01

Starting to find reference for what I would like to achieve.

Some video reference -

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=DpPhoh3kens

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlxADlERFkA&t=0s&index=3&list=PLPYP1i8QtSXgWJ7YS4wS4IfnHhGqLozgV

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RggRi4YvQWU&index=1&list=PLPYP1i8QtSXgWJ7YS4wS4IfnHhGqLozgV02

02

For the project we decided to create a scene with the car drifting through a dry lake bed or desert. We want the effects to be really cool with all the dust being blown up in the air. With the long trails of debris flying around.

We chose a BMW M4, simple turn table and a rig to auto rotate the wheels and get the steering of the car correct.

03

The beginning of shading the car

  • It is no where near complete, but the main paint and wheels I feel are looking pretty good so far.

  • Most of the shaders are really simple since there aren’t many textures involved its almost entirely driven by just the shader. The only exception being the logos and some scratching on the brakes.

  • I also wanted the Austin Yellow paint color on the car and to black out the wheels.

First pass shading

04

Previs

  • This is the current shot lost we are working with.

  • Its a simple progression, opening with a wide going into 2 120 fps shots, then ending with the reverse of the opener.

05

  • I’ve also been working on the shader for the ground and the terrain in the background.

  • The shader is looking ok, the color isn’t what Im going for yet and its difficult getting the displacement to work like I want it to.

  • I am also working with using a mix shader to get rid of the tiled look.

  • I also created a background terrain using Houdini Heightfields

  • It was exported out of Houdini with an extremely low poly mesh, I can then if I need to smooth in render.

  • We also through together a REALLY quick comp for what the look might be

testcomp_v2.png

06

  • Here is a test comp with more layers added in to the FX.

  • I also spent a lot more time with the ground. The ground is proving really difficult to get right. We might end up simplifying the ground and instead move the camera so you don’t see as much detail.

  • The second image being probably what we will use. It is a mix shader that is really only different by color so when the car and camera are moving you get that variation but the details are blurred out.

  • The texture is provided by Megascans so the detail will be as good as we can get it.

07

  • The Moving camera shots (test)

08

09

  • The main thing were trying to fix is the tiling for the desert

  • This is the network below, The main thing that is different is the aiLayered shader over using mixes. This is being driven by very slightly different colored aiStandard Surface. There are 4 total different megascans normal maps that are adding the detail and each one is connected to a different shader. The mixing is controlled by ai noises/ai ranges.

  • Using this method creates a much less tiled look with subtle differences and you have some more control

  • The next was just getting the scene and the cameras, so below is a rough cut of what everything together will look like.

10

  • So here is an example of our rendering problems, cameras aren’t matching up.

  • Our plan to fix this is to convert all the maya assets into houdini.