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Lighting and rendering<br />
Set up your virtual studio<br />
We’ll kick off with<br />
01 the main subject – the<br />
Mercedes Benz W154. Next<br />
we need some kind of a base<br />
on which the car will stand,<br />
for which you can use a<br />
simple plane. And, lastly, of<br />
course we need the camera. I<br />
like to use VRayPhysical<br />
Camera because it has realworld<br />
parameters (eg F-stop,<br />
Lens focal length, Shutter<br />
speed, Color balance, etc).<br />
The parameters that differ<br />
from the default values are:<br />
Focal length 21.0, F-number<br />
2.0 and Shutter speed 20.0.<br />
Also make sure your<br />
environment background<br />
colour is set to black.<br />
Modelling<br />
the image<br />
The whole car was built in<br />
<strong>3d</strong>s Max 2009 using<br />
standard poly modelling<br />
techniques. I st<strong>art</strong>ed with<br />
the front of the car body,<br />
which was the trickiest<br />
p<strong>art</strong>. The major challenge<br />
here was to create a lot of<br />
precise details (air vents)<br />
on a surface that is curved<br />
in all directions, while<br />
maintaining the surface<br />
continuity. Once that was<br />
done, everything else was<br />
a breeze. I then quite<br />
quickly created the interior<br />
of the car, the suspension<br />
and the wheels. The tyres<br />
and the front air vent were<br />
the only other p<strong>art</strong>s which<br />
demanded a bit of extra<br />
detailing work.<br />
VRayLight with Diffuse<br />
settings gives us the overall<br />
mood of the image<br />
The main light source in the scene will be the<br />
02 VRayLight placed directly above the car; the Type is set to<br />
Plane. The light area should be slightly longer and wider than the<br />
car and have its colour set to pure White. In the light Options, make<br />
sure that Affect specular and Affect reflections are unchecked,<br />
while Cast shadows and Invisible are checked. This way you’ll have<br />
a light source that emits diffuse light and casts shadows, but<br />
doesn’t create any reflections or specular highlights on the car. Play<br />
with the intensity until you are happy with the mood.<br />
Creating the first reflection<br />
card for the front reflections<br />
To add some reflections we first need to add a<br />
03 simple plane. This one is placed directly in front of the car<br />
and tilted slightly forward. The plane has a VRayMtl applied to it.<br />
Diffuse color is set to White and there’s a JPEG added to the<br />
Opacity slot, which is just a basic black-to-white linear gradient. All<br />
the other material parameters are set to their default values.<br />
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