After a long while... Car Rendering

[__Leo__]

Hi Folks...

Its been a long time since I posted any work... Any critix are very much welcome....

Leo

[Trapezium]

You should try out some vray shadows on it or at least up the resolution of your shadow maps first. Materials look pretty good but the environment reflected in them is muddy and lacking contrast. Is it a night scene with a street light on the car you're trying to recreate?

[Matt_3D]

The modelling is really good but the shadows spoil the scene. Way too jaggy. Try increasing the shadow map resolution as Trapezium suggested. How is your scene lit?

-Matt

[__Leo__]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the comments..

Trapezium: I was trying to catch a night look (with a full moon) but the problem with it is that the image gets a bit too dark...so I created a foreground section that is lit by lights (some outdoor lights maybe?) Honestly, I dont exactly know why the textures in the scene are muddy... you can see the settings below... I also included a screen shot of the car-paint texture... do you think it would be better to put some lights posts in the background...

Matt_3D: Thanx man... I cant take too much credit for modeling because all I did was some tweaks here and there based a model I got... I attached a screen shot of the scene lights.... the setting for the rendering is what Natty had posted a while ago...is it the light setting thats making it chappy?

[coin-op]

Hey Leo,
I suggest losing the brick ground - those sorts of bricks are used on walls. Also, axe the background image - it makes the car look bad. I would advise to pick a good photo of a car you like and mimic the setup - attempt to match the look and quality - use setups from import tuner or exotic car mags,as they tend to have simple backgrounds and nicer lighting.

The hardest part is getting a good paint - the one you have is too clay-like. Cars are really quite reflective - study some red car paints in photos and real-life to compare. I think the car you picked has some bad lines on it unfortunately - especially the doorlines. It will take a bit of extra work to make that car look good i think...

Also, study the rubber on tires under different lighting conditions - it is lighter than one might think, and has a certain specular look to it - the lighting on your tires is hard to define as to what material it is. Also, the interior has an odd look to it - the white around the top doesn't look good. As well, define the front grill/hood lights better - they look low rez.

I usually use simple light setups for my renders - try going with rectangular lights to reflect in your paint - it helps the car paint look glossy. Experiment with different setups - don't depend on the 'natural setup' your scene gives you - the guys who do car photography sure don't. Look at this link for some ideas:
http://www.wfb4.com/four_flat_setup.html
http://www.wfb4.com/cars_four_flat.html
The last car render i did, i tried about 2 dozen different light setups, and about 50 different types of paint types before i settled on the final ones - it can take a lot of time, especially when learning the ropes. I have about 150 bad renders of my last car to prove it

Study metals, rims especially, to understand how they should look - they are generally not as bright or reflective as the ones in your render - brushed aluminum or smoked/glazed aluminum rims have a diffuse component too. There are tons of rim metals - it is good to recreate ones you find in photos/life.

Try to compose your scene to give focus to an aspect of the car or environment. Currently the rear rim and front headlamp are the main points of focus because they are so bright compared to everything else. Is that where you want people to look? If the scene is so dark, and the headlights so bright, why am i able to see the whitecaps in the background and the blue/green in the water so easily? This is the problem of using photos with renders...
Car renders seem to be susceptible to looking cheezy when photos are placed behind them - I suggest getting some practice and recreat backgrounds that might interest you for the render - just keep them simple or they will take huge amounts of time. Plain white or simple gradients are good when you want all the attention on the car, or do not have time to make a different background. Backgrounds can take longer to get right than the car, so the simpler the better...

Anyway, those are some crits I hope they help you. Don't give up, your work shows promise! I have been rendering for a few years with vray, and i still feel like an amateur next to some of the car/architectur rendering here Being exceptionally anal about details will take you a long way in any type of rendering....

-coin

[arquiteck09]

The Brick ground looks very bad with a model like this one , try some different .

[__Leo__]

Hi again .. and thank you so much for the input..

