Create a sports car advertisement
Top tips for creating an engaging automotive scene
The inspiration for this work came to me when I saw various photos of moving sports cars on the internet. All the cars were accompanied by motion blur, which is a beautiful effect that simulates moving volumes, and I was very fascinated.
This idea led me to do even more research into this area so that I could display the car in other modes, such as various types of advertisements and showrooms.
The technique used in this scene, which was rendered with the Corona rendering engine, is the ‘photo backplate’ technique. In this scene, an attempt has been made to define a story, presented in the form of an advertisement.
Therefore, the car must be rendered in different modes, colours and scenes, such as outdoor and indoor, moving or still, in order to effectively convey this narrative.
In this scene, the car material as well as the quality of the photo used in the background is very important and must be prepared in high resolution before we start. So let’s begin!
01 FIND HDRI BACKPLATE
Before we get started, this is the most important step. To provide a better reference for the background, you can take a photo from HDRI Haven, where you can download and use different HDRIS in very high quality up to 16K.
We have to use the same HDRI as the background for the ambient light and the environment. We can consider the HDRIS that we use for the ambient with 4K or 8K resolution to save on rendering time, and even for the background, I can also use up to 16K quality. We can also choose HDRIS that have backplates if we select from this category.
02 MODEL SELECTION AND INITIAL SCENE SETTINGS
Before starting the composition and lighting operations, we need to place the model in the scene after writing the scenario and story. I have used the Audi RS5 because of my interest in the company. First, I set the Unit Setup, place the model into the scene and exit group mode. We need to drag a simple plane under the tyre to be able to adjust the scene perspective with the Perspective Match tool.
This also plays a very important role in creating shadows as well as the reflections.
03 PREPARE CAMERA AND BACKPLATE
Next we need to perform camera and composition operations, which is one of the most important stages of this project.
First, we need to load the backplate scene that we downloaded earlier from the Viewport configuration and display it in the viewport Max scene. Then select the best composition for the scene using the ‘imagecomphelper’ script, as shown in the screenshot.
I used the rule of thirds and golden ratio to produce effective framing, and I tried to add points and lines to the important intersections of these guidelines.
04 CAMERA AND LIGHTING SETUP
First, we will focus on the camera settings, which use a physical Max camera with a focal length of 101mm. The rest of the settings are in default mode. The scene light uses the same HDRI as for the background, which we attribute to the Single map in the Corona settings along with the Color Correct map. To have the effect of light passing through the glass, we attribute the map
we used for the background to refract and override.
05 VEHICLE MATERIAL PARTS
The car is made up of different material parts, the most important of which is the car body material. For a more realistic render we will apply different materials to the parts of the model, including black leather on the seats, plastics on the dash and so on.
Some parts of the car, even though not necessarily visible to the camera, are important, so make sure you apply the appropriate materials, such as light emitting shaders on LED lights. Glass is vital to the realism of this scene, so ensure you apply suitable transparent materials to the windows, headlights and even the fronts of the dash clocks. Steel Metal material is used to make parts such as bumpers, rim and side mirrors, and the Audi logo.
06 CORONA SHADOW CATCHER MATERIAL
Now, one of the most important steps of this project is to use the Corona Shadow Catcher material, which we can attribute to the plane we drew at the beginning; by making this plane the exact shape of the background, it looks like it is invisible.
But in addition to this, we can simulate the reflection as well as the shadows of the environment on it, which produce a realistic reflection of the car as well as the natural shadows of the tyre and the volume of the car on the ground. Also, from the settings section of this material, we can adjust the desired reflection to the wet or dry asphalt from the Glossiness section.
07 RENDER SETTINGS
In this project, I used Full HD resolution and because I needed to have a very clean scene, I set the Denoise settings to the highest numbers. For me, the quality was much more important than the render times.
I also used the Global and EV settings for the light scene, and the GI settings at 32 for the scene ray settings.
08 FINAL STEP: POST-PRODUCTION
The last part of this project is the post-production stage, which makes each project unique. Using Color Efex Pro, part of the Nik Collection plugin, I reached a good colour balance. Lastly, I achieved the final renders by applying several LUTS at the same time. In the photo, you can see the difference and the effect that the post-production operation has on the rendering. I always advise all my friends to never ignore the effect of post-production and aim to achieve unique renders in all stages of the projects they do, using Photoshop and other relevant software. •