I recently tried to recreate an Orville Peck's album cover : midnight ride — that moody shot of a liquor store parking lot at night, with a car beaming its headlights straight at the camera.

It was a personal study, mainly focused on material work and scene layout. I didn’t care much for photorealism — I just wanted to capture that cinematic mood: the contrast between darkness and artificial light, with this cool west coast ambiance.

The heaviest work was the car shader. I built a layered material (substrate, with 3 layers) for the body, trying to replicate the famous "Candy Red" paint, with little flakes and subtle orange peel clear coat reflections. The headlights were spotlights + emissive with a volumetric fog setup to catch the beams and give more depth to the scene, though that part still needs polish. Contrasts are a bit too high, and the lighting overall doesn’t yet hit the "film still" vibe I’m going for

Placing the elements — car, curb, signs, palm trees,  overhead lights — took more time than expected. Getting the depth and scale right with such few objects is trickier than I thought. I also realized that the reference image was more "photoshoped" than expected.

The lighting pass isn’t done, but even now the scene carries that cold, empty-night energy I was chasing. A fun break from gameplay systems — just mood, lighting, and surfaces.