Hey guys, I don’t usually do renders, I’m more into using the Game Engine. But I’m making an attempt at modeling a photorealistic version of my car, a 2000 Toyota Corolla VE. I’m trying my best, but I’m better at making games than doing renders. Any critiques are welcome. I’m trying to make it look as realistic as possible.
Here’s my progress so far. All textures and bump maps were hand made by me. I even included all of the small writing on the side of the tire.
Lookin’ good.
looks good but rims are usually more reflective
Are you talking about specularity or mirroring?
where’s the car?
It will come along eventually 
Odd place to start with the wheel, but anyhow my 2 cents of the day will be that if you are aiming for photo real and not game model look than you model the tire tread and don’t do it with bump maps. Right now you are in game engine land not photo-real land. Sidewall detail you can do with a bump(though some crazy highend modelers from places like cgcars and smcars model sidewall detail with geometry). I am modeling the wheel on my mp4-12c and will post pics and wires today or tomorrow so if you need wires than look there.
But I would start modeling the car not the wheel its the part that really should get the most attention. a wheel if you know how to go about it takes a day or two to make the body of the car if you want to do a proper job and not a half assed affair will take about three to four weeks if not longer. A proper job to me is on this level…http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=85210
I just started on the wheels because I figured that was the easiest part. I’ve tried modeling the tire tread before, but it didn’t turn out well for me. I’ll check out your pics and see how you modeled it. Do you have any tips for modeling the body?
Use Cycles or Luxrender.
Seeing as you are modeling your car you have you reference next to you I would grab a camera and take plenty pictures from many angles, I would guess in the end you could end up with about 100-200 photos easy.