Making Of 'Alfa Romeo 2600 Sprint'

3DTotal asked me to write a Making Of my image Alfa Romeo 2600 Sprint, so I'm going to cover modeling, texturing, shading and lighting. I don't intend to make a step-by-step tutorial, but I think the big questions of the image will be answered.

This image started when I saw a news report on a special event (anniversary or convention) for the Alfa Romeo. Some really cool, old designs of Alfa Romeo's were featured and I thought that it could be interesting to create something like this in 3D, because it was a chance to improve my hard surface modeling skills.

First of all, I Googled some Alfa Romeo images and I decided that the 2600 Sprint was what I was looking for. So I went for it. I downloaded a lot of pictures and a blueprint, which didn't turn out to be much use.

When all the research was done, it was time to start the project. For modeling, I used Edit Poly. I started with a plane (converted it to an edit poly) and then began to drag edges following the shape of the blueprint. I made sure to I fitted the piece with the other views and I tried to avoid triangles as much as possible (Fig.01).

Fig.01

Fig.01

A good trick to check if you are producing a correct piece of work is to assign a material with a high specular and low glossiness to check the behavior of the mesh. If the brightness is constant and without strange artifacts, you're doing great! It's also good to add a Symmetry modifier to your mesh. Then you can check the whole mesh (Fig.02).

Fig.02

Fig.02

Symmetry is a great modifier and it made modeling the rim a piece of cake. All I had to do was model the part in red, then apply the Symmetry modifier several times to achieve the result I wanted. It was important to put the pivot point in the centre of the rim (Fig.03).

Fig.03

Fig.03

Another important tool that I use a lot is FFD. In this case I used it to fit the glass correctly (Fig.04).

Fig.04

Fig.04

When I finished the modeling process, I started to set up the lighting. I decided to use VRaySun (Fig.05). I also added a V-Ray dome light. I turned off Affect Diffuse and Specular, and I left Reflection on. This light just gave me reflections, so the main light was going to be the sun. To achieve this I put in an HDRI of a city that I found on internet, as initially, I was planning to make a little environment of a city (Fig.06).

Fig.05

Fig.05

Fig.06

Fig.06

You can achieve the first impression of you work using V-Ray RT. Change your renderer, next to Activate Shade, to V-Ray RT. Don't forget to change the mode, from Production to Activeshade mode. A new window will appear and then in a few seconds you will get a previz, which is close to high render quality. The magic of this is that you can move your camera and the render will automatically refresh. It's a powerful tool to refine your composition, change materials or tweak the lighting. I wanted some contrast so I changed the intensity of the sun (Fig.07).

Fig.07

Fig.07

When I was happy with the camera position, I started the environment. I used these two photos from CGTextures as a reference (Fig.08 - 09). The modeling was quite easy; it was just an edit poly with some extrusions. What is important here is the texture. I added an Unwrap modifier to the geometry and fitted all the pieces to the texture. In this case I used Planar projections, which got the work done (Fig.10).

Fig.08

Fig.08

Fig.09

Fig.09

Fig.10

Fig.10

Now it was time for Photoshop. The texture is quite simple: it's just the photo with some details. I added some graffiti and some dirt. For example, the monkey is graffiti, which I put in with Darken blend mode. When making textures you need to play a lot with blending modes, the opacity of the layer, levels, etc. I followed the same process for the other building (Fig.11).

Fig.11

Fig.11

I used a different trick for the windows. I made a black and white texture, which you can see. After that, I began the setup of the shader. I find it more comfortable to use the Material Editor. In my opinion, it's easier to see and understand what you are doing. In this case, I had a base material, which had a falloff material in the reflection slot. Then I used a VRayBlendMtl, which is a material that allows you to use masks and mix two different materials. I used the texture that I made as a mask and as a material (Fig.12).

Fig.12

Fig.12

I used the same technique for the car shader; the only difference was that the base material was VRayCarPaintMtl and the coat material was a simple material with a dark color. I also added a UVW map with Planar projection to place the mask in the correct position (Fig.13).

Fig.13

Fig.13

Fig.14 shows the setup of the shader. I also added a texture in the bump map slot. With the UVW Planar projection I could place it correctly.

Fig.14

Fig.14

I was now ready to render all the elements and composite them in Photoshop. The raw render can be seen in Fig.15.

Fig.15

Fig.15

Fig.16 shows an AO, which is done using a VRayLightMtl with VRayDirt in the color slot. I was unable to put a bloom effect directly onto the raw render. I tried different things (I'm sure that I did something wrong!) and I finally decided to render the effect in another Max file. Basically, I removed all the lights and I put four new lights into the headlights. After that, I added a VRayLensEffect. Now I had a bloom effect that I could use in post-production (Fig.17).

Fig.16

Fig.16

Fig.17

Fig.17

I also had a ZDepth pass to add some depth of field.

Next I opened the RAW, and I created a new folder that I called "AOs". One of these AOs was blended as Multiply at 75% and the other one was blended as Overlay at 10%. This improved the render a bit; the environment in particular looked much better (Fig.18).

Fig.18

Fig.18

Secondly, I added levels and contrast and did some color correction. I warmed up the image a bit. Then I created a new folder called "Headlight" where I put two layers, one in Screen mode at 85% and the other one in Linear Dodge (Add) mode at 60% (Fig.19).

Fig.19

Fig.19

Finally, after some Levels, adding noise, depth of field and lens correction, I got the final composition (Fig.20). I also added a scratches layer on the top of that.

Fig.20

Fig.20


I hope you found something here helpful!

Fetching comments...

Post a comment