Final image:
What do you guys think?
Is it cgtalk material?
Um, not perfectly final, it WILL improve when a new yafray comes out. (this is only 112 samples, current yafray seems to hang on 124 and above for me). And there is definietly room for improvement on the model, but no time now for a while, so I posted this here 
The rendering looks very nice, but itâs boring! 
Try experimenting with some more creative camera angles, compositions and backdrops (donât have to be detailed, but the grainy gray GI is so overdone). It can take it from being âoh, itâs a nice carâ to âwow, what a cool picture!â.
I agree with broken and something makes roof and hood look bumpy
Oh. I also thought of this:
If youâre stuck looking for ideas, perhaps as a reference you could have a look at magazine ads for cars, and look at the type of photography, angles, lighting etc. that they use. Depending on the brand of course, in a car advertisement the designer is trying to create an impression like âthis is a cool, sexy, powerful machineâ. This is kinda similar to what you want to do - show off how good your car looks. One can learn a lot from people who have found good solutions to problems like that already.
Ok.
a few thoughts of mine which have been surfacing since I joined the world of 3d.
First of all.
I donât have self-confidence. I also consider myself a newbie, since I have only been using Blender for about 2.5 months. This is my second project which inspired me (the first was my avatar, which I made in my first two weeks with blender), the rest were just for fun, and mostly out of boredom, and none got finished. Before that just to complete the picture, I played with maya ple for a little time, but got annoyed by it pretty fast because of the watermark, and it was when it first got published, so I donât really consider that experience.
Now to that which I started to say. I thought I made something really really cool here. I have set my mind to it, and been working hard on it, even if the modeling only took about a week, but as itâs summer, that week was almost all 24 hour days. I have been experimenting with a whole bunch of probes, angles, backgrounds, props. Yes, I did model stuff around the car to bring some spice to it. I tested them on my friends, and came to that simplicity worked the best on them, who ere not connected to 3d at all. So I came up with this final picture, and had one of them believe that it was actually a photograph, only by saying so, even though he has seen a whole bunch of test renders before (which eventually had to suck big time, after I have read your comments, but they said they were cool as well at that time, but this one is the best.) Actually what I really wanted was to composite it inside a real picture, but had to learn that yafray didnât have the tools for that, but eventually will, and then Iâll do that.
Enough of history. Now for what I am trying to say:
I have noticed that here on elysiun usually people encourage newbies, no matter how crappy the picture they post. And I mean crappy compared to those which are posted by endi, @ndy, speedtiti, env, and others, who are really really talented people and have been doing this for a while, not to themselves, and not to newbies. Those pictures are usually cool, while other which are really really cool usually donât get those comments, just because they are not newbie pictures. THis has backfired once since I have been here, that ninja animation, which was like the best animation I have seen here on elysiun so far. sure, it had itâs faults, but just because of this mentality the guy who made it was convienced that itâs a piece of crap. And now I feel the same. I am convinced that against all my beliefs I have created the usual crap. Itâs not that I want to hear that itâs the best youâve ever seen, or I wanât to hear that itâs so cool, when itâs not. Itâs just that I feel like itâs exactly at the same level on the scale of bad to good as the paintball picture in the WIP forum (once again, no offense meant on that one), and I find it hard to believe. Actually that one did get that it was cool, mine is nice, so Iâm lower. If that is the case, then I feel really really bad, and I am leaving elysiun and the whole 3D world as I just donât have what it takes, and I have spent a whole week instead of studying, which would eventually pay off, on something completely worthless.
In conclusion, itâs not that I want to hear what I want to hear. Itâs that I donât have self-confidence, and I canât judge my own work, and I have seen this with others work as well that some simple picture got more credit than a pretty cool one. Come to think of it, an objective scale would be nice, but then again, I could have set up a poll.
Ok, I am sorry if I have wasted your time with this. I for one am glad that I got it out of my system, I donât feel as bad as I did 5 mins ago
Now I should address the real stuff I guess
So for backdrops:
Yes, they have to be detailed. The car is pretty detailed even if it doesnât show:) , and I just donât have the time now.
hood and roof:
I havenât noticed the bumpiness, till you pointed it out, thanx, iâll look into it, itâs either autosmooth, or jpeg compression
Donât be so hard on yourself. We all go through the âI suck at 3D/CGâ mode from time to time. I have, and I know of the others here at elysiun that make great images all the time. I have so many WIPâs on my hard drive, that I keep opening and looking at and saying to myself, âthat sucksâ, âYou should start overâ, etcâŚ
Just keep on going with what you want to do and how you do it. In the end, it is how you feel about your work and not what others think that really counts. Also, since this stuff is typed, the context can be taken the wrong way as well, very easily.
Now, onto your model. I really like the render. Yes it is plain, but it works for me.
A crit, the front of the car looks squished/pinched to me. The front of the 5 Series is more square. Unless this is the 2004 model, which I know has a more sloped front end.
Well done overall. I look forward to seeing more of your stuff. You have been progressing very well.
BgDM
It was not my intention to be hash, sorry.
Engourasing newbie, yes iâm guilty for that, but when i see cool pic like yours i look faults and try to point them out to help make pic eaven better, atleast that is what i want and when iâm in hurry i may forget usual compliments.
Anyway i think that bumpyness is causet by yours reflection map, or u have overdone it, somehow it dont make sense.
I searched pic where car is in simple white scene and for my taste it have perfect reclections: http://evox.xboxhackz.net/netsoft//max/Mclaren%20F1/Max%20Renderings/white.jpg
More car renderings: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37393
He has a very valid point here tho. With yafray bringing in more and more impressive renderings, people get more and more accustomed to âimpressive renderingsâ.
