32 Ford Hotrod
I have decided to include some insight into actual scenes that I have created.
I'm often flooded with questions on how I created these images but the answers
are to short to write a tutorial on so here is where "Scene Sneak Peek" comes
in.
If trueSpace needed anything (other then a new key
framer)
it needed metaballs. It is now possible to create smooth hulls
for space ships, dragons, automobiles or just whatever your
mind can dream up.
This
scene was created with a beta copy of tS3. The car body was fashioned out of two
metaballs. After getting the general shape for the bottom and top half of the body I
converted the metaballs to polyhedrons. Shaping was easy as I was only pre-occupied with
one side of the object since I was going to cut it in half and mirror it. I performed a
little boolean magic here and there for the doors and windows and the car body was just
about complete except for a little chrome trim.
You may not be able to see this amount of detail in
the above image but the car does not have
any wheels, exhaust pipes, fenders or doors
on the right side of the car. No need for them
to exist and take up valuable render cycles if
they won't be visible
.
In this pic you can see just how simple the scene
really is. I used 3 planes with actual images to give
the illusion of the great outdoors. One plane is of
the rocky mountains, one of a tree in a field and one
of a house which is reflected in the car's paint job.
I wish my backyard was this scenic.
Take notice of what looks like a tree over the car. It's actually just a bunch of planes
in one huge mass. This is how I achieved the dapple look on the car and garage door.

The reflections in the window are in fact actual reflections not an image placed behind
the garage door. If you have ever tried getting glass reflections that mimic real life you
know that this effect cannot be achieved with just a high reflective surface. What I did
here was create a chrome cube and place it directly behind the windows of the garage door
then I used a semi transparent plane in front of that to hide the chrome look of the cube.
This gave me exactly what I was looking for, a more true to life look.

The lighting was done with two local lights and
one infinite light. The infinite light is the only
shadow casting light in the scene the other two
local lamps provide the necessary fill light. The
lighting of any scene is the most important
ingredient in the soup. Experimentation is very
important and is usually how I find just the
right combo that makes the image.

Well that's about it for this image. I hope this will help cast some light on how I
created the image that seems to be appearing on everything from Caligari's product boxes,
advertisements, books and magazine articles. The real key to this image is the lighting.
You can find numerous tutes and tips on lighting in tS all over the net. I suggest
checking out some of the sites I have listed on my links page for some great tips.
Copyright 1997 Frank A Rivera, LOGICBit
LOGICBit@aol.com frank@LOGICBit.com
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