This full CGI shot of the Lancia Delta Integrale is a lesson in saving prepared assets. Almost everything in the scene has been recycled and re-purposed to a different effect. From the photoscanned cliff face to the left, the rocky forest floor to the right, the evermotion trees, the aerial road texture and even the dust cloud simulation. These have all been used in previous projects of mine. Even the procedural dust scattering on the car is a network built previously. All these time savings meant I could spend the majority of the 3 hours work (excluding rendering) on composing, lighting and tweaking shaders to integrate with each other.

This image was either going to be the Lancia or a Castrol livery Toyota Celica based on my memories of playing Sega Rally. I went for the Lancia because I find it more iconic. I wanted this to feel like a helicopter shot from a WRC stage of the period. To achieve this I used a long lens and angled the camera slightly from behind to feel as if the helicopter is chasing.

Here is the raw render:

With additional texture masks and the usual array of utility passes (normals, zdepth etc.), I composited this image to a warmer mood, shaped the boxy car and added some finer details, then put a massive flare on it.

Hope you like it!

This image did not qualify for the Automotive CGI challenge as it did not fulfil the brief of having the camera directly over the car, I will need to make a new image to submit.