Automotive Secrets, what are the productions houses workflows and tricks?

[kosso_olli]

Could you share some insights on how it was done? I mean, every render has a different name, are the layers filtered for specific names like *reflection* etc? Come on, how does the magic work?

150 render layers for each car? Sounds like a whole bunch of overlays for each car. Why is that?
I mean, The Scope has a workflow like a traditional car photographer would shoot a car: Light each part seperately. Headlights, wing mirrors, grille etc. This results in about 20-30 seperate renders for each car, is your workflow somewhat similar?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Hehe yea I have some cleaver ways of finding renders in my folder :- )

As to layers well its like photographer does it... it just 1 light pass produce 3 sub passes (diffuse/refl/specular). I also have extra set ups for reflection planes, motion cameras, shadow, interiors and so on. It took me 3 months to code it all. PS was a bit easier so that got wrap up in 3 days ^^

[Mokiki]

Is your nickname in any way related to Ralph Richter?

I'm pretty sure its him :- )

Yep I work for Ralph Richter. I do most of the cg stuff for him.

Render Pass Compositing, Useful passes for compositing/ retouch, how do you use different passes in post, which are the most valuable other than mattes,

We usually use the beauty pass as basis for our post work. And add passes like reflection/refraction on top with heavy uses of masks. Sometimes reflections are even painted from scratch because you wouldn't get them any other way or at least not without a lot of headaches. We had to do a job with a mini once and the client wanted a certain reflection on the hood to outline some kind of form that isn't even there on the original car. In the end the client was happy but to us it just looked off and unpleasing

Micro Noise / Surface Imperfections, is much of this going on in commercial ad work?

I sometimes try to slip it in but most of the times clients don't want any imperfections on their car.

Tires, Modelled or displaced tread? Whats preferred? What works best?

Modeled tire but the side details displaced/or bump depending on the perspective. But you don't always have a modeled as an option so we had 1 or two cases where we used photos of real tires and "cloned stamped" the details in. All in all you use what you can.

Camera backplate matching? techniques, matching settings of something complex, like an Alpa stitch on a phase-one back, guesswork? or are there real values we can use for sensor size and lens,

At least for us most of the time its guess work because sadly nowadays clients rely on stock footage and they send a link with the background they'd like and not always camera values are known. Or we get a premade background where someone already distorted the perspective. But I'm sure this is different for all of us.

The Max perspective match tool seems hit or miss, I could be using it wrong, Or are shots just matched creatively by eye, or backplates worked in retouch to match the car?

I don't like the max perspective tool. I used it once or twice and I never get a good conversion to a vray cam. The perspective is always off.

Horizontal and vertical shift, are these used creatively on shots to skew perspective?

We never had to use it.

Who picks the heights angles and lens's, I know car company's do this sort of thing for photography but is it the same in cgi? does the cg artist get a say?

Sadly the brief usually has pretty strict guidelines on perspective etc. So we have little room to be creative. But if we see something that might work better we do a quick mock up and send it to the agency. And we had a few jobs where the client was using teamviewer to finalize the perspective with us.

Vray Sun or direct light, for boosting Sun power? Plus creating crisp shadows, what opinions are there on this?

No real answer for that it depends on what is needed. Sometimes we just check how the shadow would fall in CG but paint it in photoshop.

What cool location rigs are available for cgi work? Real life rigs not talking about cgi rigging,

I have to get some feedback on this I know my boss likes to work with 1 special company, but I forgot the name.

Is anyone cgi rigging their cars for easy positioning? Ie suspension, ride height, wheel angle, speed, lights on / off, doors open/closed I can imagine this to be handy in a little menu, but is the work involved just overkill?

For stills that would be overkill. I only did 1 rig for an animation and that is 2 years ago.

Modo with vray is anybody going to switch? Modo seems the perfect tool for automotive work to me, modelling, retopology, etc, will it be as well integrated as in max? Also an osx version would be nice!

Not really we do alot more than automotive and modo doesn't seem ready yet to make the switch. Additionally from the few times I used it I didn't like it one bit. Their materialsystem really annoys me :P

[Wilyman]

Render Pass Compositing, Useful passes for compositing/ retouch, how do you use different passes in post, which are the most valuable other than mattes,

I tend to stick to TotalLighting, Refraction, Reflection, Specular, and then maybe an AO pass with VrayDirt, but that often just leaves the shutlines looking too pronounced.
Other than that, just loads of multimattes to mask off each component.

Micro Noise / Surface Imperfections, is much of this going on in commercial ad work?

No harm in a bit of that, as long as it's not overdone. Some clients want a bit of imperfection to add to the realism of the shot. Some want their cars to look perfect.

Tires, Modelled or displaced tread? Whats preferred? What works best?

Modelled always works best, no question.

Camera backplate matching? techniques, matching settings of something complex, like an Alpa stitch on a phase-one back, guesswork? or are there real values we can use for sensor size and lens,

There are real values you can use for a Phase One sensor. Off the top of my head it's 51mm wide.
But usually, it's just about making it look good, rather than matching to the millimetre.

