[UE4] Bugatti Renaissance Project + Material Testing (WIP)
polycounter lvl 5
Hey guys,
I already opened a thread with this over at the new Unreal Engine Forums, but since getting more feedback never is a bad thing, I will now just shamelessely copy in here what I already posted over there to just get both threads on the same level content wise
So yeah...in this thread I will share the progress of a litte side project I am doing atm
First of all, please excuse me if I will fail to provide constant updates. We have a lot of stuff going on at work right now and since I also want to play Lego with my son, there will definitely be hard times in working on this
But yeah...its still very exciting to work on this, since its the first time I have UE4 at home (I am used to it from work, however...you know....you dont always have time at work to go crazy in the way you want^^)
This project actually started when I saw an awesome screenshot of a Bugatti concept car from some guy (called jmv design) on deviantart (so the design credits of the car go to him^^). I liked it so much that I wanted to model it and render it in realtime.
The goal is to achieve a look as real as possible (like what I can do with the tech and modify it atleast as far as I can without much coding knowledge). So yeah...getting UE4 actually is a blast for this kind of project!
And whats also very cool is, there are a lot of obstacles to overcome (like no good translucency right now, no multilayered brdf with second spec ability...think of multicoated carpaint, no real area lights, etc^^) and that makes it even more interesting to find nice workarounds
I have modeled most of the basics of the car hp right now and for the wheels I have a textured lowpoly. I am still using the hp with a veeeery bad unwrap in the engine since I am far away from having the model finished and baked (****...I never thought how time consuming it is to model a car just with a couple of screens and no blueprints xD)...so I guess I will have my slowest progress there xD
The rest of the scene is a material test where I worked on cool concrete tiles and a floor material, and I also worked on a good way to do lightsouces, and, what better way is there than to try nice bubble lights^^
I am also working on a blockout for the scene righ now but I wont show it until its at least something worth looking at
Sooo...enough writing for now, here are some screens!
Right now....my main focus (while still working on the hp) is getting the carpaint right. Its not that easy and there is still a lot of room for improvements^^
I later also updated the roughness of the tire (which was way too glossy in the images above) and tested the paint shader in different HDR environments to get a feeling on how it behaves under different conditions.
Hui...quite a huge post now with all of that stuff in already xD
To be continued^^...
I already opened a thread with this over at the new Unreal Engine Forums, but since getting more feedback never is a bad thing, I will now just shamelessely copy in here what I already posted over there to just get both threads on the same level content wise
So yeah...in this thread I will share the progress of a litte side project I am doing atm
First of all, please excuse me if I will fail to provide constant updates. We have a lot of stuff going on at work right now and since I also want to play Lego with my son, there will definitely be hard times in working on this
But yeah...its still very exciting to work on this, since its the first time I have UE4 at home (I am used to it from work, however...you know....you dont always have time at work to go crazy in the way you want^^)
This project actually started when I saw an awesome screenshot of a Bugatti concept car from some guy (called jmv design) on deviantart (so the design credits of the car go to him^^). I liked it so much that I wanted to model it and render it in realtime.
The goal is to achieve a look as real as possible (like what I can do with the tech and modify it atleast as far as I can without much coding knowledge). So yeah...getting UE4 actually is a blast for this kind of project!
And whats also very cool is, there are a lot of obstacles to overcome (like no good translucency right now, no multilayered brdf with second spec ability...think of multicoated carpaint, no real area lights, etc^^) and that makes it even more interesting to find nice workarounds
I have modeled most of the basics of the car hp right now and for the wheels I have a textured lowpoly. I am still using the hp with a veeeery bad unwrap in the engine since I am far away from having the model finished and baked (****...I never thought how time consuming it is to model a car just with a couple of screens and no blueprints xD)...so I guess I will have my slowest progress there xD
The rest of the scene is a material test where I worked on cool concrete tiles and a floor material, and I also worked on a good way to do lightsouces, and, what better way is there than to try nice bubble lights^^
I am also working on a blockout for the scene righ now but I wont show it until its at least something worth looking at
Sooo...enough writing for now, here are some screens!
