The Retro

[Kamikaze]

It's a bute, lovely modeling, I want one...

 

Michael

[oakchas]

Great Job, Dan!

 

Now, finish the inside and open a door!

[DanCBradbury]

Great Job, Dan!

 

Now, finish the inside and open a door!

lol if only it were that easy.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Wonderful model dan!

 

Only thing that strikes me as odd is the flatness of the hood. But that's an artistic or stylistic preference.

 

The model itself ROCKS! Wonderful use of splinage.

 

 

Look forward to seeing more from you!

[DanCBradbury]

hm... i've fixed the hood so it's not so very flat. It looks much better than the original. Anyway, here's a front shot of the car with all it's new changes and a Silver-grey paint job

[phnxpyre]

WOW

 

that is absolutely amazing.

[agep]

Great model love the design!

[martin]

Wowzer! I want one of those.

[DanCBradbury]

thanks you guys I used the distortion grid tool to fix the very odd upward curve at the front of the car. It had looked like a fish for a while, but now it's flat and looks more like a low rider. Only one thing though, is there a minimum requirment for tire diameters? i'd like to lower the car but at the moment there isnt much room because the tires are just about pressed up agains the weel wells.

 

Anywho, here's the new side profile, and a back shot.

 

I need to make an error report about these line shadows that just pop up in random locations on the ground plane.

[oakchas]

Martin, as soon as TWO is a success, you may have one built! (like you need my permission!)

 

Dan, I owned a Subaru 360 (imagine, a 360 cc 2 cycle motor!) that had 10" wheels (entire vehicle weighed in at about 850# and it was street legal). It looked a bit like a "toy" VW Beetle. So add about 3" of sidewall, and you have 16" tire/wheel diameter.

 

I may be mistaken, but I believe the current lower legal limit is 12" wheel. Some of the Festivas, or Metros had them.

 

But... A car with that much "bonnet" (hood) must have at least a V10 under her. 12-13" wheels too small... Go for a 16" wheel with a very low profile (the low profile eliminates all that sidewall rubber) tire... 20 or 30 series. Chrome rims... Please, no spinners! Be a good "gangsta" look, it would suit the "line" of the car... Or, at least not hurt it.

 

Of course many low riders feature an air suspension that will let them park "slammed" (let all the air out of the shocks, and she sits right on the tarmac) Ride in them that way, it's horrible. But, raise them up to standard height, and they ride like a submarine under water..... Smoooooooooth!

 

PS> Showed your Retro to the Gearhead here, he likes it.... And offered a suggestion for the door hinging. Gullwing! Ala Mercedes! Gives enough clearance for ease of ingress/egress, you have enough roof support with the center pillar in the windshield. Downside is splitting the roof a bit so it is a tru gull wing...

 

front view open: _     _

                             \_/

                              ||

This is the pillar----^

[ypoissant]

I see that you are using the Ufizi light probe as the environment map. Did you convert it to OpenEXR or to a format such as TGA? Did you try to map an OpenEXR of this environment?

[DanCBradbury]

i changed the tire size to about 13". Is 4.5" a good car height oakchas? anywho, it looks much better now with the lower profile. I cant imagine what the people who drive them suspended like that are thinking. SPEEDBUMP!! woop... your whole car is totaled now. lol

 

 

I see that you are using the Ufizi light probe as the environment map. Did you convert it to OpenEXR or to a format such as TGA? Did you try to map an OpenEXR of this environment?

?? you lost me there yves. I just used the environment map material and the 360x360 image from collins paint material. The only thing is the maps a .tga and has no exposure data, so the reflections aren't very dynamic at all. I'm thinking about doing some ldr to make the scene fit to it's reflection, or better yet some hdr if you can tell me exactly how you were able to increase the cap for reflectivity values beyond 100%.

 

here's a new progressive render for the side view. I think it looks much better now.

[oakchas]

Lookin' good!

 

Would it ride that low? Well 2" exhaust hangin under the bumper... leaves 2.5" ground clearance. might cross RR tracks okay. Speed bumps? Prolly not... but with an air suspension... it could rise to the occasion. As it is, (parked, that is) 4.5" may be a skosh high... but fully acceptable. Hiway cruisin... another 1-2" be okay. Urban pothole and cobblestone environment pavement... maybe another inch more.

