Big Trucks!

[kriscabrera15]

Hey guys working on some style frames for a client and wanted to get some feedback see what you guys think. Basically all i was told was to put these trucks in a parking lot at night with the floor wet. Here is what i came up with. Personally i think they should be in some sort of quarry with industrial machinery and mounds of rocks but that's me. Would love to get some ideas from you guys. Hope everyone had a great holiday!

[cheerioboy]

I'd maybe push the blacks a little darker - and try some camera views from lower height to make the trucks feel larger
otherwise it looks like you have a nice parking lot setup with the foliage in the background. nice work

[Neilg]

They're over lit, that and the angle make them look like toys. Maybe go for earlier than full night time - something dusky so they can get some deep blue colors on the go. If you're going full night you'll need more color in the lighting poles & tons of atmosphere (you should probably get a ton of fog/flares in the background anyway). The poles in the background don't seem to be contributing anything to the scene and the lighting/highlights on the trucks doesn't make sense. Right now all the lighting is too white and too even too, there's no life to it.

Picking a time like this (but even later & heavily graded) - http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/med...um-college.jpg
will allow you to go for a really black sky, show some stars and get the feel of night time but give you the opportunity to introduce more color in the reflections. You still wont have any sun, it's already set at that point.

[kriscabrera15]

thanks for the suggestions guys!

cubiclegangster: i was going more for a night photo shoot. I did try a round where it was just environment lit but the client wasnt happy since the trucks were to dark, in this case they wanted to pop the trucks out from the enviroment so my only resort that i though was to make it feel like a night photo shoot. I still think the lighting could use some help though. Might try an earlier time.

will adjust and go for another round

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I think shaders could use a lot of help... and camera position and definietly lighting. Also texture of floor the white lines are bit blury + lots and lots of PS to make it look good in my eyes...

[kriscabrera15]

Hey Dadal, yes the lighting and camera position are definetly being worked on. As for the textures on the white lines I will make a highrez versions. As far as the shaders what were u thinking could use help and tips? Also lighting wise I am open to suggestions on creating night shoots like this is seems to be a bit of a challenge for me, since lights are specific to environment. Any advice is appreciated!

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I think I would work very hard on HDR- maybe take one from tesco parking spot at night. Then I would add some extra lights to bring up the trucks. At some point I will start tweaking shaders. Definitely u need some DOF for background - not big one just the one u would normally have at lets say F12-16. Create extra passes for chrome parts. Maybe for window. Even fog/smoke would be nice. If definitely replace backplate now it looks like rain.

[kriscabrera15]

Thanks DADAL gonna hit that up! what techniques do you use a chrome pass for in post? also is tesco a company who sells HDR?? I did add some extra lights for the truck, do they seem out of place at the moment? for the back plate they wanted it to seem like a wet floor to have some reflections etc.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Thats great hit it hard!

Chrome... well I would make sure my chrome is properly set up.. .atm ur chrome appears to have specular? Thats a bit incorect... further more.. TESCO is a market... u know the big one! They usually have big car parks... go and take 9-18 stop HDR for ur scene Maybe even backplates! As to environment I think I would darker it down a lot. Atm it seems like its in fog... I would also lit 1 truck at a time and render them all separate.

[kriscabrera15]

oh lol am in the states never heard of Tesco but i imagine its like cosco out here. yes i do have specular at the moment on the chrome(i know its not correct but i didnt want to get any nasty spec hits that would cause sampling issues) So would you usually add kicker lights or just have the environment to all the work?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

U dont have tesco in US? :O (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesco) Refl chrome. It depends. Normally I'd like to get it to look nice with HDR, if that fails id add few gradients to reflect to spice it up. Depends on environment.

[kriscabrera15]

yea i dont think so its the first time i head of it, but yea its like a costco over here. well in my case i have a surrounding environment since there is gonna be some 360 animation beauty shots for the truck. i did customize the current hdri i have but i dont think its helping much since my enviroment blocks it a bit.Its really just giving color and sky to the image. here is the one am using.




How do you feel about it, here is an image with the HDRI and the environment with 1 truck








Thanks for the help Dadal!

[Neilg]

The hdri looks like it's been desaturated, i'd just ditch it. you'v built an environment, the only thing you're getting from that is the ugly grey sky. swap it out for a guthrie dusk one, maybe run it through a color correct if you need more control over the color.

Look at reference, copy these colors and lighting -
http://kurtztrucking.files.wordpress...ht-truck-4.jpg

And then move all your light poles closer, change them from the white you have to a much warmer color and make the spread much wider to actually cast across the trucks. The light poles are currently only lighting up their own pole, they're barely affecting the ground.

Also do a fog pass of each light separately - the headlights, the poles, & the orange lights on the truck so you can mix them with more control.

e: this is a good reference too - http://www.wallpapersonly.net/wallpa...t-1440x900.jpg

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Right I definietly dont like the cloudy sky. Its the 1st thing I'd get rid off. Either replace in HDR or just black it out.

I would split this scene in to 6 renders.
2x just trucks no background - invisible to camera background
2x just background no trucks - hidden trucks
1x Shadow pass of trucks on floor
1x Reflection of trucks in floor

I would render 2x trucks to get HDR only lighting + second render with scene lights and maybe some custom lights
I would render the same way BG as trucks above.
I would render all lights separetly.
I would NOT use GI -unless there is big difference
I would compt it all in post bit by bit and take the best looking parts from all renders.
I would render stuff like World based normal map, RAW passes refl/refr/light/diffuse/reflFilter/refrFilter/spec/etc ]
I would get extra passes for reflection/headlights details and so on.

It really comes down to ur budged, time and how good u want it to look tbh... List above its what I would do for car adverts...

The camera looks a lot nicer now in my eyes...

[kriscabrera15]

Thanks for all the info guys definitely going to put it into work!,really appreciate it. When you guys are doing the skies do you use an HDR in the domelight or are u using a shpere with a lightmtl? Not to happy with the sky myself gonna look into buying some sky maps. Budget wise i have sometime to work on it its just my first night "CG SHOOT" and i want to make it look as good as possible.

gonna have some more wips soon!