I want to try and get a jump start on the car paint shader so it doesn't take up too much time later when we should be moving onto other things. I know that a lot of car paint shaders have a layer of flake in them to help give a little bit of a sparkle or shimmer to the car. As I was doing research, I found it really difficult to achieve it without having the aiFlake node in Arnold. The Arnold website says to try using a volume noise in the specular weight and color, but I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I need to do more research on it. But as I was looking more closely as Tesla reference photos, I think the flake in the paint is very minimal if it even exists at all.
I also found another method to use to give it a little more depth and go beyond just a basic color with high specularity. I used a ramp in the diffuse and attaching the V Coord of the ramp to the facing ratio to the camera, so it gets slightly darker values on the faces as they turn away from the camera. The ramp is subtle but I think it pushes it a little further that just a basic shiny paint material.
The shader on the left is a basic color with high specularity and some subtle subsurface-scattering. The shader on the right is using the method with the ramp in the diffuse and I desaturated the red a bit as well. The ramp is subtle but I think it adds a lot.
I applied these same shaders to the temporary car model we have for our previs. I wanted to see how the curves of the car react to the method I am using. So far I am pretty happy with what I have gotten so far and am excited to explore this further.