 

Dan, you can quit fiddlin' any time... don't let me push you... It looks really great. Too much better and too much more practical reality, and you might as well start production... It's a nice thing to look at. Martin's prolly the only one among us who could afford to get it built, and it's almost really buildable now... at least from the concept viewpoint. There would (undoubtedly)have to be a couple of tweaks to make it more than a trailer queen. And it would prolly never get approved for road use in California!

 

I've really enjoyed watching this thing "become." Great work... Thanks for sharing it.

[ypoissant]

?? you lost me there yves. I just used the environment map material and the 360x360 image from collins paint material. The only thing is the maps a .tga and has no exposure data, so the reflections aren't very dynamic at all.

 

The Uffizi

is one of the HDRI probes available from Debevec Web site. I'm pretty sure I recognize it in the car reflections.

 

I'm thinking about doing some ldr to make the scene fit to it's reflection, or better yet some hdr if you can tell me exactly how you were able to increase the cap for reflectivity values beyond 100%.

 

Transparency is caped but reflection is not caped. At least I don't recall it being caped.

[DanCBradbury]

OH! yes that's uffizi. I was just wondering what you were talking about with the OpenEXR stuff. It was the only 360x360 environment my car actually looked like it could be in. A woodland forest and a church are not common place for a car. lol

 

 

About the reflectivity cap. In the HDRI topic one of your last shots had spheres with reflective values way beyond pure white. Can you make a tutorial or just explain how exactly you got that look? Right now the specular aspect of the car is rather cheap and i'd like to see if i can use the effect you used to get the HDRI results.

 

 

Anywho, the car would most likely feature compressed air or hydrolic suspension, that way you could have it low to the ground while parked and raised when driving. Oh... and i completly forgot. What's a good exast setup? Is there a particular brand or layout that would go better with this type car? And how come it wouldnt be street legal? lol

 

Here's the rendered form of the progressive pic i posted last.

[Dhar]

What's a good exast setup?

 

Since you're going retro, how about side exhaust pipes, ala the Shelby Cobra?

 

 

 

 

[attachmentid=13174]

[DanCBradbury]

pretty cool... but i dont know if i can do that with my car

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Dan,

 

Side pipes would not go well with your design. I would keep it under the car and just a low rumble.

 

As to your 'hyrdraulic suspension'... I would go to AirRide Technologies and check out their systems.

 

My buddy and I will be using them on the front of our little project called Minor Problem.

[ypoissant]

About the reflectivity cap. In the HDRI topic one of your last shots had spheres with reflective values way beyond pure white. Can you make a tutorial or just explain how exactly you got that look? Right now the specular aspect of the car is rather cheap and i'd like to see if i can use the effect you used to get the HDRI results.

Pick the Uffizi HDR light probe from Debevec Web site. Load it in HDRShop and transform it into a Lattitude-Longitude map and save it back as an HDR file. Then use HDR2EXR to convert this HDR file into an EXR file. Now you have a spherical environment map for A:M.

 

Method 1:

Start A:M and load that Uffizi EXR file into the PWS Images folder. Create a Material, name it Uffizi and change its attribute to Environment plugin. Open the Environment plugin properties and load the Uffizi EXR as the image property.

 

Drop the Uffizi material onto your car model.

 

Method 2 (the one I used with those reflective spheres):

Start A:M and load that Uffizi EXR file into the PWS Images folder. Create a Material, name it Uffizi and change its attribute to Projection plugin. Open the Projection plugin properties and load the Uffizi EXR as the image property.

 

Import a sphere model and drop that Uffizi material on the sphere object. Set the sphere ambiance to 100% and its diffuse falloff to 10000% so that it is not affected by the lights in the scene.

 

Drop the sphere in your scene and scale it large enough to cover the whole scene including the lights in the scene (at least 10 times the size of your car). Set your car reflectivity to some low value like 10%.

 

Additional note:

Orient the Uffizi sky opening to align front to rear with your car. This may look like a trivial details but this sort of details is important when lighting a car.

