master photorealistic car rendering

Bhaumik Patel shows how to use Maya 2016 to create a photorealistic car render using the latest features of mental ray

Use Maya and mental ray to create a beautiful car render

In this tutorial we will look at what it takes to create a photorealistic car render inside Maya 2016. We will start off by downloading a free car model from Turbosquid. The principles you will learn here can be applied to your own model if you wish. We will then download a HDR image to use as the background and lighting from www.hdrlabs.com and set up a nice camera angle for our car.

We’ll then move onto shaders, using the Mila mental ray shaders, and complete the render in Nuke by applying finishing touches. Maya 2016 has had a significant update to the interface. If you have used mental ray before you will notice the tabs in the Render Settings window have completely changed and features have been moved around. This is to simplify render set up using the modern workflow of having physically plausible shaders, with a global and predictable way to control the quality and render time.

The new workflow is to leave the samples on the lights and materials relatively low. You can then increase them on a global basis using three sliders in the Render Settings>quality>sampling section. You must use Mila shaders on your lights and materials for these sliders to work.

Unified sampling is the latest sampling method. It will use samples more efficiently where they are needed, giving you a better image with lower render times. This works especially well when you have lots of glossy materials with area lights.

For all the assets you need go to creativebloq.com/vault/3dw207