Photoreal Automotive Shading and Lighting 2025
This live and online course will teach you how to create textures, shaders, build environments and light and render photoreal vehicles.
Course schedule
28.04.2025 - 18.07.2025
Tutor
Jahirul Amin
Learn how to prep, texture, shade and light photoreal vehicles
Photoreal Automotive Shading and Lighting is is a live/online course where we will teach you how to prep, texture, light and render a photoreal vehicle under different setups.
For those that cannot make the live/online sessions, they will be recorded and uploaded to the CAVE platform, so you’ll be able to work through the teaching at your own pace.
We’ll start by prepping our vehicle before moving into the texturing and shading process. Here we will create a series of car paints, leathers, veneers, metals, plastics and other shaders. Following on from this, we’ll create a full CG studio setup and cover the process of rendering out multiple elements that we’ll then be able to push in post.
We will then look at creating a full CG environment setup and lastly, we’ll cover the process of creating a setup using a HDRI and backplate.
We’ll be presenting this course in Maya, however, you will be able to follow along in any other application as all the concepts for the setups will be compatible for any app that is PBR-based.
Students who enrol on the course will also have access to our on-demand course, Introduction to Maya 1001, to ensure you are ready for the course from the offset.
Understand how to render photoreal vehicles under different lighting setups
Industry partners
Lessons in this course
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Week 02. Photographing your Reference in a Studio Environment
The look of your materials is all dependent on the lighting in which it is being viewed in. Therefore, it is important to capture reference in a controlled studio environment, allowing you to be able to better assess your materials. In this lesson, we'll set up a studio shoot to capture our data.Available on: 2025.05.05 9:00 am -
Week 06. Lighting your Vehicle in a Studio - Exterior
In this lesson, we'll first create a series of 'Hero' exterior cameras and then focus on lighting an exterior shot within our studio environment. We'll look at using a combination of direct and indirect lighting techniques to bring out the shape of the vehicle and the material qualities. We'll also create custom light rigs for parts of the car, such as the wheels and headlights.Available on: 2025.06.02 9:00 am -
Week 08. Creating a Full CG Interior Environment
With our studio shoot complete, let's create an alternative interior environment. We'll start by once again gathering reference of a real-world location and then we'll use that reference as the basis for our digital environment, which will include modelling and UVing, texturing and shading our environment.Available on: 2025.06.16 9:00 am -
Week 09. Lighting your Vehicle in a Full CG Environment
Let's now get a little creative and light our vehicle within our full CG environment. We'll use the basis of the environment to influence our lighting but then we'll push the setups to bring out the core design lines of the vehicle.Available on: 2025.06.23 9:00 am -
Week 10. Capturing Real-World Lighting and External Environment Data
Let's now get a little creative and light our vehicle within our full CG environment. We'll use the basis of the environment to influence our lighting but then we'll push the setups to bring out the core design lines of the vehicle.Available on: 2025.06.30 9:00 am -
Week 12. Finalising your Renders and Post-Production
Up to this stage, we've created renders within a studio environment, a full CG internal environment, and an exterior environment with a backplate. Let's now take our renders and look how we can push the believability using tools such as Photoshop and Nuke. We'll also look at working with AOVs, render passes and creating additional custom light rigs for specific regions of the vehicle.Available on: 2025.07.14 9:00 am
Course Information
- Course Type: Live, Online Zoom meetings
- Schedule: 28th April 2025 - 18th July 2025
- Workshop Session: 3hrs. Date TBC.
- Feedback Session: 2hrs. Date TBC.
Early Bird Offer: save 20%
Enrol before 20th April: £334.99 (Standard Course Fee: £419.99)
Frequently asked questions
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How will this course be delivered?
This course will be delivered live and online via Zoom. Each week, we'll run 1 workshop session and 1 feedback/Q&A session. On occasions, you may be presented with some pre-recorded content (for example, if we are on an external shoot) but for the most part, the primary content will be delivered live. -
What day and time is the live workshop?
Date TBC. -
What day and time is the live feedback/review session?
Date TBC. -
If I cannot make the live sessions, will they be recorded and made available for viewing later on?
Yes. All live sessions will be recorded and made available on the course lesson page. This usually takes us around 24hrs to edit and upload the video recordings. -
Can we pay in instalments?
Yes, depending on the length of the course, you can pay an initial deposit and then spread the remainder of the cost over a series of months. If you are enrolling on multiple courses, we'd be more than happy to create a custom payment plan for you. -
Is there a discount if we purchase multiple line/online courses?
Yes, we are happy to offer a 10% discount per course for enrolling on 2 courses, and a 20% discount per course when enrolling on 3 or more courses. Please get in touch for more info. -
Will we have lifetime access to the recorded course content?
Yes, you will have lifetime access to the course content via our CAVE platform. -
Will we be required to complete exercises?
Each week, we'll be setting an exercise. You will be treated as adults, so it will be on you to complete the exercises. We understand that time is precious and you may have other commitments, which result in you missing an exercise or possibly falling behind. If so, do get in touch and we'll be more than happy to support you in catching up and developing your skills. We will be using SyncSketch for the review sessions, of which you will be able to access as a CAVE Academy student. -
Will there be a final assignment?
Each course will have a slightly different outcome but overall, yes, you will be tasked with creating an 'output' for each course. For Modelling, this may be a final model plus model turntable renders. For a Concept Art based course, this might be a series of production quality images. For every course, you will have an output for your portfolio (should your work be signed off by the tutor). -
Will any support be provided outside of the live sessions?
Yes - we use Discord for out of class discussions and if you have any other issues, you are more than welcome to send us an email directly. And if required, we'd be more than happy to catch up via a one-to-one Zoom session. -
Will there be any support after the course has finished?
We'll be more than happy to continue supporting students after the duration of the course as they work on their final assignment. -
Will data be provided for the courses?
Yes - we'll be providing data where required and dependent on the course. The majority of our course content is project-based and created using CAVE IP (scripts, concepts, models, textures, HDRIs, video footage, etc.) of which you will have access to. Please note that the data should not be shared externally for any purpose. -
Will software be provided for the course?
Where possible, we will provide software at student rates. For example, for any students enrolled on our live/online courses, we can provide access to the Adobe and Substance Suite, and students are able to access the Foundry products at student rates (95% discount). We will also be providing access to Flow Production Tracking (ShotGrid) and SyncSketch. We are in discussion with Maxon and Autodesk for student licences but currently cannot provide these apps. -
Will we be working within a specific colour space?
We will be working within an ACEScg colour space with an sRGB viewing LUT (out of the box Maya 2022+ setup).