[MattWBradbury]

Yves, now that I know how to use the exr files, I'll add that to my high dynamic range tutorial. I still have v12, so I'll have to write that the tutorial is only for version 12 if you've changed the way the version handels exr files. I'm doing a quick test. It's the standard 3 sphere test: 1 matte white, 1 black and 50% reflective, and 1 100% reflective sphere. I haven't taken any tests on timeing yet, but a 100X300 resolution image is going to take 17 minutes and 5 seconds to render. The only thing I was confused on was when you started talking about making the environment sphere 100% ambient. I simply used the exr file in the same way I used environment textures.

[DanCBradbury]

This HDRI environment maps are awesome! I'll have to post some new images when i get it all set up to look good. One thing though, is there anyway to control the exposure level in the renders?

[ypoissant]

One thing though, is there anyway to control the exposure level in the renders?

(I assume you are refering to the exposure of the HDRI environment map) No. You have to modify the exposure in HDRShop. Load your image in HDRShop, change the exposure with the numeric keypad + or - keys. Once you're satisfied with the resultant exposure, press Ctrl-0 (that's zero) and save.

[Eric2575]

Dan,

 

you and Matt are paving the way for me to get a perfect paintjob on my Saleen. Been taken a small break from that one, but this time you are making me go back to it

 

Can't wait to see a render of the Retro with the HDRI stuff.

[DanCBradbury]

Thanks Eric. When you get ready for the paint just let me know. I'll send over all the stuff you'll need. It's crazy how much you have to do for this all to work. I will have a render up by tomarrow of the top view.

[Eric2575]

Hey, for that, you get my latest sneak peek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, that was just a peek

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Nicely done Eric2575!!!!!

 

Can't wait to see that with the high priced paint job and the super model.

[DanCBradbury]

hmm... ic you are taking over my tread now...

 

it's coming along nicely eric.

[DanCBradbury]

Here's the latest render with an .exr environment map. I corrected collin's cell turb metal fleck paint material so that there was an actual environment for the reflectivity, reflective filter, and reflective blend values to reflect.

[Eric2575]

Dan,

 

The second pic is a little messed up. That's just a quick render, right? What did you do to Colin's paint, just change the image map for the HDRI? A side by side render of before and after would really be telling.

 

Jeez, you could almost dive into that first pic, its' so reflective, like water

 

Great stuff.

[DanCBradbury]

Dan,

 

The second pic is a little messed up. That's just a quick render, right? What did you do to Colin's paint, just change the image map for the HDRI? A side by side render of before and after would really be telling.

 

Jeez, you could almost dive into that first pic, its' so reflective, like water

 

Great stuff.

yeah it's a progressive render. And did you mean to say it was too reflective? The Uffizi env is not very balanced. I had to raise the exposure way up so you could see the buildings. So i'll probably have to find a better, more balanced hdri env sphere. Do you know of any other ones Yves?

 

Also, Collin's paint material no longer resembles its original self. I've changed it so much, the only thing that is original is the fact that i'm using a cell turb. The best part of my paint material is that there is no more specularity elements at all

 

Just let me know when you want the materials.

[Dhar]

You know what Dan? You're bad!

 

I was looking at that top view render for a while.....that car is gorgeous....it almost turned me on..

 

You're evil Dan, just evil

[Eric2575]

I'm about 80% done. Playing with paint right now. Soooo, go ahead and hit me with some paint

 

Oh, and no, there was no implication that the paint is too reflective. I really like it.

[Zaryin]

Are you telling me that the specularity I see in that pic is all reflectivity or did you just add spec to the model itself? Looks great.

[DanCBradbury]

You know what Dan? You're bad!

 

I was looking at that top view render for a while.....that car is gorgeous....it almost turned me on..

 

You're evil Dan, just evil

Thanks Dahr, but you must give great credit to Yves and Collin. Without them, I would have never had hdri in A:M and no understanding of how env maps acutally work.

 

Are you telling me that the specularity I see in that pic is all reflectivity or did you just add spec to the model itself? Looks great.

Nope, there's no specularity at all. Specularity is just a cheap trick, though effective, to try and replicate reflectivity in a very fast way. So if you have advanced reflective cabablity like hdr, then specularity just gets in the way of a better, realer look. So basically, there is no specularity in the real world, it is all reflection.

