Texturing and Shading

As in all jobs that I have already created, the shaders of this work are all VrayPowerShader.
My texturing method is to use blend materials. This gives me a lot of control, because for the same object I create shaders and materials that are placed in separate layers and separated by masks or colors. In this speed limit signal example, I created two materials: a base material that is the painting of the plate and a layer above, separated by a mask, a rust tileable texture (Fig.06a - b).



For texturing the road, I created a base map of asphalt and above this I added details such as patches, sand, scuffs and holes, which were separated by different channel mapping (Fig.07).

Lighting and Rendering

For a desert, there's nothing better than a sun at almost noon. Any other type of lighting would not characterize the look I envisioned for this work (Fig.08).


The image is illuminated with a V-Ray Sun working together with the V-Ray Physical Camera, which affords real control of exposure, shutter speed, ISO, and vignetting (Fig.09).

Post-production and Final Touches

As mentioned earlier, the Sun lighting was essential to give the mood of the scene, but after the render finished, I missed a stain that referred to an old photo with the colors desaturated and more worn by time. See the raw render in Fig.10.


Also in post-production, I added the rest of the environment, like the mountains in the background, the sky, and a Z-Depth pass (Fig.11 – 12).



With all these elements together on my canvas, I used Photoshop tools like Levels, Curves, and selective color to balance them with each other.

Finally, I added some scratches and with Adobe Lightroom I added grain and chromatic aberration to get a better photo look (Fig.13).


I hope you enjoyed this brief explanation of my method of working. I'd like to thank the 3DTotal crew for giving me the opportunity to share my knowledge with other artists!