3d art

Transport
Lighting the scene
Creating the environment
Before you start
09 to work on the
lighting, you need to find a
fitting background. We did
many tests with various photos
and tried many angles to
effectively blend the car into
the environment. We also
wanted to show the empty
road to bring a sense of
loneliness and isolation to
the scene.
1 hour
render time
Resolution:
4,096 x 2,444
When happy with the
10 final staging of the car, try
to get the light to match the
background and get the same
ambient lighting on the car. Firstly
work on matching the light angle and
brightness, so you can then work on
matching shadows. Try working with
black-and-white images, so the
colours won’t be a distraction, and
concentrate on the contrasting and
corresponding shades of grey.
Once the car is
12 incorporated into
the background, split the
rendering into separate
passes such as Occlusion,
Shadows, Reflection/
Specular, Color passes for
different parts of the scene.
By rendering everything
separately, you give yourself
more freedom within the
composition. This is
particularly important as we
are going for a very stylised
and unique look, which avoids
a straight CG render feel.
Combining and blending all
of your passes in Photoshop
is the key.
When you have the car angle sorted out and the
11 strength of the light matching that in the environment, you
can start working on the final composition. Don’t worry overly
about the environment itself at this stage, as you’ll be heavily
overprinting it later. In LightWave 3D, use Camera Projection to
project the background image onto the ground plate to easily
match the shadows.
Modelling the scene
While modelling, the biggest challenge we faced was the
placement of the details. We wanted to create the feeling
that everything had a purpose and had been placed there
for a reason. Knowing that the final object would be quite
heavy, we started with a proxy model of the car and
placed all the proxy details on it. The base car was
modelled from two different trucks and later armour
layers and details such as screws were added all over –
modo’s Mesh Paint tool is excellent for doing this. We
modelled all the details as separate pieces (engine,
rucksacks, guns, ammo boxes, etc) and replaced the
proxy models with finished ones. The model ended up
quite heavy, but with a highly detailed final result. Many
polys could have been removed by replacing them with
various textures (tyre thread, for example), but we wanted
this model to be able to withstand close-up scrutiny.
Once all your passes are rendered, work in Photoshop
13 to combine them in the right way. At this stage, you can
also start working on the background to give it a more painterly
finish. We have painted some city buildings in the distance to add
a little story to the image. Paint the car render itself to fix any
errors and to increase the concept art feeling, while also trying
different colour gradings to experiment with the mood.
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