 

I'm about 80% done. Playing with paint right now. Soooo, go ahead and hit me with some paint

 

Oh, and no, there was no implication that the paint is too reflective. I really like it.

 

Thanks guys. The zip file is ready, but i cannot fit the vital 8.6 mb .exr file onto the download section here, but it is up for download here. Enjoy

 

@Yves: is there any reason that the bright pixelated regions, like those on the window trim and grill, do not smooth out, even at 256 passes? Should I file an error report?

carpaint.zip

[Eric2575]

Dan,

 

the link is not working for me??

 

Ok, it's morning now and now it's working.

[ypoissant]

@Yves: is there any reason that the bright pixelated regions, like those on the window trim and grill, do not smooth out, even at 256 passes? Should I file an error report?

It would help if you supplied a picture of that.

 

But more generally, HDRI is a difficult beast to master. Getting pixelation is the nature of the beast. Why? Suppose your open sky if 1000 brighter (it may very well be even brighter than that) than the rest of you HDRI scene. If even 1 out of 256 samples falls on the sky, then this illumination value will very probably saturate the pixel even after averaging. Oversaturated pixels produce aliasing.

[DanCBradbury]

Sounds about right. That's pretty much what i was thinking was happening. Then the only way than to decrease the amount of pixilation is to lower the .exr env value? Hm... is there anyway to average out the exposures in HDRshop so that the change in brightness aren't very drastic?

 

Anyways, here's a spin .mov i made last night. And let me know if that .exr link dies. I can either rehost it at a different sight, or explain how to make them.

SpinRed001hdr.mov

[ypoissant]

Hm... is there anyway to average out the exposures in HDRshop so that the change in brightness aren't very drastic?

You can blur the HDR in HDRShop. That might help and this should be more realistic anyway with the reflections on the car.

[Eric2575]

Dan,

 

I tried using the paint on the body and did a quick render and a render with 25 passes. Both turned up wicked (not good) highlights. Is that what you and Yves are discussing? I know it's the HDRI because when I changed the image to the image Colin used in his paint, the highlights were greatly reduced.

[DanCBradbury]

Hm... can you post a pic of what that looked like, or (i know you may not want to) send over your project file so i can take a look at it?

[DanCBradbury]

New render! I turned the env map opacety way down to about 4 for the car paint so that the reflection of the clouds abover werent so very bright. The designer said it was too overpowering, and oversaturated so i brought it down a tick.

 

And eric, hope you fixed what ever was causing your problemo, and if not, try adjusting the env opacity levels in the materials. Also if you are now using v13 all those opacities have to be changed anyhow.

[DanCBradbury]

I hope I didn't scare everyone away with hdr. I can assure you all it's very easy to manipulate. The pixelation on the chrome was caused by over saturation of the multipass sub-pixel averaging. I lowered the chrome's env opacity value to 4, and it fixed the problem right up. I didn't like the paint cell turb any more, so I changed it to a solid color.

 

Am i done yet? Do other people have projects that last months and months, and never seem to end

[Zaryin]

I hope I didn't scare everyone away with hdr. I can assure you all it's very easy to manipulate. The pixelation on the chrome was caused by over saturation of the multipass sub-pixel averaging. I lowered the chrome's env opacity value to 4, and it fixed the problem right up. I didn't like the paint cell turb any more, so I changed it to a solid color.

 

Am i done yet? Do other people have projects that last months and months, and never seem to end

 

 

Easy, lol. I have no idea what you are doing, but it looks awesome .

[Eric2575]

Dan:

 

Couple of things, all my opinions, not advice or criticism cause you're doing just great.

 

The black trim looks a little too glossy to me. It's competing with the paint job.

I agree with the cell turb, I got rid of that too.

I don't know if it has anything to do with scale or what have you, but you've actually overachieved on the paint. The car looks like it has a thick coat of very glossy paint on it. I mean the paint is awesome, no doubt, but it just looks like it's too thick on the sheetmetal. This is just my impression and I may be way off base. How or what controls the depth of the paint? Is it the HDRI?

