The Hot Wheels Project

Final Result

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Over the course of 10 weeks the class worked in small groups to create a photo realistic short featuring a car mentored by The Mill NY. We took inspiration from hot wheels and thought, what would it be like if there was a hot wheels track for real cars. Using that as our look guide, we set out to make a gorgeous looking car short. Week to week the short would change drastically based on feedback from our mentors and we would adapt to it. It was an amazing opportunity to work with The Mill and I learned a lot in a short time.

Creating A Comp Template

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Because we decided early on that it would be a full CG spot, it would mean that I would have much more control over the environment and the overall look of the film in comp. We utilized AOVs as well as light groups to get the most out of comp and limit our render time.

Direct and indirect AOVs were merged together, then I divided out the Albedo to get a pass with just lighting. I was then able to manipulate the color of the environment as well the color of the light separately.

To help keep things organized, I put this in a group node where I brought certain controls to the top level which would help to speed up my workflow and so that I wouldn't have to dig through a sub script every time I needed to make an adjustment.

Lens Flares

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Creating realistic lens flares for this short was a process of collecting reference, breaking down the elements of the flare, and then finally creating and combining those elements to create a final look.

Final flares.

The central flare was also key-framed to intensify as the car moves more or less directly towards the lens.

[headlight reference]

Lens Distortion

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To give an extra sense of realism I wanted to add some lens distortion. I considered just shooting a lens grid on the URSA Mini downstairs but I had already created anamorphic lens flares and to stick with that I wanted the distortion to be anamorphic as well.

I found this great resource which also came in handy while refining the lens flares. It's just loads of tests with loads of lenses. I always have this on hand when creating lens flares or looking for distortion reference.

https://www.sharegrid.com/ultimate-lens-library.html

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This project was an incredible experience and The Mill was infinitely helpful and insightful. I would also like to thank Professors Gaynor and Fowler for running this class. I learned a lot about full CG compositing and about attaining photo realism in general.