A Step-by-Step Guide on Crafting 1960s Hot Rods in 3D

Introduction

Hi, the last time we talked was back in 2018. As you probably know, a lot of stuff did happen and the world is a different place today.

Our studio released The Last Of Us Part II back in 2020 and The Last Of Us Part I, UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PS5 and PC in 2022. I am still teaching a "Texturing and Shading 2" class at the Gnomon School, where I teach Substance 3D Painter and Redshift for Maya. I did a lot of projects on my ArtStation. I started to use Blender for my personal work and I am now the Director of the Dynamics and Props Department at Naughty Dog.

About The Race Track Project

That project started out of my obsession with anything related to hot rods, muscle cars, and speed in general. I did collect a lot of references for the cars, mixing them from different real-world projects found online. It is not like I did create those cars for this specific project. I did have them dormant on my hard drive for some time, constantly going back to them to improve the model, and used them in different renderings or test renders in the past. The drivers were specifically modeled for this project, as I wanted to capture the essence of a race car driver from the mid-60s of the last century.

Modeling

One of the reasons why I started to move toward a Blender pipeline for my personal work is the insane amount of resources that you can find and buy online. The race track is a heavily modified version of the set that I bought on ArtStation and the plants are coming out of a paid addon.

I modeled the cars in Maya. The pilot started as a block mesh in Maya, then sculpted in ZBrush, and rigged in Maya. As for the composition, the fact is that I use only GPU to render, allowing me to do a lot of trial and error to find the best shots. I generally render a lot of images and select a couple of the best ones akin to a digital photographer, not worrying too much about the cost of a roll of film. My only limitation is the render time.

Retopology

Because I like to model mostly in the subdivision, I did not have to retopo the cars at all. UVs for them were done in Maya, making extensive use of the unwrap feature. As mentioned above, the driver is a ZBrush project, modeling him naked in t-pose, using a lot of DynaMesh and ZRemesh. UV is done in Maya, and then after the rigging is done, I animate a bunch of poses on the timeline, and send all of that to Marvelous Designer to create the clothes.

Texturing

The texturing workflow is pretty standard. I textured the cars and the driver's body, and hard surface bits, like the helmet and shoes, in Substance 3D Painter. I always try to think about the material in layers. For example, for the car paint, I started with the bare metal, then laid the primer and the paint on top, and did a microdamage and deterioration pass that would represent the damage that did occur over the lifetime of the material. Then, I laid on top of the environmental storytelling element, like recent dirt, mud, or even newer damages.

For the clothes, because the UVs are consistent, while the fold and overall geometry shape are changing for each pose, I decided to go with a procedural approach, relying on a curvature setup in conjunction with layer material.

Final Scene & Composition

I generally play with different placements for the vehicles and poses for the character. I create a bigger set than what I need, which gives me a lot of options for the final renders. I tend to place a lot of stuff by hand, or rely on the scattering feature from Blender for the vegetation.

For the overall design and feel of the piece, I did look at old photos of that era. The most difficult part was to marry the realistic look of the render with the stylized approach that I applied to the driver.

Lighting

While I generally rely a lot on Image-Based Lighting for my lighting and reflection, in this particular case, I did use the Blender sky texture with the Nishita sky type. All my reflections are 100% coming from the geometry in the environment.

As for the post-production, I used the post-processing capabilities of Blender for a subtle chromatic aberration and glow. Then, I pushed the render through Photoshop's "camera raw filter" to manipulate the image quality and color corrections.

Summary

I worked on it in my free time over the course of roughly one month. The first of two main challenges was to keep the render time under 4 minutes per frame, something made possible by my GPU setup, as I am running 2x 3090 TI and 1x Quadro 6000. The second challenge was probably the most difficult one, fighting against my own ADHD and staying focused on this project for such a long time, without starting something new.

For every project that I publish, at least 4 to 5 of them never see the light of day in my portfolio and are left to die in some folders on my hard drive. I do not feel that this project taught me much on the artistic side, as I stayed in my comfort zone. However, it was an opportunity to dive deeper into Blender and learn more about how it works. While I do not have further plans for this specific character or scene, I am already working on a couple of personal projects, and I hope to have at least one ready to be published by the end of June. Keep having fun doing what you love, and never stop learning.

Christophe Desse, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine