Sandbox: Lamborghini Gallardo

Our Sandbox is all about trying out new ideas, concepts and designs. Sometimes we like to do things just because they’re fun and consequently when we play in our Sandbox we’re not doing it for commercial gain, but for the sheer enjoyment of it. We like to update you on what’s been going on in our Sandbox from time to time; so check back some time to see what else we’ve been up to.

If you’re into cars then no doubt you’ve drooled over the Lamborghini Gallardo. At Maven, we have too, and after being fortunate enough to own see the gorgeous model in the flesh we were inspired to attempt a recreation of the car in the studio environment. At Maven we are able to provide 3D product visualisation services, and the we thought we’d apply this to the Lamborghini for a bit of fun.

Generating a computer image of a car model is considered one of the hardest tasks one can undertake with CGI. As a result of the complexity of the car design, it’s very easy to make mistakes – the service curvature of the chassis and other integrated parts are thoroughly complex, and slight errors are very much open to scrutiny on any physically accurate rendered surface. We decided that we wanted to do the whole car, which means interior and exterior – twice the work!

We acquired blueprints of the model and via a special technique we managed to ensure that the closest spline cage fit perfectly. Following this, we enlarged the car model and reference planes to make them true to scale. Utilising a bank of over a thousand photographs for the various interior and exterior detail we were determined to get this absolutely right. Further on down the line we used the spline cage as a reference point for the polygon placement in the computer programming side of things.

We created special and specific car paint shaders to ensure that our rendering was thoroughly accurate and these shaders were placed in the studio setup that would finally be used to showcase each section of the car model.

Since its completion, our project has been used to promote an automotive modeling bid for a Hollywood blockbuster movie that was subsequently accepted.

Here she is on the road!