Another entry for the 30th Automotive CGI challenge - Concrete Environment.

I hadn't planned on entering another Porsche for this challenge but I'd recently gone down the rabbit hole of RWB builds on Youtube and felt somewhat inspired by them. I like the concept of restomodding combined with the idea of rolling art and the experience of having Akira Nakia visit you to personally install the kit.

Thomas F had also kindly send me his entire 964 RWB model. I had asked if he could send me the wing mirror for a Singer DLS project I also have in the works.

Very rarely will I leave a model stock and this gave me the chance to add some extra components that appear on some of my favorite RWB builds such as Borgogne as well as try to emulate a similar paint finish as RWB Dallas, but in a different hue.

The first thing to add were some headlight lenses and a air intake mesh that was more similar to the one Nakai-san uses in his builds. I also added a German numberplate using Vitali Enes' configurator - https://gumroad.com/l/kIVGg?fbclid=IwAR19BUBdcWaIQnsGXavVIjc_buii6CjRB03f9CYFkIQa_oOw4uw1JZOTdeA​​​​​​​

Next up were the wheels from Alex Bowen. I love the Fifteen52 Urban Outlaw wheel and all I need to do was add the extra flange to the outer rim along with some hex head screws and add the front and rear offsets - https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/1552-urban-outlaw-wheel-3d-x/999539 

I also added Bembo brake calipers and some Toyo R888R tyres from Ted Lee - https://gumroad.com/l/r888r

Stance wise I didn't go too aggressive. I also personally don't like the tucked look on the 964, much preferring a slightly lowered but actually usable everyday look.

In terms of ideas for the final image, I wanted to create one that would look like the end of an RWB build. I have also been interested in the light painting work of Dave Cox and wanted to see if any of his techniques could be used to light the car. This would also mean a large amount of post work in Photoshop, which I am very out of practice on for any post work larger than adjusting some sliders in Camera RAW. I want each new project to stretch me is some new way, and to break away from only doing minimal post work in the Corona VFB.

I went with a bare concrete quasi-brutalist interior as I had the Concrete texture pack from Arroway, with extra normal maps generated in photoshop - https://www.arroway-textures.ch/en/products/concrete-1

The floor was made using Floor generator from CG Source which I use for generating floorboards in my ArchViz projects at work. I just went with a much larger grout size and increased the tilt and rotation settings put the texture through a Corona Multi-map node to give some variation to each. I didn't feel the need to go very complex for any of the concrete materials, a Corona Color-correct node for both the diffuse and reflection glossiness yielded pretty good results

I didn't just want to go with a bare concrete interior, all the RWB builds are done in a workshop environment or similar and access to power. I used the surface trunking I have in my home office as a reference and modeled the various parts with European style switches and sockets. The Breaker box was from GrabCAD to save time. Lights were from Evermotion. having these would break up the ceiling and allow me to have one group on to add light to the opposite side of the image where I had planned on and entrance with light spilling in.

No RWB themed piece would be complete without some props to tell the sory of the build. A Barcelona chair by Mies van der Rohe for Nakia-san to sit in along with his customary glass bottled Coca-Cola, still smoking cigarette out of date mobile phone and luggage. I also modeled a banner to break up the spacing between the concrete pillars. These additions turned out to be quite important in keeping up my enthusiasm for the piece, by using them to try ans tell a story I didn't lose any motivation throughout the project.

Environment lighting was the standard Corona Sun & Sky, it has become somewhat of a crutch for me as I use it in alomst all my ArchViz work an hopefully in future projects I can break away from it. To simulate the long exposure light source using in light painting I used some standard plane geometry with noise and bend modifiers to simulate someone walking alongside of the car while the camera shutter was open with a Corona light material applied. A gradient ramp was used in the opacity slot to soften the edges in reflections with directionality between 0.4 & 0.5 for each light pass.

I went with 5 light passes - Front, side, high front, high rear and a rim light, as well as separate disk lights for the wheels

I used Corona light-mix to render out each light layer for compositing in photoshop as well as using the Corona Mask in Render Elements to generate masks for various parts such as wheels, bodywork etc. Doing this with photographs would mean a lot of pen tool work, but no such problem in 3D.

Compositing mainly involved a lot of trial and error painting in/out the various light layers using masks I had rendered out as well as some subtle additions like background smoke.

Overall I'm relatively happy with the final outcome, but it was the journey that was more important than the destination this time. Re-learning long forgotten photoshop skills was a must if I am to break away from doing very basic post work correction in future.

Thanks for reading