Here's one taken from a pretty familiar viewpoint...

It needed a bit of tweaking to work - the glass needed to be made two-sided, and slightly more transparent and less reflective, and the rear-view mirror needed to be pointed in a slightly different direction. Also, the instrument panel isn't mapped my default, so that needed doing too. Finally, a luminescence map was added to make the instruments glow.

I've been playing with using a spherical environment map for the background too.

I'm quite pleased with the result.


EDIT: Oh yes, thanks to ManInTightPants for the racing FZ skin. http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=187046#post187046

That's funny, I've been working on adding instruments in the interior as well, but for the raceabout

Looks nice, could you tell me a bit more about how to use a luminescence map? I like the way the instrument panel reflects in the window glass.

Good job

Looks good.

One thing though is you might want to turn up the glossiness of the car paint material. As it is now the reflection of the light looks a bit dull.

That render looks cool! I do like that a lot.

Quote from joen :

Looks nice, could you tell me a bit more about how to use a luminescence map? I like the way the instrument panel reflects in the window glass.

They're basically just a texture that glows. Any parts that are black won't glow at all, and any parts that are other colours will glow with a strength depending on the brightness of the colour. The way I made mine was to just use the interior2.dds texture and make another one where I'd painted over everything in black except for the glowing parts of the intrument panel.


I'm still playing with the car body texture. I think I've got the reflection where I want it, I'll try turning up the glossiness. Its at 60 at the moment.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

They're basically just a texture that glows. Any parts that are black won't glow at all, and any parts that are other colours will glow with a strength depending on the brightness of the colour. The way I made mine was to just use the interior2.dds texture and make another one where I'd painted over everything in black except for the glowing parts of the intrument panel.

Thanks. So just like a bump map basically? But do you put the texture in one of the materials' slots? Like you do with a bump map? I can't remember if there is something like a luminescence slot, and I can't check it right now. Are you using Brazil? I'm using vRay so maybe it's different there.

Yeah, like a bump map, but with light instead of height. I use Brazil and there's a slot for Luminescence on the main panel for the material. If you use a normal 3DMax material, theres a slot for 'Self Illumination' in the Maps tab, which is pretty much the same thing, so VRay may use that name.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Yeah, like a bump map, but with light instead of height. I use Brazil and there's a slot for Luminescence on the main panel for the material. If you use a normal 3DMax material, theres a slot for 'Self Illumination' in the Maps tab, which is pretty much the same thing, so VRay may use that name.

Ah ok, I remember the self illumination now. I'll check it out later. Thanks

Wow, the render looks very much like reality. Maybe it's because the cars aren't over glossy? The ground texture really helps too, as well as the shading for the dash.

Quote from undertech :

Wow, the render looks very much like reality. Maybe it's because the cars aren't over glossy? The ground texture really helps too, as well as the shading for the dash.

it does?

wonder what your world looks like

Yes, it does. More than anything I've seen from anyone else here so far anyway.
No, it doesn't have to have an unwashed civic with twin mufflers at the mall to look "realistic" (as in real life objects or horizons) because I was merely commenting on the way light falls on the scene.