Right now....my main focus (while still working on the hp) is getting the carpaint right. Its not that easy and there is still a lot of room for improvements^^
I later also updated the roughness of the tire (which was way too glossy in the images above) and tested the paint shader in different HDR environments to get a feeling on how it behaves under different conditions.
Hui...quite a huge post now with all of that stuff in already xD
To be continued^^...
Replies
So yeah...let me know what you guys think! Every feedback is very much appreciated
Cheers!
-place a skylight in the scene
-switch it to use a cubemap
-choose the hdr image
-make a new skydome material
-add the tga version and map it on the skydome
and now experiment
Also nice work
And for a car's exterior you really need layered materials, which I don't think UE4 supports. Car paint is pretty complex, which is why modern high end car games spend a lot of time on materials, much more even than "great looking" other games like Crysis and watnot.
UE4 does support layered materials. In fact, it probably does layered materials better than any other engine I've ever used.
The rest of your sentiment is correct. Model needs some adjustments - the proportions make it feel very cartoony.
I know my proportions are not 100% accurate yet, modelled it all by eyeballing from screens, but we should at least compare it with the right car, I think^^
Regarding the carpaint, layered materials in UE4 are NOT the same as a layered brdf with second spec
Thats why I wrote in my opening post that I think it would be a cool challange to try how far I can get within the limitations of UE4
Lets see...I am away durin eastern so I can continue working on it next week
http://jonsibal.com/bpimages/Bugatti_Renaissance_GT_by_jmvdesign.jpg
-Edit removed image tags, so I dont clutter this thread up
"Bugatti Renaissance" - Is the name
I don't mean the way they mean it... which is a weird way of putting it. No I mean that there's actually 2 different materials, one that's ideally partially transparent, that go into creating something like car paint, which I don't know if UE4 actually supports.
Edit- see someone else already pointed it out. Kind of annoys me that Epic used "Layered materials" a term already in use, for something else, that doesn't really have to do with layers.
Though I do realize my mistake with the car. I'd honestly only heard of the Veyron as the modern Buggati. Didn't know they'd made a different model, or rather someone made a concept for a different model it appears.
Someone posted this the other day. Maybe it will help a little bit.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2031520&postcount=1155
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2031894&postcount=1179
Yeah, I have seen that paint shader and I like the subtle normal details in it. That actually was the starting point for my shader
But I will look into parameter collections in the future to get atleast the light vector for directional lights in scenes that are not artificially lit. Lets see how that goes^^
Thanks guys!
Fresnels are a great thing to view carbon fibers underneath the protective paintcoat. This should be interesting to you, since the Veyron is completely carbon-made and has a beautiful (structure) surface on close ups. Try to find some images that go close up on the paint, maybe look for documentaries.
Actually - in U4 there may be ways to improve the classic Fresnel 2-color carpaint, by using the subsurface scattering material. I haven't tried any of that yet, but with that carbon surface it could look interesting.
Thanks a lot! I didnt know thats, but its pretty cool!
Although I have the feeling they dont show the cqrbon on every part...looks like they combine it like jmv design did as well.
The black parts of my model already use a cqrbon texture, but since the uv is so bad, you dont really see it
I already made some research on how to best render carpaint, and as soon as I dont have to write from my cellphone I can share my thoughts more in depth.
But to mention it quickly...right now, its basically impossible to really get a nice 2 layer look without actually using two layers.
The blue/purple ball does that. Its a rough cameleon paint with flakes and then the mesh is duplicated, scaled up by a very small amount and applied a translucent, glass like shader.
Thats the only way I could think of doingvit accurately.
However, translucent in UE4 is not yet finished, so reflections on it are limited and not high quality enough...and it has no specular yet.
Epic is working on nice translucency that is rendered forward, but I dont know when its goin to be ready
Thanks again for the nice hint!
