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# 1 11-08-2007 , 01:06 PM
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Audi R8 Animation WIP

Hello everyone,

It's been a longtime since I posted anything here (or on any forum)... Over 8 months actually! I've basically had my head down learning new techniques and practicing those I already knew since the start of this year. Its been tough as i'm trying to teach myself.

So now, as it stands, I'm in the process of putting together another reel with my latest work. This animation, I think, will be the final piece I'll create before adding it into my reel and trying (again) to find a job!

this is my completed model. As you can see there are many things missing here compared to the renders I show further down (such as wing mirrors, the entire interior, alloys and the engine). this is because I didn't model any of that, I simply took it from a previous model I had on disk. Here is what I modeled (basically just the shell):
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Here is the set as seen in Maya that i'm working on at the moment.
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Here is a view of the shading network im using for the ove-run section of the track (anyone know the proper name for this part of a race track?)
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...and finally afew WIP renders of the scene:
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The background image here is really just a stand in to see where i'm going with the enviroment. the gravel shader needs a lot of tweeking and an extra layer of hand placed stones to rough it up more.

The lighting set up for anyone interested is all standard directional lights and one spot for the sun. I've not used any ambient occlusion, final gather, global illumination or HDRI maps (purley because I want to learn more about traditional lighting techniques)

Any questions or comments more than welcome!

Cheers,

Jamie.

# 2 11-08-2007 , 01:14 PM
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Thats SICK MAN !!! user added image user added image

# 3 11-08-2007 , 02:24 PM
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Um, thanks ColdWave user added image

# 4 11-08-2007 , 11:42 PM
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Mr Haydock

Hello mate, it's been a very long time, even on msn!! I'm busy with my stuff to so...

this looks excellent, a nice render, and brilliant texturing - you can teach me something now! My only thoughts with the render in the final image is the possible bleed of red hitting the lower part of the car, is it coming from the track edge material?

No hdr etc and just standard lights-excellent! See you dont need all that tech talk crap like other people dish out. Its quicker too!

Other wise no crits as such just a little envy because of the nice rendering...I take it that week with in my studio and working at the other studio triggered something in the old brain department (I hope)

Best
Jay

# 5 12-08-2007 , 01:07 AM
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Jason hello! Yes yes, it has been too long, we'll have to catch up on msn some time!

Thanks very much for the kind words. Ah, the bleed of red, thanks I had missed that. It's actually coming from one of the lights in my rig, I had initially set the time of day to evening and then decided for just now while adjusting textures etc I prefer it to be more around midday. I've just missed one of the lights (which was casing and orangy/purple light from the horizon) thanks for that.

The week I spent in your studios was amazing and a bit of an eye opener too. I picked up so much (not nessecarily step by step techniques, but an overall view of your pipeline which is exactly what I wanted to take from the experience). Being a small studio with such incredibly tight deadlines, using AO, final Gather, HDRI isn't possible yet you pulled lovely renders out of that box using standard lights and Maya software. And thats one of the main reasons for trying this approach.

Also my brief experience as a Cinesite runner showed me that even the big studios with their amazingly powerful renderfarms still use standard lighting techniques. I gathered that this was due to their scenes being in the millions of polys and textures being super highres that they need to optimize everything just to be able to get the scene to render in the first place... without all the extra setup and render time that comes with Global illumination etc.

with the current light setup, render settings and a resolution of 640 x 480 its rendering at around 10 minutes a frame on a single P4 3.2 Ghz with 1 gig of ram. Early similar results were achieved with FG, and HDRI lighting on the same machine here that came in at around 50 minutes (However im sure that time could have been reduced with someone who knows how to optimize render settings etc specific to FG)

Well any questions you or anyone else have for me, fire away I'll try to answer them as detailed as I can.

I'm off to Edinburgh film festival today so more updates tomorrow!

cheers for now
Jamie.