Donât be offended by comments made on your work, Iâm sure NOBODY in this thread thinks this picture sucks, they just try to help you to get the most out of the model.
I do agree with them tho, it looks like it IS a great model, so show it off!
Roel
I canât believe it :< . Come on guys. Here we have a photo-realistic pic, and you called it boring, not sexy, too this or too that or not enough this? I donât get it. Whatâs boring is a scene made up of one ball. Thatâs fine: we all do these to learn something. But many go on like these one ballers are the ultimate form of artistic expression and realism⌠Come on. They are inadequate and generally optically impossible (in focus from 0 to 8 and then blurry in between)⌠And here, here you have a really excellent model, with a picture perfect render that you call that boring! I canât believe it. THIS IS AS GOOD AS ANY CAR I HAVE EVER SEEN HERE (in fact better in many way: it doesnât have the plasticky feel to it most have). THIS IS EXCEPTIONAL! :Z CONGRATS Erufailon 
8) cool sexy sober render. Thatâs what I call it.
Arnaud
As I said, I canât judge my work, and I easily believe itâs crap, even if I think it isnât, thatâs all, I took things too hard I guess, but writting all this down really helped my mood. The model is not nearly perfect, I have just noticed that the cooling gaps, or how you call them in english is nowhere near the real one in shape, working on it:)
personally, i think it is VERY good. i wish i could do stuff like that, and iâve been working with blender almost 6 months now.
Youâre really talented man!
After 2.5 months with Blender I was still in the âsphere on a planeâ-stage.
I see myself in you when you say you have no self-confidence. I hardly (or never?) post any of my own works here because of that, and Iâve been using Blender for almost 4 years now.
Thereâs some bloody model youâve got there, too bad yafray doesnât do it justice!
It looks good although the material seems to have something missing. Iâm not sure but can YafRay handle incidence angles to vary the reflectivity?
Is the bumpiness caused by not enough sub-surf divisions?
No sub-surf in this one, surfaces and high poly, subsurf was hard to control for me in this case, though I have tried.
For the yafray question: I donât know I guess not, but it might with the new shading block thingy which is in development.
Thanx guys, though now I canât decide if itâs good, or you say it is because of my whining, eheh
Eek! I hope I didnât create all of this :o
When I said âboringâ, please understand that I meant it in a lighthearted way (hence the smiley next to it). It wasnât meant in a derogatory way, like âyou suck and so does your work!â, far from it.
Maybe itâs just my personality, but I donât really like it when people tell me âoh thatâs lovelyâ, and I donât usually say that to others unless I really really mean it. I much prefer constructive and useful negative critiques than nice happy stuff, because nice happy stuff doesnât help me to improve. Constructive critiques that tell me what isnât so good and what I can make better does help me improve.
When I work on something, I can get so caught up on things and details and get so involved in it all, that itâs necessary for someone with a different perspective to say âhey, what about thisâ and make me think about something that Iâve been neglecting, or that I should do better. Anyway, I usually react the same way to other people and perhaps thatâs just my personality/philosophy, so sorry if itâs not what you wanted.
I think itâs best to aim high and the only way you can reach the higher levels is to be challenged, be ruthless and to not feel bad about iterating and iterating and throwing out old stuff even if youâve spent ages on it. When you asked âis this cgtalk materialâ, you were probably thinking âwill I get some replies if I post this?â. I was thinking âwhat can you do to improve this image to the point where it gets plugged on the front pageâ. There have been cars on the front page before, and apart from the sub-surf stuff, I canât really see much that would make your model any technically worse than some of the others Iâve seen on the front page. However the difference is in the composition, the colours, the angle etc. which is why this image was on the front page, but this image which is an almost identical model, wasnât, and is âyet another car pictureâ.
Anyway sorry to rant a bit. Just wanted to make it clear that I wasnât trying to get you down, but to motivate you to build yourself up even further! take it easy, man
I understand, I perfectly do, and I do need criticism, but (!) as I said, I easily believe that it really does suck if I only get negative replies, and than there goes my motivation, thus Iâll never aim anywhere anymore.
So I think it ainât bad to tell people that their work is pretty great, but could be better (if it is ), instead of telling only whatâs wrong. I I had confidence and I knew that it was pretty cool, than I wouldnât take it the wrong way, but after reading your comment, all I could think of was âMan, could this really be this bad? Could I be so wrong whn I thought I did something good?â. So thatâs all, itâs just my sensitivity, lack of confidence or whatever, not your fault, and actually I am sorry for writing so much about this. I will work on some composition in a month or so, 'till then itâs exam time 
see, I think the deal is this:
all us on elysiun see a pic like that, it is really good, and seems to be from someone experienced. USUALLY these people want to hear more than âit rocksâ âit kicks assâ âawesome.â so, elysiun-ers tend to give crits, because artists often want to hear how their work can be improved. and its already obvious that its good.
dont take offense to crits. noobs get all the encouraging because they need it. 
once you are past the point where ppl expect good work from you, you tend to get more crits.
great pic, but something is bugging me about the reflections⌠cant quite put my finger on it.
keep it up
It is just like NateTG said. The fact that Broken got you critique instead saying how good that picture is (and it IS very good) is the best admiration of your skills you can get. When I first saw it I didn´t expected that you work with Blender so shortly. I expected you to be artist with year+ experience with Blender.
So keep blending, you have a great future cause you have talent. All you have to do now is work hard and seek constructive crits like mad
BTW I like your picture
Maaan, I need to study, but canât, so here is another render
The problems I am aware of:
reflections on the windshield
that line in the center of the hood. It is caused by reflections, I tried with different lightings, without reflections, and the hood was perfectly smooth, no bumpiness.
the doors seem to be more inside where they connect to the cars body then where they meet. On the model this is not the case, only on the render.
O well.
