Experimenting with shaders part 2 (Car Textures and shaders)

This morning I have been experimenting with textures and shaders on vehicles, mostly shaders as I was a bit unsure how some of the mental ray shaders work. I already had a model car to work on that I obtained from a competition that I was planning on working on but didnt have the time as I was still working on Kernel. Anyway, I dug it out and started applying a splash of colour to it, it is suprisingly straight forward to get a nice effect with the mental ray car paint shader and works beatifully as standard when the scene is correctly lit. I only had to slightly tweek it as it was pretty much spot on for what I was after. The harder part was trying to get a decent looking set of headlights as what ever I did they just looked 'off', I still think this in the most recent WIP. The whole car also looks a bit too glossy but this is easily rectified.

It was nice to do something other than modelling as well as I found myself getting a bit buried with it, its satisfying trying to create a photo real image using the colour side of things instead of worrying about the geometry. I am going to carrying on working with this as I know I will be able to produce something pleasing to look at and it will be something fresh to add to my show reel.

I am also going to try and post more frequently on my blog now that summer is over and that I now have what I would call a tidy little studio to work from!