Coin: I appreciate the info .. soo helpful when its your first try...

Here is what I did .. first of.. I just got rid of everything in the background.... like you said ...makes it alot easier...especialy when rendering.. now Im just trying to tweak the carpaint for a while... and just posted it to get your feedback again.... its a real pain to be going through test renders sooo much..do you think the color should be a bit mor redish??

I kind of fixed the grill in front too ... tell me what you think of that...I also need some textures for the headlight and signals... are there any links you know of??? will start working on windows too....

arquiteck09: I got rid of it I guess.. makes it alot easier.. I will try something different in the future..maybe a photorealistic scene...ofcourse after I get the textures and colors of the car settled... any suggestions on background images???

[mike_kennedy]

Much Better

[__Leo__]

Thanks Mike....

Here I am so far.... still WIP .. if there anything that I am missing.. please point it out... thanks ...

Leo

[percydaman]

the textures for the headlights are really bad. Also some of the edges are razor sharp looking. some beveling might be in order.

[__Leo__]

hmmm .. ok .. let me see what I can do about that .... its tough man its tough ..

do you know where I can find some headlight textures???

[__Leo__]

Ok folks.. Im at a point where I really need your advice and help...

I have been going through a trial and error render test for sometime...it just doesnt seem to work ..

about the inside of the headlight, where the reflective material is... Im trying to make the material reflective enough so that it would simulate some chrome finish feeling..I cant seem to get it.. I have tried texturing it too .. doesnt seem to work either... what am I doing wrong??

Posting the setting for the material too ...

I would very much appreciate any help ...

Thanks in advance...

Leo

[percydaman]

try and recreate the texture of the headlight using physically correct materials and bumpmapping and such. then render the view of it. sort it out in photoshop and youll have a much better texture.

[coin-op]

The render is looking better Leo, I would suggest smoothing the surface of the car - the jagginess takes away from the realism immediately. The doorlines look especially bad - not to mention they make no sense from a construction standpoint. I strongly suggest finding a new car or attempting to build one. What you have for a model will never look great, unfortunately... For high rez renders you should try to have as much as possible be done in modelling.

If you must use textures, try to use displacement/bump mapping - nothing with form is perfectly smooth. Textures look especially bad if they have lighting information in them. I suggest building the material up using separate diffuse/specular/reflection/dirt/bump maps.

The headlight chrome finish looks bad because it is reflecting the environment - which is probably a bunch of white. You need some contrast in the hdri/scene or whatever it is you are reflecting. Note that the white background in the final image need not be the same as your reflection/diffuse lighting solution. The glass looks weak because of this as well - look at car photos and you will see they do special things to make glass look good. To start, a good hdri image will go a long way in this area.

Think of how to make each thing look good - not how to set up lighting/material solution that is is just physically correct - ie: do whatever it takes to make that thing look good , if you get my meaning. I use black cards in my scenes to get better lighting results.

Did you know that in actual photoshoots of cars, the photographers sometimes spray a sort of wax on the car to tone down the extreme white effect of the paint at grazing angles? They also pin black cloth close to the perimeter of the car to darken the edges of the car.

Think creatively...

-coin

[__Leo__]

Thanks Coin.. I really appreciate the comments.. very helpful...

Unfortunatly, as you know, the model is not mine.. therefore tweaking is the only thing that I can do... I have come to a conclusion that it will definitly be hard for me to try to make a vehicle look good when the details have not been taken care of. That might be the reason why I have stopped going ahead with this perticular car model .. I am starting to model a new car from ground zero .. and this will leave me with nothing but resposibility of making a model realistic.... well at least close to realism...

Here is what I found about some cars ... I realised something really odd.. The glossiness on car paints taken in studio is less than the ones taken in an outside environment... interestingly strange!!!! dont you think?? It seems as if they have done this on purpose... the other thing that caught some attention is the headlight.... even though the headlight interior is kind of reflective.. the one in the picture is totally black .. am I mistaken??

Leo