California Caddy

Speedster · February 08, 2015, 07:45:39 AM

Hi all;

We had to make a trip to Los Angeles several weeks ago, so naturally we "drove" the beautiful Cadillac modeled by Curro Astorza, and featured in several posts by myself and Tim.

Backplate shot with my Galaxy 5 (great camera!) at the Hilton Doubletree Hotel in Commerce, CA. I shot it with this in mind, knowing what a challenge it would be to create lighting for it. Used a heavily tweaked dome from HDRMAPS.com, using the KeyShot HDR Editor, adding three pins. Actually used three light passes, as a comp in CS5.

Having driven a 1952 Caddy convertible back in college, I know full well how huge they are, especially when compared next to a modern day suppository!

Bill G
FYI- Doubletree Hotel/Commerce is a great hotel, and Javier is the best bartender in Los Angeles!

Despot · February 08, 2015, 07:55:42 AM

Nice car and render Bill, but when I look at the image at full resolution, it's obvious that there is a white matte around the front and rear wheels... Performing a 'defringe' of 1 pixel in Photoshop would have probably rectified this (Layer >>Matting>>Defringe)

Also, the shadows underneath are a little light... sorry, just my humble observations

J

Speedster · February 08, 2015, 08:37:19 AM

Good catch, J! Puzzled by the fringe, as I did TIFF's and used the Place command, but obviously something shifted. One of my layers was the shadow as a TIFF (could have been from a hidden emissive), that I doubled up in PS. Adding yet another duplicate shadow darkened it nicely, I think.

Thanks!! We all learn!

Bill G

Despot · February 08, 2015, 11:10:23 AM

It looks wonderful now Bill... the shadows blend almost perfectly with the backplates.

Speedster · February 08, 2015, 11:41:25 AM

Thanks!! Interesting how we are all afraid (except you and Tim!) of black!
Bill G

Will Gibbons · February 09, 2015, 10:37:24 AM

Yeah! This thing is great! Thanks for sharing.

evilmaul · February 09, 2015, 05:51:25 PM

cool render Bill!
there is still have a misaligned layer in PS tho, you can see it on the screen right side of the car but it's only visible when you see the pic at full screen.

edwardo · February 10, 2015, 06:01:34 AM

Nice work Bill.

Obviously I am entirely nit-picking, but I can see a fair amour of B&W chequered reflections on the chrome, which I also think is a tad too shiny.

I want to try driving one of these 50's motors before I die. I don't see it happening

Ed

feher · February 11, 2015, 03:57:09 PM

Very nice Bill !!!!! Great showcase of the two different era's in automotive design.
I would like to see some blue rolling over the hood area. Notice the colors the new Cadillac has in the paint. If you can mimic that that will bring this whole image together .
Thanks for sharing I hope you play with this more when you have free time.
Tim