By the time Speed Racer is smashing this summer´s box offices I thought it might be nice to finish a tutorial I started about a year ago :-) It´s a small people tutorial and the renderings are far from photoreal but it gives you and idea of what can be done in post production…


Open this Links First :
http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/max/procarpaint/index.html




The images above are done from ONE SINGLE 3D rendering session providing all the passes we need to change pretty much everything in post without re-rendering in 3D which can eat production/render time when the customer is a bit moody with his decisions...

The layers I rendered as well as the After Effects Project file are all featured in this tutorial and can be downloaded here: Project and Render Files

I wouldn´t go any deeper into After Effects or provide the Max file since this an intermediate compositing tutorial. You can read about Ambient Occlusion, Falloffs and Blend Options in your Max/After Effects Help yourself ;-p No basics covers, I´m sorry. So let´s go!


Step 1: This tutorial works with simple tricks! Nesting Compositions into each other and setting Mattes (called knock out layers) with alpha and falloff passes we rendered.We start with a new Composition and drag the Ambient Occlusion rendering into it. An additional added Brightness&Contrast can be used to eventually adjust the layer to have more or less AO going on.





Step 2: Our base coat layer, believe it or not, consists of two color solids! I add Hue/Saturation to both of them and adjust the colors to my desire by shifting the color, saturation and lightness. Having 2 different color solids creates the chamelion look later ;). I use the Carpaint Falloff rendering to blend them nicely into each other. An additional Brightness &Contrast can be used to modify the hardness of the Falloff.



Step 3: Since the color Solids are still full screen we need to use a matte to cut out the car body. Drag the whole Base Color composition into a new composition and use the Carpaint Mask rendering as Luma Matte. The Carpaint Mask is actually a B/W rendering with a white self-illuminated material applied to the car body. The rest of the scene has a black self-illuminated material applied. The result is a nice mask.