What it doesn't have is a specular overcoating, like real paint; the depth of real Carbon is missing. The problem with the car may be that not all the UV's are straight enough to use this texture without a lot of adjusting. It will work for my rifle though, and I'll probably post a thread on it soon, to talk about this shader.
sorry for the long time without any updates, been pretty busy lately. So here you go, these are the latest changes on the carpaint shader (model hasnt been updated yet
I just added some minor things like fresnel based AO effects and (finally!
@Sinking: Havent seen that yet, thanks for the hint
Hope you like it and feedback is very much appreciated!
Cheers
here are the wip shots of the material:
Hope you like it!
Cheers
As for the carbon fiber suggestion. While the body is made of carbon fiber (which is a metal surface) the body is also painted. Sometimes the carbon fiber has a clear coat applied and left exposed, but that's a totally different approach to this project
Hey man, thanks a lot for the suggestions! Would you mind sharing some reference on the flakes? I would totally like to see which effect you mean and how real car paint flakes should behave according to your observations.
I did some research on it, but of course its never gonna be perfect^^ So yeah, I would be very interested in getting to know what you would consider appropriate flakes for a metal paint so I can just broaden my horizon and see what I could do with my current shader
Thanks a lot!
The "noise" is called roughness in the the shader material. If you mask it you can get acarbon pattern. That's what I meant and what I refered to about the Unreal Carbon Material.
Carbon is a metal, huh? News to me. So you must be a robot, my good sir
Agreed, sometimes Carbon is painted over with opaque color, but to my knowledge Bugatti's are actually all made from that special carbon, which shows its pattern only at a certain reflective (BRDF) angle. _It looks painted and opaque from almost any angle, though.
I haven't seen one myself, but I've watched a documentary about the making of the Veyron. The reason you can see the material in full is because the quality of the fiber is so high. Other car manufacturers only cover fractions of their cars in fiber (hood, instruments, mirrors, doors...), and it's never as strong or deep as the one Bugatti uses. Even worse are the carbon sheets you can glue on top of the paint. These have no depth at all. But that is the way U4's carbon material fakes the effect too. Simply by masking the fiber with a gradient pattern.
As for your car. It looks a bit dull like that. I'd browse through some of Bugatti's own designs and either try and copy one of their special editions style or to let yourself inspired by the regular paintjobs they do, e.g. on the Veyron. It seems there are almost always 2 colors + black on that car. You might get some better brand recognition with the use of an established "Bugatti" paintjob. Of course you can make more than one color scheme. I think for cars this goes more than with any other asset.
Hey Daedalus51, I apologize for how long it took me to check this. I'll try to take some pictures of what I'm referencing tomorrow and play around with materials when I get a chance.
Sinking, you sound kind of offended. Wasn't my intent; I'm honestly quite familiar with carbon fiber as a material. But now that we're having a pissing contest with cars, let me throw some facts out.
First of all, carbon fiber (which I assume is what you're abbreviating when you say 'carbon'?) is two different materials woven together. One of those materials is almost always a metal of some sort, usually aluminum. This gives it excellent strength while maintaining some flex. It is a very light material when compared to other vehicular metals with similar structural integrity. Another thing to note is that the Veyron's body (and most likely the Renaissance as well) is not exclusively made of carbon fiber; a good portion of it is aluminum as well. That would require Daedalus51 creating two different shaders for this vehicle, which he hasn't mentioning wanting to do yet.
To further elaborate on carbon fiber's use on vehicles; yes, you'd be correct in most of what you said. However one important thing to know is that when carbon fiber is used as body panel, it looks very patchy/ shotty and then is covered in paint. However if it's going to be exposed, a lot of work is put into the carbon fiber to make sure it is "presentation worthy". That means no patches. Each panel of carbon fiber has to be perfect and the flow of the weave has to line up with each other panel (which is a nightmare and noticeably more costly).
