Link via Computer Graphics World
According to Burgess and fellow automotive photographers Michael Lee, Nigel Harniman, and Vic Huber, the Bunkspeed software, called HyperShot, warranted a fresh look at how photography can be used with CGI.
Unlike traditional programs, originally intended for creating images and animations from scratch, HyperShot is designed exclusively for working with photos and HDR data. After shooting the background plate and HDR photos and loading them into HyperShot, the user imports a 3D car model from any standard 3D DCC software, including native data from popular CAD programs. Next, the person applies materials, color, and surface textures using a palette within the software. Then, he or she chooses an HDR map to provide the lighting, adds the backplate image, and adjusts the virtual camera for lens type, angle, rotation, and distance.
Automotive photographer David Burgess used Bunkspeed’s HyperShot software to place a CAD model of the Ford Explorer America concept car in US location shots.
“I had spent a lot of time in the past looking to add CGI capabilities through Maya and 3ds Max,” says Lee, who has done advertising work for Honda and Mercedes-Benz, among others. “It took a lot of time to modify materials, and a great deal of expertise to get the quality I needed. Even with hardware acceleration using 32 processors, rendering a single image typically took as long as 12 hours.
“[Now I can] quickly get to the fun part of the process for any photographer: lighting,” Lee adds. “Photographers are often called upon to consult on lighting, so it’s great to have this much control over that aspect. The rendering is optimized, so what took me 12 hours with 32 processors can be rendered in two hours at the same or greater quality on a Mac quad-core system.”
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