The aim of this project was to create a New York subway car interior in order to learn how to setup a workflow for complex 3D scenes, from modeling to texturing and rendering.
I created the model in Cinema4D using photos found online as references to help me have a clear vision of the fundamental parts composing the subway car. It was a very laborious task because of the amount of details and elements but once analyzed and deconstruct, I built the scene with clones and instances taking advantage of the modular aspect of the train to simplify the entire project and progress faster.
I created the model in Cinema4D using photos found online as references to help me have a clear vision of the fundamental parts composing the subway car. It was a very laborious task because of the amount of details and elements but once analyzed and deconstruct, I built the scene with clones and instances taking advantage of the modular aspect of the train to simplify the entire project and progress faster.
Once unwrapped with the C4D native tools, I exported the model as a FBX object with separated UDIM UV sets and imported it to Substance Painter for the texturing. Separated UDIM allows you to isolate parts of your object in Substance Painter, which makes it easy to navigate while texturing a model.
A picture of an old NYC subway car from Christopher Morris inspired me to create something grunge with graffiti and ripped posters.
Finally, I imported everything back in Cinema 4D with Substance Painter Live Link. This plugin allow you to send in real time all your textures from Substance Painter to C4D, so you don't have to recreate all the materials by hand and plug the right textures to the right slots (very useful if you have thousands of textures). For the final render, I used HDRI environments maps from hdrihaven.com to create various lighting with the Path Tracing of Octane Render.
Here are some images of my process.
