the actual game.

There are a few areas where I might go back in and clean up, such as the places where the roll-bar posts attach to the truck’s bed. I’d also love to create a scene for the truck to live in that looks like one of the courses from the game.

Ultimately though, I’m pretty happy with how the whole thing turned out. I’m still learning Blender 2.8’s interface, and even though this project was a simple one that didn’t take a lot of time, it helped me figure out a lot of stuff.