The Max perspective match tool seems hit or miss, I could be using it wrong, Or are shots just matched creatively by eye, or backplates worked in retouch to match the car?

Never used it. Sorry.
The camera match tool can be useful occasionally though, especially if you can get some kind of reference object in your shot.

Horizontal and vertical shift, are these used creatively on shots to skew perspective?

Not in my experience, no.

Who picks the heights angles and lens's, I know car company's do this sort of thing for photography but is it the same in cgi? does the cg artist get a say?

The car companies will often be fairly clear on the sorts of angles they want to shoot, and then it's up to the photographer and creative director to make it work.
Whether you'll get a say as a CG artist will depend on the photographer and CD.

Vray Sun or direct light, for boosting Sun power? Plus creating crisp shadows, what opinions are there on this?

I'd maybe do a separate render with a VRaySun beforehand just for the shadow, but probably not use it in the scene with the HDR.
Ideally you'd have an HDR with a high enough range to give you a decent shadow.
Grant Warwick's done a very interesting tutorial on HDR lighting as part of his Mastering VRay series, in which he deals with that very problem. I'd definitely check that out if you haven't already.

What cool location rigs are available for cgi work? Real life rigs not talking about cgi rigging,

I'm not 100% sure I'm clear on what you're asking here, but if you mean a CGI dolly, then there are a few different places that do them. I know a couple of photographers that have built their own, or else there are people like Move and Shoot that hire them out.

Is anyone cgi rigging their cars for easy positioning? Ie suspension, ride height, wheel angle, speed, lights on / off, doors open/closed I can imagine this to be handy in a little menu, but is the work involved just overkill?

Only the wheels, as you'll often need them spinning, or the front wheels turned. Anything else is overkill for stills.

Modo with vray is anybody going to switch? Modo seems the perfect tool for automotive work to me, modelling, retopology, etc, will it be as well integrated as in max? Also an osx version would be nice!

No chance. Just like Oliver said above, I found the material system infuriating. I'm happy to stick with Max, and the extra bugs they give us every year!

Cheers,

John

[Yannick]

Render Pass Compositing, Useful passes for compositing/ retouch, how do you use different passes in post, which are the most valuable other than mattes,
Micro Noise / Surface Imperfections, is much of this going on in commercial ad work?

Specular, Reflection, Refraction, Normal, Mattes per material, matte shadow. Mostly depend on the retoucher, I have colleague that don't use anything (they are use to work with photo, so they trace their matte and retouch without passes).
I rarelly had to add any imperfection, lot of car manufacturer want the car to be perfect.

Tires, Modelled or displaced tread? Whats preferred? What works best?

Modelled tyres with bump for the side.

Camera backplate matching? techniques, matching settings of something complex, like an Alpa stitch on a phase-one back, guesswork? or are there real values we can use for sensor size and lens,

match camera spec (if known) otherwise by eyes.
But 50% of the time, I do a camera angle study (with or without the photographer), then the photographer matches my angles.

The Max perspective match tool seems hit or miss, I could be using it wrong, Or are shots just matched creatively by eye, or backplates worked in retouch to match the car?

A lot of the time, the car doesn't match the backplate, either because it wasn't shot as intended or because it look better.

Horizontal and vertical shift, are these used creatively on shots to skew perspective?

nope never used it

Who picks the heights angles and lens's, I know car company's do this sort of thing for photography but is it the same in cgi? does the cg artist get a say?Alistair

All depends on project and photographer
most of the time I would do it as it is better to pick the angle before the shoot as it saves money and because most of the time, their isnt the car..
Some car manufacturer do angle study internally, then give you a set of angles that are approved, so they need to be matched. GM does that. I use to work there and was selecting these angles.

Vray Sun or direct light, for boosting Sun power? Plus creating crisp shadows, what opinions are there on this?

Depnds on shot and client, some like hard shadow, some don't. So either shadow created from the hdri of soft light or a directional for hard shadows.

What cool location rigs are available for cgi work? Real life rigs not talking about cgi rigging,

Is anyone cgi rigging their cars for easy positioning? Ie suspension, ride height, wheel angle, speed, lights on / off, doors open/closed I can imagine this to be handy in a little menu, but is the work involved just overkill?

I sometime rig the car, specially for dynamic shot, but most of the time, no need.

Modo with vray is anybody going to switch? Modo seems the perfect tool for automotive work to me, modelling, retopology, etc, will it be as well integrated as in max? Also an osx version would be nice!

I have colleague using Modo for automotive jobs, but at the time they creat only environments and props, mainly because all the CAD data is provided as a Maya file.


Just to add something about the hdri, you never use the raw hdr, all the nice images you see, are usually using a modified HDRi, sometime using a combinasion of several hdri (example: http://www.cgifocus.com/wp-content/u...Approved_1.jpg there are 4 or 5 hdri merged).

Also it was mentioned how German car images are a bit more bling. They love to have strong reflection making the image hyper realist. Also it is mainly down to the photographer's style and you will notice it is always the same 3 or 4 photographers. American also like the extra strong reflection.

