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Author Topic: a look into the future of sports cars...  (Read 10525 times)

megapheesh

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a look into the future of sports cars...
« on: January 07, 2011, 02:55:50 am »

Im fairly obsessed with automobile design and have slowly been improving my ability to create models likes this one...  I have a hard time with texturing, I haven't the slightest idea how to properly simulate glossy paint and I would like to gather advice on how to do so with anim8or... so any advice is welcome  ;D

here are some early renders
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ENSONIQ5

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Re: a look into the future of sports cars...
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2011, 04:38:46 am »

Nice design Megapheesh, very aggressive, the back is particularly striking.  Emulating automotive duco is notoriously difficult in Anim8or, due to the complex nature of the real surface and the relative simplicity of Anim8or's materials.  Real car duco is layered, with base colour coats overlaid with clear layers.  The Glossy Reflector attribute in the ART renderer can be used to give a reasonably good effect (see the v0.97 Preview link in the menu at left for documentation on how to use it).  In my past attempts at simulating automotive paint surfaces, the best result I achieved was by attempting to recreate how real paint works by actually creating a second surface slightly 'above' or outside the original.  The inner surface was coloured and given a slightly orange-peel-like, matt surface treatment, like how paint settles after being sprayed, to scatter the incident light.  The outer surface was mostly transparent with moderate reflections, emulating a clear coat.  It took a lot of tweaking and test rendering and the result was not quite what I had hoped for, but it was reasonable.  If using this process I would recommend making a small test model of a couple of flat panels which will render quickly, with which you can experiment with different settings.
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3Dgeek11

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Re: a look into the future of sports cars...
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2011, 05:09:02 am »

I can't offer any tips that ENSONIQ hasn't, so I'm just gonna say, well done. It's looking superb. :)
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ADSohr

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Re: a look into the future of sports cars...
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2011, 12:35:27 pm »

@megapheesh     The design you have there is interesting, but I can tell you made a hundred cubes and slapped them together, only slightly modifying the cubes in order to get the general form down. May I suggest a new method of modeling that produces much more harmony in the design? Right now you have the fender intersecting with the hood, and the hood is sticking out much farther than the front bumper(or it at least appears too). Nothing seems really connected, like these parts belong together. The hood of a Mustang, the front end of an Audi, the back end of an Enzo Ferrari, all mix and matched together.

Here is a long series of videos that show how to model a car so it looks like it is separate pieces (most cars have separate panels) and yet it is connected and clean. It's made for Blender 2.5, but he rarely uses a tool you can't find in Anim8or. I suggest everyone watch it all the way through. It's long and tedious, but he shows lots of good tips and tricks. http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/12/05/modeling-a-porsche-911-gt3-rs-part-01/

I suggest you make several paper drawings of your car designs before you model them. It'll help out lots. And check out Simon's Audi TT here on the forum: http://www.anim8or.com/smf/index.php?topic=3290.0

If it sounds like I'm criticizing lots, it's because I feel you have enough talent to improve. Not everyone can box model a car like that. Bravo!

It might help if I actually gave the link.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2011, 11:16:41 pm by ADSohr »
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dwsel

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Re: a look into the future of sports cars...
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2011, 12:54:47 pm »

I always suggest rendering in passes for later compositing :D I prepared quick example of car paint for you (maybe a bit exaggerated one ;) )


FIRST - some car paint shader science:

this document years ago made me understand a bit what makes car paint:
http://www.hello-napalm.com/tuts/brzl_shaders_04.html

look at the images in these pdfs:
http://developer.amd.com/media/gpu_assets/ShaderX2_LayeredCarPaintShader.pdf
http://www.mariomalagrino.com/car-paint-material.pdf

optional:
http://www.lamrug.org/resources/doc/paint.html
http://www.kxcad.net/autodesk/3ds_max/Autodesk_3ds_Max_9_Reference/car_paint_material_shader_mental_ray.html

SUMMARIZING:
- we need several layers
1. Base paint with soft specular (in my example it has very different colours for ambient, diffuse and specular, but it's not necessary).
2. Fresnel (angle dependent) reflection of environment + sharp highlights (comming from coating layer).
3. Reflective/non reflective flakes layer (i.e. sparkling like glitter or mica) that typically occurs between these two layers - optional.
4. Other coatings (light/angle dependant) - optional.

MAKING OF (Anim8tor):
1. Base paint does not need no explaination I think.
2. Reflection material is made out of sharp specular without diffuse/ambient + specular reflection attribute for ART renderer. You will NEED some environment to be reflected in your paint. I've googled and quickly set up some random LDRI as an enviro map ( http://www.openfootage.net/?cat=6 http://openfootage.net/Openfootage/Vorschau/ContactSheetGaisberg2.jpg ), but you can use whatever you decide is suitable. You'll need fresnel mask as well (as I'm not sure if ART supports it directly), but that later.
3. For flakes layer I used the same as for reflection pass but made specular softer and wider, and changed attribute to glossy. Then I took advantage of low antialiasing settings (9 samples in this example) and lower resolution (to make flakes bigger: to have 4 px instead of 1 px - for speed and demonstration purposes). This is also good idea to play with some marble textures in this shader.
4. Masks are rendered with simple white diffuse (better with no specular or ambient) on white or black background - depends on need (without enviro map/other objects). Lighting map is simply our object with this material rendered on the black background. Fresnel map is rendered with single light located in the exact location of camera (turn other lights off and turn light located wel... kinda under the camera on) with the white background this time.
Read about masks more in Dotan8 - our Anim8tor zine from March 2010: http://www.dotan8.com/html/issues.html (You've got also basic car paint example in that article)

MAKING OF (GIMP/Photoshop/whatever else that has the layers):
1. Base image
2. Reflection layer with inversed fresnel transparency mask
3. Flakes (2x of original layer size, scaled without interpolation, then I spread pixels a bit using filter to make the layer loose its pixelated nature) with light mask.
4. Other layers and combinations (for example I put fresnel to light up the edges and coloured it to the green shade). Then play with blending modes, colour balance, contrast and lightness of the layers and their masks.

If you go more into the topic, use more textures, masks, colours you'll be able to get some fantastic effects, maybe even some chameleon car paint type? 8)

If you have some questions or problems with the setup just drop the comment in this topic and I'll reply ASAP. I'm not dead yet, I'm still visitor of these forums just didn't have a time to make 3d works lately.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2011, 01:00:06 pm by dwsel »
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megapheesh

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Re: a look into the future of sports cars...
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2011, 01:22:51 am »

incredible feed back you guys, Im experimenting with your collective advice.. ill post a few test renders as soon as I figure it out a little better 8)

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