Almost all Italian supercars use carbon fiber chassis but one of my favorite examples of this is the classic Ferrari F40. When most cars have two coats of paint, the original F40s only used one to save weight. And if you look really closely, you can make out the carbon fiber underneath the paint. I think that's an awesome bit of trivia.
Now going back to Daedalus51's question about car paint, I'm assuming he wants to show the Renaissance painted. In which case we are offering help in this thread. If he wants the carbon fiber exposed with a semi-transparent coat of paint (like in your reference) or a fully transparent clear coat (which is far more common), I'm sure you're very qualified to talk about its surface properties.
keep up the good work:thumbup:
ps: that song..lol:poly128::poly128::poly128:
For those reflections to be awesome he needs to make the topology perfect first...you should better model the car perfect before go into materials and stuff...
Are youre cubemaps HDR ? There are not many white highlights on your car, only like medium grey ones. Overall your setup seems pretty dark.
first of all....thank you all a lot for the great feedback! Very appreciated and really helpful!
To clear up some things^^ The goals I set myself for this project are:
make a nice paint shader that works in certain environments (not everywhere because of the BRDF implementation right now, you basically have to choose if you want to go for a HDR render scene or if it should work in a car racing game.....you would need to pick different approaches for now to make em look equally good) I decided to go for the HDR render.
train my modelling skills
get all the materials in the scene to look as real as possible
I definitely (as mentioned) aim for realism, however I did not look that much into painting techniques of real Bugattis because my initial goal was just to get to this result:
I now know that the Bugattis generally go with a two colored paint, and luckily JMV design also has a version of that car with a two color paint, so I might go for that one in the end:
I really love all that tech stuff about the carbon! However, I am not quite sure if this effect can be achieved without a layered BRDF and using a second shell with a translucent clear coat material didnt gave me the desired results because of bad implementation (no specularity and bad HDR reflection resolution on translucent materials and also no SSR support just yet) I might however try this out as soon as Epic has updated the shaders.
So please dont burn me alive for not paying attention to details, I just decided for now to stick with a classic car paint
Right now, its all about how much I can fake with the tools I have at my hand^^
I already updated the flake texture, so right now it looks quite close to what I saw on cars that I looked closely at on the street, however, it kind of changed the overall look of my shader so much that I still have to tweak some things to get it to look nice again xD
About the model itself...yeah, I think you guys are totally right! The shapes need to be perfect for it to work. But I do think that its still a good base to get things started and get a feel for it
One very important thing (and I am still struggeling with this) is the HDR image itself.
We did some car visualization stuff at the office for some known manufacturers, and I had a look at those setups, but the problem is that the HDR environments were supported by them and of course I cant have them for private joy^^. Google didnt gave me the desired results just yet. So I think I just need to search a bit more to find some better HDRs, becaus in this case, they are the reflection. The better the HDR, the better the reflection and the one I am using right now is quite meh^^ (its still the best one that I could find without paying for it
One thing regarding the dark images... with PBR, its quite important to have your displays calibrated. Mine are, so the downside of that is, if you are viewing these images with an uncalibrated display, they probably look too dark
I will see if I can make some presets for my display to better mimic a general calibration so I dont get these huge discrepancies. Thanks for bringing that up!
Yeah...thats it for now. Sorry for no real updates on the project. Will do my best to provide some soon.
Thanks again for all the feedback! Very awesome of you guys
Cheers!
https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?4107-Interesting-post-from-AnswerHub-on-how-to-setup-a-Layer-Car-Paint-shader
Hehe, thanks man! I already had some nice chats with those guys at the Answer Hub and in their threads
He went for the cubemap realtime capture via material in the end, which I would not like to do right now. I actually thought about that as well, but I would be more happy to find another solution that gives me better results with my setup^^
(I also dont need it as dynamic as he does, he is making a racing game while I am more about that perfect shot^^)
Cheers!
Research on this is really easy. I just use Google for the facts.