Cgtuts+ Workshop #26 Ford Mustang

Nagesh, I think you hit on part of it in your last sentence. It looks dull because the metallic parts have nothing to reflect. It needs an environment map or some other objects to see in the reflections. That doesn’t apply to just the metal parts but also the paint of the car.

Very first thing I would do would be to make the scale of the wood floor texture MUCH smaller. I think the main reason people would react negatively to this is because it jumps out at them as a toy, and not a real car, and that automatically makes them assume it’s “fake.” No wood has textures that wide (and blurry), it just clearly looks like you zoomed in, which makes the car smaller. I would probably also have the light fall off in the distance, again it looks “fake” because that would have to be a GIGANTIC wood floor to extend so far out into the distance. If you put a fade back there then we can assume the room ends at some point but we just don’t see it.

Finally, I might lower the position of the camera so we’re looking a little bit more up, there’s a lot of black at the top of the composition which looks unbalanced. That or I’d have the camera higher up looking down so the floor extends to the top of the frame.

Hi Guys, firstly I would like to thank everyone for their comments it has given me new insight to make the model look a lot better. I will get working on the next render and see if I can improve my work.

@Fouad, the textures I used was all built in mental ray shaders that I tweak here and there nothing major, still learning the best way to create realistic textures.

@Chet, this is the latest render I made, http://www.frprojects.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/rims_one-770×433.jpg not the car though.

Thanks again for all the comments.

At first glance, the reflections and lighting seems decent, but I think you could use more light sources. Place some lights in the scene (area lights will probably be best) to get reflections on the hard edges of the car, to really make the curves and change in surfaces pop out to the eye. Use lights with softer falloff to light softer parts of the car. The way the hood is lit is working very well, but when you go around to the side, it doesn’t look nearly as interesting, because lights are falling off in the middle of panels, and there’s no pop on the side vent, so it seems very flat.

Your textures definitely need work. The pre-built ‘textures’ in 3D software like Max and Maya are only so good, and won’t typically get used for color maps. Go on google, find some reference for tires, headlights, and leather, and recreate those in Photoshop. There are tons of tutorials around that can help you with those, and don’t be afraid to find stock images of leather and just slap those on as your texture.

Your tire material needs work too. Tires reflect and absorb light differently from most other surfaces, and they are rarely ‘black’ as well. Tires typically have a brown hue to them.

As for that other render you have, it’s very dark, because your only light source is high to the left. Bring that light source around to the front a bit, so the front wheel is lit, then add another fill light on the right side, so we can see the surfaces in the right side. 3 point lighting tutorials can be found everywhere on the Internet as well.

All aspects of 3D take a bit of time to catch up on, and shooting for very realistic looking renders is not an easy task at all. For that, you need your lights, textures, and materials dialed in. It’s still tough for some experienced artists to pull that off. If I were you, I’d take the time to understand what the materials do to make them look the way they do, or figure out why a light illuminates that surface the way it does, and what happens when you change a certain attribute. If you’re new to modeling, I assume UVs are foreign as well, so you’ll need to gain an understanding of how textures work paired with how the object’s UVs are laid out.