Last edited by jhaydock; 12-08-2007 at 02:24 PM.
# 6 12-08-2007 , 01:18 AM
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WOW nice mate!!!
Now i'"m nowhere near your skills but there are a couple of things that will make your render much better(at least i think so:p ).
-I think the car tilts a little to much, sportscars have very rigid suspension.
- Don't know if you did it already but i'm going to say it anyway....Do an ambient oclusion pass and composite the beauty layer and the occlusion layer in photoshop.
- Use depth of field to make the image more real and blend in the contrast between background, foreground and the model.
But other than this minor things you've got a kickass-model:bow:

# 7 12-08-2007 , 01:41 AM
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Hey mastone,

thanks very much! You're right i'll reduce the tilt it is rather over the top, I was trying to make the car look more dynamic in a static image (the final will be an animation).

Depth of field, AO (not sure on that yet might keep with my standard light shadows) and Motion blur will be added in as a post effect after rendering, i'll do that in shake... right now what you're seeing is an un-touched maya render. I've not added these kind of things in at the moment because its still a wip and i'd rather spend time building the set user added image

But I totally agree thanks, i'll add the effects later down the line.

Cheers

Jamie.

# 8 12-08-2007 , 05:54 AM
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WOW that is one of the best things I have seen on the site.


how did u learn the hypersade texturing? did u read \ take video tuts?

or did u just mess around?


and 1 thing how did u do the glass?


1 crit the road bar thing... w\e it is to keep u from falling off the road isnt that good it sticks out in the rest of u amazing work.


GJ


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# 9 13-08-2007 , 12:41 AM
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Wow man, just w o w!


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# 10 13-08-2007 , 11:04 PM
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Thanks to you both GJ & Donmichael for the kind comments.

GJ:
The Hypershade I've taught myself with the help of the maya documentation. Basically what I am doing here with the shaders is to replicate how photoshop would do its layering system. So instead of building up a layered texture in photoshop and then exporting a flat texture map as a Targa ot JPG... I'm building the layered texture in Maya and therefore I can manipulate the layers individually and see the results very quickly (without having to go to photoshop change something and export then reload in maya). Here are some tips:

The Multiply divide node - I'm using to recreate the Multiply "Blend mode" of a layer in photoshop.

The Alpha channels - I'm mixing with a ramp to control transparency (just like a layer transparency in photoshop) and it also acts like a layer mask too)

The HSV to RGB connected to a ramp - I use this to control the tint colour of may maps, this is similar to HSV Adjustment layer in photoshop.

And finally I use a layered shader - to connect all the different elements together and form the overall shader to be applied to the object.

The Glass is just a blinn shader with transparency and adjusted spec fall of.

The barrier i'm working on at the moment... I'll do a proper shader for it too (at the moment it just has the default lambert applied)

Thanks for all the replies, really appreciate everyones comments user added image

# 11 14-08-2007 , 12:55 PM
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Just a little update, modeled a stone wall and started texturing it. I've decided to go for a mountain side road look which has been converted to a race track for a special race event etc. The wall itself I'm still working on and the weird shadow at the back is because it is still "hovering" above the gravel.

I need to work on hiding the repeating texture, and dirty it up with some moss too.

Comments and crit welcome also any other ideas you think I should add to give it that authentic mountain race track look would be appreciated!

Cheers

Jamie.

user added image

# 12 14-08-2007 , 01:58 PM
Jr.Who
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I like the improvements, and the background is much better, now! Nice model, BTW.
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# 13 14-08-2007 , 03:01 PM
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looks great man KUTGW:bow: user added image :bow:

# 14 14-08-2007 , 07:55 PM
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Hey Man,

Good to see you back, looking great!

For somre reference, have a look at the isle of man TT races, its a bike race but its still on mountain roads etc, there should be lots of pics as well as some videos on you tube etc, might be worth a look.

Cheers

Steve


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# 15 14-08-2007 , 09:01 PM
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"Comments and crit welcome also any other ideas you think I should add to give it that authentic mountain race track look would be appreciated!"

A mountain goat perhaps LOL, looks great manuser added image

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