Volvo EX90
Project Overview
This experimental 3D project was created in Blender using a Volvo EX90: a sleek, fully electric luxury SUV model. The workflow began with rigging the car, followed by stylized product visualization and smooth, cinematic camera movements. Lighting was set up and final rendering was done in Cycles, and the project was polished and composited in Nuke.
Role: Rigging, Animation, Lookdev, Lighting, Compositing
Preparation
to manually split the car parts before running the autorig, and the wheels also required manual rotation. For animation, I relied on careful observation, adjusting each movement by eye to make sure it matched the car’s motion.
Shading was another challenge because Blender doesn’t show all shaders for a single object in one window. I created a car paint shader to match the look of the Volvo commercial website. This EV car doesn’t have a very metallic finish it has more of a painted-metal appearance, which I tried to capture accurately in the render.
Previz vs Final Render
After finishing the camera and car movements, I started blocking the lighting to set the mood and show off the car’s design. I split each scene into its own file to keep things organized and make it easier to test different lighting setups without messing up the whole project.
Blender handles render layers differently than Maya or Houdini, so it was a bit tricky to keep everything consistent and see the big picture. It definitely made me think more about how to organize my files and render passes to make the final result look cohesive.