DTE provided us with the original casing, electronics, cables and connectors. Module and connecters had already been dismantled and we even sliced the cables to have a look at sheath coloring and take measurements. We started by taking reference photos of the casing and high resolution close ups of the circuit board. The reference photos were used in Maya as image planes to build a lores version of the geometry. The close up photos of the circuit board were used to create individual color and bump maps for the electronic components.

It took quite some time to model casing, all electronic components, connectors and an environment for the scene. All objects were highly optimized to deliver sufficient detail for close up shots while keeping the total polygon peak during rendering low. We had to deal with many flat surfaces so we made sure to bevel most hard edges to get as much details through specular highlights as possible. The cables were created using a custom tube tool to build a complex wiring loom with lots of strands more easily. The tool had also to be capable of creating rippled tube surfaces with thickness and caps at both ends of the tube.

Once all modells were finished we started to previsualize camera motion and assembly of the casing. We wanted the camera to turn slowly and constantly around the module, while changing distance and viewing angle. First we had to show the circuit board with all tiny details. Then parts of the casing and gasket should fade in successively and move into their final position. The camera had to be at the side of the module once the casing was assembled to show LEDs flashing inside through a small plexiglass viewing panel.

Next, cables should appear from the circuit board's main connector using an animated extrusion. We had to extend our custom tube tool to handle animation and slice tube geometry. Due to the length of the main wiring loom (1,8 meter) we decided to lay it out in a circle around the module. This helped us to keep the module within view as long as possible to provide a visual anchor point. Since the camera rotated and moved at a constant speed, we animated the wiring loom extrusion to match the camera motion and keep the sliced section within camera view. The wiring loom branches at several points and smaller cables lead to connectors. We had to match the camera movement to keep the sliced extrusion in view and show the branches reaching the connectors at the same time without making the distance so far, we start loosing all details. In the end the camera pulls back upwards to show all components of the tuning module.

We used Maya shaders to define all material properties. Most elements required a typcial plastic shading that only differed in surface roughness. Some electronic components had to be bump mapped and were reflective or transparent. Few elements on the circuit board required a highly glossy reflection. With the camera being very close to these elements we had to increase the number of reflection rays quite a bit for these objects.

The scene was lit using three key spotlights and an ambient light. Multiple keylights were required to generate nice specular highlights when doing a 360 degree camera rotation. We also added two spherical, colored volume lights for the LEDs that were animated using an expression to switch them on and off. Rendering was done in Mental Ray using final gathering and ambient occlusion. We created multiple output passes though just a few of them were finally used in compositing.

It was clear right from the beginning that we needed a custom tool to build a complex wiring loom with the capability to create rippled surfaces, animated slices and caps at the slicing point. The cables are compactly arranged within the wiring loom and spread out at the ends where they are attached to the connector. Since we had to work with a curved layout it was pretty clear we did not want to use individual nurbs curves for each single cable of the wiring loom but share one single curve that can be modified easily. This required a lot of extra attributes on the tube creation node, i.e. to offset the tube from the base path locally. Control over slice timing was also a critical factor because we did not want all cables and slices to appear and move at the same time to give the extrusion effect an interesting look. Dirk develeped the basic functionality using Maya's API within three days. The tool was extended during production as new features were required.