CLS 63 AMG Final render stage

[kirillf]

Hey guys,

I've been trying to get this car finished up for a while, and finally got to the rendering/lighting stage. I've seemed to hit a wall and would love some critique on what you guys think I need to do to make this render look a bit more realistic.

Just to give you guys some info about the image. I'm using the HDRI's from HDRI package #002 (absolutely amazing images and HDR's). For lighting, I'm only using the lighting provided by the Maya IBL, and for materials I'm using Blinn with Eccentricity and Specular Roll off at 0.1 with a reflectivity of 0.5. I haven't removed the plane yet (trying to figure out the best way). Final gather is on.

At any rate, this is my first attempt at a photo-realistic render and would love any input you guys can give. Is it the materials that need a little fixing, or lighting, or my render settings? Hooray first post at SMC.

Cheers.

[Kangal]

First of all, welcome here.

The model as itself seems good, but i think the rims are exagerate in diameter, making look the whole car more like a ML SUV rather than a CLS sedan/coupe'. Also, in my opinion, the car doesn't fit the environment because of the reflections, they are too shiny compareed to the ambient around. Probabilly u need to increase the roughness and adjust the lights to take off those blue reflections. It should turn to grey i think.
Anyway,other guys here, much better than me, will give u more targeted and professional suggestions

[Vlad3d]

agreed with above about the wheels, seems like they are way too big and that makes car way too high also near the badge i can see through the car and i think its opposite fender

[kirillf]

Awesome, thanks guys. I'll make the mods and post the updated pics! Going to try to reduce reflection and put in a soft light for the car paint.

[kirillf]

A little update. I fixed up some of the stuff you guys suggested, mainly the wheels. Removed the plane (that took waaaay longer to figure out then I expected), and adjusted the gamma a bit on the HDRI. Next update I'll try to have the paint all fixed up and try to figure out the lighting (I want to make it a little softer underneath the car).

[beacon1]

Your hdri should match the backplate, the saturation is too strong, if you look at the backplate the white cloud should be reflecting on the car.

[kirillf]

Damn, I thought I at least had the hdri positioning spot on, lol.

[Falango]

The color isn't right either. What sort of lights do you have directly illuminating the car? What should be the sky in your reflections is far too saturated, and too blue. I suspect it could be a color profiling issue?

[kirillf]

The only thing lighting the scene right now is the IBL. I'm trying to play around with lighting setups right now, but the white gets way too saturated. I'll keep playing with the lights to get the scene properly lit and get a nice soft shadow under the car, still struggling with it though, lol. The black seems to be coming in much better, so I might switch up the entire car paint to that instead.

As for color profiling, I'm going through my settings to make sure that i'm using proper linear workflow. I'll take any tips I can to make this render better!

[kirillf]

The color profiling seemed to definitely help out. The issue I'm having though is that my backplate is getting a double gamma. Is there any way to fix that inside Maya or would I have to do it through photoshop (seems to come out very grainy when I try to fix the exposure). I've been trying to look around on how to fix it, but so far, no dice.

edit: Attached the image with the car with proper background. I just saved out the image without the backplate and assembled it in photoshop with the proper gamma on the backplate.

[kirillf]

Made a couple changes to the model, changed the white car paint to a mia material and turned down the glossyness/reflections. Still need to get proper lighting to get rid of the blue tint, but almost there I think!

Attachment 137691

[Method]

The latest renders are looking a lot better.

Just a few little things to think about -

There is something wrong with the grille surround. The edges look like they have steps in them going from black the chrome.

As for the colour, the reflection on the top edge of the paint is blue. I'd expect to see this if the sky was blue, which it looks like it is in the top left corner, but I think your highlights (the blue bits) should match the colour and exposure of the majority of the sky in the picture to make this more realistic.

Also, Id expect to see the reflection of that post/box thing in the left of the image. Id just crop it out, its distracting anyway.

One last thing, tThe inside left wheel - looks like a bit of a hot spot - and if I want to be super fussy, the inside of the front lip on the right side is grey, Id change this.

EDIT: The shadow under the car needs to be a bit softer.

I played around with the image in paint.net (that's all I have here at work) - I hope you dont mind. Its still not perfect, but it'll give you some idea of what Im talking about.

[razx97]

I think that the car stands out from the background image. and if you want it to be realistic i suggest matching the contrast of the car with the backplate

[Falango]

I agree with razx97. Your blacks are too black compared to the backplate. That, and your ground shadow is unrealistic. Cars usually cast a soft shadow because of how much ambient light hits them from all different directions. The falloff in your shadow is very quick, and it shouldn't be so rectangular. The model is looking real good though. Integrating it into the scene with a bit more precision will make this quite a nice render!

I noticed a few posts back, you said you were playing with the gamma in the HDRI. You shouldn't have to adjust the gamma at all really. By default, domes and backplates won't match, because one is 32 bit, the other is 8 bit. In Maya, you need to make sure your files come in with the proper color profile, and render out in the right color profile as well.

Here's how I setup my workflow for color profiles. Hopefully these work for you:

In your render options, under the common tab, set your defailt input profile to Linear sRGB, and your default output profile to sRGB. This allows your dome to come in properly. Doing this will mess up how 8 bit textures are displayed and rendered though, so for each of those files, we change their individual color profile. So in the file node, in this case, for your backplate first, set the color profile to sRGB. Now your HDRI and backplate will match. In your current scene, this may mess with some of your textures that exist on the car, but because this is a workflow I've adopted and enforce from the start of my projects, all of my textures are adjusted to fit the color profile. Regardless, give that a try, with your dome set at the default gamma, and see how it works.