Texturing and lighting done with Blender Octane renderer. Looking for some critique on how to improve photorealism and textures on anything that might stand out to you.
Thanks!
I’m not an expert at anything, so I wouldn’t take me too seriously. Most of my comments boil down to “I’d like it better if there was more light and better contrast”. I’m having a hard time finding low-light shots of this car, so it’s hard to say how much of what I’m seeing is lack of realism and how much is just being used to seeing daylight shots.
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The first thing I noticed is how flat the image looks. I don’t think that’s unrealistic, as it can be difficult to get good-looking images of real cars, especially in low-light conditions. However, it’s aesthetically unpleasing.
It’s very difficult to see the contours on the car, particularly the hood region, with only a little shading down the side. Again, not wrong, just doesn’t feel nice.
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Next, I think the paint is too mirrored. Looking at pictures of actual 2000GTs, it does appear they’re far more mirrored than any of my cars, but you mostly still only see reflections of bright lights, not the scene itself. I’m not sure you’d see the building doors reflecting so nicely off a real car.
In real photos where you can see reflections, there are a lot of specular highlights from the bright lighting that aren’t present in your image, and the reflections seem more wavy.
Also, I don’t think the mirrors should be reflecting the red car along the bottom edge. Similarly, the corner bumper above the indicator shouldn’t be reflecting so severely. It seems logical that chrome might reflect like this, but I’m not seeing this in any of the real photos. Without finding and staring at lots of chrome I’m not sure what would cause it to not reflect imagery like a mirror.
I did find an image where the outside half of the mirrors are mirrored chrome that reflects the background, while the inside half (that the driver would see) are very rough, with a matte finish that doesn’t reflect so badly. Not sure if that’s standard on these cars, or something custom (that particular image has racing numbers, so it might be a modification done for the track).
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The chrome, headlights and wheels seem too dim. I can barely make out the spokes on the wheels, and the front of the car just seems dull and lifeless.
This could just be an issue with the low-light conditions of your render, but I feel like it would be better if they were brighter relative to the paint color.
I wonder if just giving the chrome a more matte finish might not reduce the sharp reflections mentioned above, and make the base color pop out a little more.
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The A-pillar shouldn’t be red. Every picture I can find of a 2000GT has a black pillar with a chrome stripe down the edge of the windshield. Clearly, you can paint the car however you want, but it seems more “correct” to do it the standard way.
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The body seams are nearly invisible. This is likely a factor of lighting, but it combines with the above shading issues to make it hard to see the door, engine panel, hood, and headlights. Some of the real photos have this problem as well, but I find it more appealing to see photos where those elements are more obvious.
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The pavement seems too reflective. I presume that’s supposed to be asphalt, but I can see reflected images of the buildings columns along the right edge of the image. Enough to see the distinction between the lit and unlit columns.
Real asphalt doesn’t behave that way, but if this is supposed to be some kind of granite tile or similar it might make sense.
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The windows don’t have any detail. Just a little bit of reflective surface behind the camera to give the windows some highlights could give a better sense that you’re looking at a curved piece of glass, but if that doesn’t exist in the real location, then you wouldn’t see it in a real photo either.
Reference photos (all from Google images, probably copyrighted and so forth):
1969 2000GT in a showroom (hagerty.com)
Hard to see contours, not very mirrored, no red on the mirrors, trim and wheels are bright, panel seams are almost hidden.
1967 2000GT in a showroom (bringatrailer.com)
Very mirrored, reflections are wavy, very noticeable specular highlights, panel seams are obvious.
2000GT on a road (wallup.net)
Hood and wheel detail is pleasing, not very mirrored, panel seams are more obvious, near mirror is shinier than far mirror.
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