Yannick

[ali_cgi]

Just to add something about the hdri, you never use the raw hdr, all the nice images you see, are usually using a modified HDRi, sometime using a combinasion of several hdri (example: http://www.cgifocus.com/wp-content/u...Approved_1.jpg there are 4 or 5 hdri merged).

Thanks for this Info Yannick very insightful! Reallly nice work on your website two, any info on exactly how these hdri's would be merged? i notice they are all at a similar location but different areas of the place?

Cheers

Alistair

[ali_cgi]

Hi John, Thanks for your feedback again, really helpful,

I tend to stick to TotalLighting, Refraction, Reflection, Specular, and then maybe an AO pass with VrayDirt, but that often just leaves the shutlines looking too pronounced.
Other than that, just loads of multimattes to mask off each component.

How well does the Totalighting, Refraction, Reflection, Specualar comp together? Is it a perfect match

I'd maybe do a separate render with a VRaySun beforehand just for the shadow, but probably not use it in the scene with the HDR.
Ideally you'd have an HDR with a high enough range to give you a decent shadow.
Grant Warwick's done a very interesting tutorial on HDR lighting as part of his Mastering VRay series, in which he deals with that very problem. I'd definitely check that out if you haven't already.

Yeh excellent videos from grant warick especially the hdri one for boosting the sun and matching things up

I'm not 100% sure I'm clear on what you're asking here, but if you mean a CGI dolly, then there are a few different places that do them. I know a couple of photographers that have built their own, or else there are people like Move and Shoot that hire them out.

Yeh I'm talking about company's like move and shoot here, they offer a cgi dolly on their website, then under the accessory's they offer some kind of moving hdri add on for the dolly?

No chance. Just like Oliver said above, I found the material system infuriating. I'm happy to stick with Max, and the extra bugs they give us every year!

Yeh Ive been having a look at modo, but have the same opinion, the material editor is very odd, please give us a normal one!
Although you see some fantastic images being produced with it, so still reluctant to give up on it,

Thanks again

Alistair

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

The passes usually give you beauty if u stack them in 32 bit. Once u drop down to 16/8 u get miss match. I normally dont care about it as my renders looks bad and I mostly care about the retouching part.

[Yannick]

Thanks for this Info Yannick very insightful! Reallly nice work on your website two, any info on exactly how these hdri's would be merged? i notice they are all at a similar location but different areas of the place?

Cheers

Alistair

Hi,

I have merged hdri from completely different location, like taking the sky from on location, the sun from another one and blending it to a third location.
This is all done in Photoshop (Extended) with a mix of exposure filter and cloning tool. The trick is to have hdri with the same level of intensity and colours, if there are not you have to bring them to the same range of value with exposure, saturation filters and masks.

Another thing, is that I never only use and hdri to light my cars, I have always a few rec light with texture mapped to underline the car's curves/

Yannick

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

Sorry to bring up this old thread - although I haven't read through the whole thing i must say it is incredible interesting still now though!
I am having trouble with a scene of five cars, about which you can read here
https://forums.chaosgroup.com/showth...-data-to-Proxy

Any suggestions on this from those who also work with cars? Would be very much appreciated!

[seandunderdale]

Anyone fancy bringing this thread back to life? I feel having read through much of this, a lot of things have changed since 2014. Namely, raw renders can look like a photo stand in car in the framebuffer these days, and the post work done on a render shouldn't be to make it look real anymore (that should be a given) but it should be as in photography where you're combining different captures / beauties. For eg. on set the photographe might shoot their hero at 5pm, but have been capturing shots all day to use for different highlights to use in comp. I feel that's where we are now in CG. Its easy to get a real looking car in the framebuffer and it feels much closer to photography now.

[kosso_olli]

These days we are trying to get most stuff done inside the renderer. The less post work is needed, the better. We had jobs where we only relied on the RGB image instead of render passes. Often we also bake in a calibrated LUT of different DSLR's into the image. You lose the dynamic range, but it just looks so much better! A linear EXR can be very hard to get looking right, it totally depends on the skill of the retouch artist. A lot of things can get messed up in post.
Also render times are so quick these days (high-res interiors being an exception), you can easily render different sets of lights, reflection etc. and comp them together, just like you would do with real photos.

[seandunderdale]

Totally agree. If you are going into photoshop, and your lighting matches the reference car, then I don't see the point in rendering fully linear (unless you're going into Nuke). If I don't need glare and glow in the framebuffer I'll fully tonemap with reinhard / exponential, and if its a headlight / tail light shot with a full range HDRI, I'll even clamp everything at 1.0. I don't need anything over that in Photoshop. I'll bake in DOF, motion blur, everything. I also work only on beauties. I cant remember the last time I used the render elements in a photoshop comp to rebuild the beauty. I'll use them to supplement and maybe boost highlights, but that's it.

[kosso_olli]

So, it's been another 3 years since the last post. Anything I missed in the meantime?

[^Lele^]

Do you make any use of the Lightmix, perhaps in creative ways?