Gravel Race

Supporting Story

An early sunday morning in late september, just when autumn has struck, the local car club hosts a gravel race, a really sweet event. It usually runs very early in the morning, on a tough and challenging course with some epic scenaries. Living on a large swedish island, we got a great variety of different types of terrain. A very beautiful part of Sweden! The landscape is mostly rolling hills without any real mountains, but with perfect old roads with a mix of limestone gravel and dirt. Dusty, dry and with a ton of sun!

Being a designer with a pretty well sorted machine shop I decided that I would design and build my own prototype racer. That was back in 2015, and since then I’ve built 3 more for guys in the area and even some outsiders who enjoy our way of racing. We now almost have our own racing series where we scout for cool backroads and arrange small events. That’s how this gravel race was born.

We gather around 0600 for a chat and a basic car inspection. Then it’s all out pedal to the floor with gravel and dirt spraying all over. The race is known for the beautiful locations and the low famous swedish sun. This morning I brought my camera a long and took some snaps right before the flag dropped. Enjoy!

Project breakdown

The car was designed from scratch and built in Maya.

The set was modelled in 3DS Max and dressed with Forest Pack and assets from Mega Scans, Vizpark and Evermotion. Since people was really critical for my story, these cool guys were provided by Render People (most appreciated!). We’ve used their models in past in the studio where I work, and given the quality they are my natural go to for photoreal models.

It’s lit with a single HDRI, rendered as a Vray Raw image for a smooth Photoshop compositing experience. I usually render my work a twice the size I want the end result to be in, just because I really like how that compressed details into a more believable result.

For the color grading I used Nik Collection Analog Efex Pro 2 and Color Efex pro 4, combined with a lot of adjustment layers and some photographic lens flare elements.

Thanks for your time.