Terrain

To create the terrain i had used a vray blend material this proved most useful in a number of ways. Also a vray infinte plane was used as a base which kept the horizon line constant at all times but the problem with this was mapping a texture without millions of tiles and horrible seams. Instead of a bitmap i created a highly detailed procedural map which loaded and generated random and detailed textures at all times.

The base layer was a simple dusty yellow colour only to aid the ambient colouring and the primary layer was the cracked flooring which was made from a fractured cellular procedural with the cells evenly spread and the cellular colour being a turbulent noise map for added detail. On top of the cracked floor was the sand was a highly detailed splat map, this map creates small circles of varying size and for added detail the background colour was another splat map. The combo of a three colour splat map produced a realistic sand texture.

on top of everything was a green patches map, this controlled the spread of vegetation and provided a realistic base. This map however could not be mapped to the vray infinity plane since its impossible to give the plane a vertex colour channel (it has no vertices) .

The blending of the two materials was controlled by a noise map the the colours fading from black to white in large patches, the black ant white represente the opacity.

Grass

Creating the grass dust and other vegetation for the desert scene was one of the biggest tasks. To make the grass look convincing it had to be spread as far as the eye could see this involved different levels of detail so that the close ups would show individual blades of grass and in the far out shots its still possible to make it out.

Using the inbuilt scatter command i could spread the vegetation across the scene but this was no where near efficient since the poly could was too great and there was not much control over the spread. after many tries with the scatter effect i decided to settle on using particle instances.

using particles i could control the spread of the vegetation using a greyscale map and by altering an existing procedural i could generate vast amounts of random terrain. The problem with using procedurals is that they are co-ordinate based and could not work with particle spread since particles can only be spread with a 2D map but by uv scaling the plane to the vertex colour map any procedural could be used to generate a surface.

Particles in the background were lower in poly count but still takin a long time to render but by excluing them from the vray sun they did not generate shadows which lowered rendering time and kept the same level of quality.

The same technique for distributing grass was used for dust and dirt since the spread and density could be instantly altered using a greyscale map. Using particles meant i could create a few variants within one sub-shaded model and they would all be randomly distributed.

To improve efficiency i used simple textured planes for the far out shots, these planes had opacity maps that showed each piece individually

Environment details

The vray sun node was used to Illuminate the whole scene, this provided even lighting for any time of day. The turbidity was lowered to the minimum to give the atmosphere a clean flat look and the environment map was edited separately to provide a vibrant background without burning the image.

Along with the vray sun i used a vray physical camera to film the sequence and instead of matching the camera to the scene i had some advice from a professional photographer and set the scene to the camera. Using real life settings such as a 250 ms-1 shutter speed and an f number of 11 the camera couldn't behave in an un realistic manor.

With the help of the photographer i was also able to realistically setup the depth of field, this made my shots look professional and disguised any low poly details in the background.

The car is sooo close

Its nearly at an end the chassis is complete and the rimms are there too!!! just a matter of shading and then the grunge!!!!!

Animation storyboard

Our car is on the run but this time from local law enforcement agencies! the chase runs through desolate nuke towns until the border is in sight!!! Unfortunately this is no ordinary border and in fact we are heading straight for undeclared territory. This wasteland has been bombarded with various weaponry to the point of where its completely uninhabitable, only a mad man would risk his life in such a way. If only he was aware. The perusing offisers back away but we are not in the clear as we try to avoid the unexploded munitions it only a matter of time before we become unlucky. The specially designed touring car is destroyed and the driver is obliterated but the car and its contents lives to see another day.

Borderdash backstory

As time goes on the is consuming the earths natural resources at an exponential rate and conflict is at it peak, nowhere escapes war and supplies run short. Armies turn to unconventional weaponry such as nuclear and cluster bombs and drones are widely used simply because soldiers do not have the energy to fight. With petrol almost extinct logistics become one of the worlds most respected jobs but with money comes opposition and it cross country delivery is illegal everywhere. In desperate times people will do anything to survive including risking their lives across the border trying their best to avoid drones.

Yaaaaay Curves!

New car designed with a near perfect topology. This model was made using patches which provide and amazing amount of control over curves.


Using patches also provides unparalleled control over subsurface divisions to create LOD models in an instant.