Surfacing a car

[LecturerAlan]

Hi wavers

I am having a bit of a mare surfacing a BMW that I am modelling
Any one with any ideas

Much thanks

Lec-Alan

[munky]

I think you need to be more specific as a BMW had quite a few surfaces. I'd outline the problem and maybe attach an image to show what you mean. Then someone will know exactly just how to help.


regards

paul

[LecturerAlan]

Reply:Munkey

Sorry about that, I just wanted some hints on the settings for the car body ,you know the gloss settings,what sort of fresnal setting , how the specularity should falloff that type of thing


Lec-Alan

[munky]

Hi Alan

I don't personally do cars but there was a thread reply in the general section posted by toby which gives this link

http://www.lwg3d.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14554

and it has the best car tutorial you'll ever find so I'd rush over there and tuck in if I were you.


regards


paul

[LecturerAlan]

Thanks very much for your efforts in answering my queries paul
what sort of stuff do you do ?

[munky]

Well Alan I mostly do television graphics. Titles and idents stings and such like. Most of the things I do are for the BBC for whom I worked for for 17years. But now I work from my studio at home as a freelance designer. I'm called Munky because my company is Munky Design. I use lightwave a lot but in conjunction with combustion, freehand, photoshop,after fx,cardboard,film,dv, in fact whatever fits in with what I want to dream up. I live out in the countryside but it's only a short hop into town if needs. I don't commute anymore and as I live next to the village school I get to see my kids loads. It's great I get paid to use lightwave( which I love) and I have low stress.

On the car front I'd suggest that you look at lightwaves BRDF shader Page 31.60 of the lightwave manual. Also how your car looks is very depedant on how well you light it. I'd find some tutorials on studio type lighting setups ones that use reflectors and such.(I've done a lot of film shoots so I tend to light my lightwave stuff in a similar fashion) Also I use G2 so some of the things I might do to a surface won't be readily avaiable in lightwave.

I'd checkout the IFW Shaders site and the worms of art also dv garage as all deal with surfacing Dv garage has some surfacing tutorials but I'm not sure about the others but david todman from the worms of art has just done a glass tut in 3dworld mag so I'd assume that they might.

check flay.com and lightwave tutorials on the web for links and tutorials.

I take it you're a lecturer



regards


paul

[LecturerAlan]

Hi Munky

Sounds like you have a very nice set up, I myself have also dabbled in TV but not in any great quantity, my last advert was the P&O one with the two new boats that the company was introducing, I only worked on the previs side (full size ferry built to medium/ hi res) this time but it was the first time I had used LW in battle so to speak. Prior to this I had used Electric image and 3D studio max and of course all of the other apps, but I must confess to being a very unbalanced modeller to texturer to animator type guy, I love to model and create story boards that's my thing, but one has to squeeze into many hats nowadays.

Yes I do lecture at my local college, full time- kind of. All things digital Photoshop. Illustrator, Quark and wait for it Stratapro 3d

wow. what a fine program, best not say to much might, get sued.
I invested in LW last year, and well... I am so excited every time I double click the icon I feel like a kid with a new toy, my wife and kids think I am really sad.... they just dont get it ?

Alan

[ponder_it]

If you really want a photorealistic look, you have to go into gradient hell. You should have Incidence Angle gradients all around, except for the bump (And don't forget the bump). For the bump, this is just me, I use the crumple shader reversed with a setting of 3-7mm for x,y,z and set the setrength of the layer to 50%(it depends on the surface). That's a good start for the bump, unless you make some scratches in photoshop, always a nice touch. The glass is usually more of a kicker for me, good glass is hard to replicate. Play with the incidence angle for ever on this and it should help you out here. Remember try and stack varried incidence angle gradients on top of one another to see what the outcome will loook like. Personally the last car that I surfaced had 6 layers on tyhe Spectacular channel 4 were Incidence Angle's, and 2 were percedual Value. If you have more specific questions let me know. The best way is just to stare at your own car and try and replicate it's outcome.

Cheerz

[LecturerAlan]

Re Ponder it info,

Thanks very much for the info, strange but I had sort of started to get there on my own, but that said.. I would`nt of thought of stacking the gradients, did you used the Brdf and fresnal shader

Tell you what... I`ll post the wip on the in-progress gallery if you have the time then perhaps you might like to reply.

Lec-Alan