Car Paint tutorial

by Daniel Buck
www.danielbuck.net

So you have modeled that sweet car? But can't seem to get the paint material to look good? Well pay attention, this is for YOU! :)

Keep in mind, there is always more than one way to skin a cat (hah!), and this is by NO means the only way to get a good looking paint material. It's just one of the methods I use. (yes, I use more than one method)

First, we will start off with a Shellac material, and set the color blend to 50 (which is 50%). Shellac material lets you set a "base" material which will be the main material, and a Shellac material that is a second material to go on top of the base material. There are many uses for a Shellac material, in the case of car paint, the main reason is so we can give our base material a very crisp highlight, and the shellac material with a softer highlight (and change the color of the shellac highlight).

Go into the base material, change it to a raytraced material, and lets change the diffuse to a moderately dark red color. Also change the specular level to around 125, the glossiness to about 70, and check 2 sided. The base material will be the main color of the car.

Now click the box next to reflection

select falloff, and change the falloff type to Fresnel. Fresnel falloff changes the material with relationship of the angle on the object. The greater the angle, the more the material is changed. In the case of reflections, the greater the angle, the more the reflection. If you get eye level with your car door in front of the door handle, you will see some reflection, but if you move by the front of the car and increase the angle at which you view the door, you will see even more reflection. Fresnel falloff is a way of simulating real world reflections.

Go up a level (to parent) until you get back to the Shellac parameters.

Click and drag the base material (raytrace) down to the Shellac material, check COPY, and select Ok.

Well? It's a start. Keep in mind, the angle of your lights and camera (also what is in your background) will greatly effect the look of the material... as it's reflective. :-)

In the Shellac parameters, click on the Shellac material and change the glossiness to about 40, which will give if a softer highlight. It's getting there!

Change the specular color material to speckle and change the size to about 1 (will be different for different scale models), and the colors to white and orange. In doing this, we can simulate paint flakes. This speckle specular part of the tutorial is just another option for the paint, just to add realism. You can totally do with out it, it's just an extra.

You can see this makes the car paint seem like it has small flakes in it now!

And now for that color shifting paint! In the Shellac material, lower the glossiness to about 20 (to get an even wider spread of the 2nd specular highlight) and change the specular color to what ever color you want!

and check it out!

Change the shellac highlight color around, and change the diffuse color of the base and shellac materials to anything that suits you!

Have fun! Change settings and find out for yourself what changing other parameters can do! For instance, try a falloff material for the diffuse color, and change the values around!
© Daniel Buck