 

Btw, I haven't been working on the S7 cause I needed a break from it, but I've been kinda reworking the FW190 excercise. Check out my WIP when I post later on.

[DanCBradbury]

Dan:

 

Couple of things, all my opinions, not advice or criticism cause you're doing just great.

 

The black trim looks a little too glossy to me. It's competing with the paint job.

I agree with the cell turb, I got rid of that too.

I don't know if it has anything to do with scale or what have you, but you've actually overachieved on the paint. The car looks like it has a thick coat of very glossy paint on it. I mean the paint is awesome, no doubt, but it just looks like it's too thick on the sheetmetal. This is just my impression and I may be way off base. How or what controls the depth of the paint? Is it the HDRI?

 

Btw, I haven't been working on the S7 cause I needed a break from it, but I've been kinda reworking the FW190 excercise. Check out my WIP when I post later on.

The trim is still chrome. Uffizi is a very dark hdr, and there's realy nothing for the chrome to reflect other than the sky above. I realy want to find a sky scape with mountains, a visible sun, and clouds. Only problem, I havent seen any real hdrs like that. Thick paint you say? Hm... It could look that way because the ground isnt being reflected corectly. I'm sure HDRI has nothing to do with it, but i'll tinker around with the paint settings. Here's a different hdr render and a shot of all the materials i'm using. I need to manipulate the paint reflectivity values until the floor is reflecting white instead of blackish red like it is in the row shot.

[Eric2575]

Dan,

 

 

would you take a snapshot of your chor lighting setup and post it? I've been having some trouble with the lighting on my attempts.

 

Thanks

[oakchas]

She sure looks better in red. Are you done? Up to you, and John, I guess... still wanna see inside.

 

Here's what I noticed:

[attachmentid=13476]

 

I don't understand what I think are creases from splines in the front fender.

 

and I had to bump up the brightness/contrast on my monitor to see the tires/wheels.. I think you need something to bring them out... and I put lo-pros on it. and somehow, the wheels look a bit small for the mass of the vehicle... but with the low profile tires, it gives the gangster whitewall look "Wide Whites".... they're just too small. I know you were running into interference with the fenders... so don't know the solution.

 

Far better job of modelling/lighting than i can do.

[DanCBradbury]

Dan,

 

 

would you take a snapshot of your chor lighting setup and post it? I've been having some trouble with the lighting on my attempts.

 

Thanks

 

The light rig is scaled to about 1300% at 6660 cm high, and my car is scaled down to be about 8 cm high.

 

She sure looks better in red. Are you done? Up to you, and John, I guess... still wanna see inside.

 

Here's what I noticed:

[attachmentid=13476]

 

I don't understand what I think are creases from splines in the front fender.

 

Well, i can tell you, there isn't a single crease anywhere on the model. The areas you're showing there are mostly 3 and 5-point patches that refuse to cooperate. I went through and fixed up those areas a bit. I really don't like working with the geometry near the front lights, because it's the densest part of the model. Change one CP and they all have to be changed. I made the paint material's reflective blend less so that it slightly reflects the ground. The paint, windows, and headlight glass are still using HDR, but I've abandoned HDR in the chrome areas, and am now using the original Uffizi.tga. It looks much better now. I made a progressive render to show some of the changes to paint and geometry.

 

 

and I had to bump up the brightness/contrast on my monitor to see the tires/wheels.. I think you need something to bring them out... and I put lo-pros on it. and somehow, the wheels look a bit small for the mass of the vehicle... but with the low profile tires, it gives the gangster whitewall look "Wide Whites".... they're just too small. I know you were running into interference with the fenders... so don't know the solution.

 

Far better job of modelling/lighting than i can do.

The creator had brought up something about white wall tires. I may just do that now. The tires are regulation size though. It may be the camera angle or that you can only see the very bottom. Here's a wireframe to show you their size in the weal wells.

[MattWBradbury]

That's looking much better. You should try a render with the ambient occlusion rendering method to see if you can cut down on some of the rendering time.

[Eric2575]

Dan, thanks for the ligth setup post. What intensity does the light for the rig have? Since the rig is so large compared to the model, the intensity must be pretty high? When I first import the light, the default is 7% for me.