How real-time rendering is revolutionizing the automotive industry.

In this article, we report how a small team has achieved stunning results in no time at all through CAD data import, preparation, optimization with PiXYZ, asset store packages, and real-time rendering with HDRP in Unity. These work are the basis for the later creation of the 3D configurator.

How everything got rolling …

As you may know, last month Unity announced new offers for the automotive industry and hosted the Unity AutoTech Summit @ Unite in Berlin. As part of Unity’s work, a teaser video was created using the Lexus LC 500 with a preview version of a new High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) to show the high fidelity graphics that can be achieved with the new possibilities for the automotive industry.

Since Unity released the teaser video, many questions and comments have been received about how such amazing results could be achieved. This article explains the key parts of the Unity Industry Bundle – PiXYZ Studio and Unity Pro – and how the high fidelity visualizations were achieved. In addition, Unity is currently working on a second video in which the car drives through different urban and village landscapes. It also shares details on how to set up the changing environments and lighting. It also lists the asset store packages that deliver the scenarios.

Get to know the team.

Let’s start with the team responsible for creating the two Lexus LC 500 videos: Adam Myhill, Head of Cinematics and Marc Cinq-Mars, Creative Director at Unity.

They were supported by Technical Artists Camille Rail and Dany Ayoub, Solutions Engineer Luc Vo Van and Veselin Eframov for supporting the scene environment.

The Mesh.

To achieve real-time performance when working with Meshes in Unity, they must be optimized to improve GPU performance and minimize the number of drawing calls consuming the CPU. Conversely, photorealistic visualizations require meshes that accurately preserve the curvature, character lines, and geometry details of the original CAD model, such as our Lexus. The powerful tesselation algorithms in PiXYZ Studio use patch data from CAD to tesselate geometry optimally and provide excellent surface quality even with aggressively decimated meshes.

You can use multiple parameters to control the data preparation process, including maximum chord deviation and maximum angle between triangles. A variety of algorithms are available to repair meshes, coherently orient standards, develop UVs, project textures, and perform other operations.

PiXYZ Studio also enables maintenance of the product structure and metadata that are important for further processing and can be used in conjunction with PiXYZ’s Python scripting to automate the data preparation process. In the Lexus LC 500 model, the source data for the car was quite well organized thanks to Lexus and Lights & Shadows, whose efficient CAD data preparation simplified the entire import and data preparation process.

HDRP FTW.

Unity chose HDRP early on to take Unity’s rendering quality to a new, higher level. HDRP was designed to deliver realistic visualizations based on physically based renderings with a new, consistent and coherent lighting. Lighting is one of the most important upgrades with HDRP. The use of linear lighting with temperature control, physical properties and physical attenuation contributes to the quality of the results.

While Unity was working on the first part, Screen Space Reflection (or SSR) was still under development in Unity. When the second part was under development, SSR was ready to be tested at least once. Of course, this opportunity was taken because this technique produces more detailed reflections than other methods such as Cubemaps or Reflection Probes. SSR made it possible to add an extra dose of realism to the overall image of the second teaser. This came at the right time because the goal was to create a fully-fledged car commercial that would require additional lighting and reflection capabilities to put the production into overdrive mode.

These materials are illuminated.

HDRP supports richer materials and provides more control over light scattering, including background control. For this project, Unity used the standard Lit Shader for HDRP, with a clear coat for the paint. Unity carefully matched the paint color to the available color options of the LC 500 and chose silver because it is a great color to show different light temperatures. For the interior, some measured materials were used, recorded using a new photometric method developed by Unity. As announced by Unity in Berlin, a wide range of products will be available to all customers through the Asset Store this year.

The right steps.

A convincing video needs high-quality data, but also the right creative concept. Unity’s Cinq-Mars and Myhill worked together on the camera paths and angles to highlight the sensual curves and dramatic reflections of the LC 500 that show both the car and the capabilities of Unity’s new HDRP. All animations were created with Timeline. Cinematic cameras were used for framing and motion, in addition to controlling post-processing with user-defined profiles for each shot.

The first part was designed to awaken emotions, create excitement, pose puzzles, and bring the car to life as if it were taking you on a journey. Unity’s idea was to create something short and personal, so they used tight and close shots that never revealed too much to keep the mystery going as the tempo of music slowly increases. The car itself is beautiful and has an amazingly realistic shine as it reflects the different High Dynamic Range (HDR) environments. The music plays a big role in bringing the piece together, especially when it’s cut using the timeline and synchronized with the beats.

In the second part, Unity wanted to set the car in motion and not just offer an easy ride. Unity’s intention was to develop a fully-fledged car commercial that would not only show the Lexus from many perspectives, but capture it in a variety of urban and rural environments and under different daylight and lighting conditions, including a modern city at dawn, a dark highway tunnel, and mountainous and wooded regions. Numerous packages from the Asset Store were used to take viewers on this scenic journey.

Spotlights and spotlights.

The right lighting is the secret of the visual quality and begins to understand the show’s most striking feature – the object to be illuminated. In the case of the Lexus, it was important to focus reflections to highlight the vehicle’s character lines and curves. For the first part, Unity mainly used a garage environment with several rectangular area lights to emphasize the curvature of the body. The objects were mixed a little bit with different light temperatures and at the end you see reflections from some different environments to show how they change the character of the car.

For example, if you look closely at the second part, you’ll see a forest reflected in the side window of the LC 500. To keep the focus on the car, we only used the environments for the lighting, not the environments in the scene. The lighting was mostly done with a high resolution HDRI. The interior lighting used two omnidirectional spotlights to mirror the Lexus logo at the end.

Breathtaking animations that leave you speechless.

For optimal quality, the Unity frames were rendered in 4K and reduced to 1080 in Davinci Resolve. Of course, Unity wanted to release the best possible video, so the smaller version was chosen for the unveiling.

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, Bloom, Color Grading, Depth of Field, Temporal Anti-Aliasing and a little Chromatic Aberration were used for post-production. In truth, the post-processing was quite mild, color graded. The new HDRP renderer worked really well, so Unity didn’t have to work long on the color or lighting.

On the HDRP roadmap.

Unity is satisfied with what has been achieved, but there is still much to do. Work will continue on achieving the highest possible quality in real time. HDRP is still in preview and Unity has drawn very good lessons from this project that will be applied to HDRP development. Unity has improved the interaction between high-gloss surfaces with microfacets and high-intensity light sources. Even better results can be expected in the near future as new possibilities and more advanced materials are added.

Thanks for the ride.

Of course, putting these videos together was a team effort that went beyond Unity. That’s why Unity’s special thanks go to Toyota Motor Corporation and Lexus for their excellent collaboration, PiXYZ software for developing PiXYZ Studio, and Light & Shadows for helping with data preparation.

Thank you very much for your visit.