Car Paint

What is it about?

This page documents the Car Paint material of the Redshift renderer in Cinema 4D. It models the layered physics of automotive paint — base, metallic flakes and clear coat with strong Fresnel — delivering showroom finishes without hand-built layer stacks.

Introduction

The car paint material shader simulates the physical properties of most types of car paint. For computer graphics, car paint is generally modeled as three separate layers:

  1. Base pigment layer, with a diffuse color that can change depending on the viewing angle.
  2. Metallic, reflective flakes that are embedded within the pigment layer.
  3. A 'binder', which is a shiny/waxed coating exhibiting very glossy reflection.

The car paint material shader also exhibits a strong Fresnel effect, which can be controlled by the parameters below and helps with the paint's character. As with the Architectural shader, the Fresnel effect determines what the color should be when viewed at grazing angles.