Original Lotus Colors

[Eagle7]

Having spent some time creating replicas of the FE colors for the 3D Emira model, I noticed there was a familiarity. It was Magma that did it. I had a 1972 Europa twincam in Regency Red, and Magma Red reminds me a lot of that color. I remember first seeing a Europa in French Blue way back when, and thinking it was stunning looking. There was a guy in the college area who had a yellow Elan S1 who gave me a ride in it, and I remember being impressed with how it rode and handled. I had a 1964 Triumph Spitfire at the time and the Lotus was night and day better. After thinking back on those days, I did some image research and it appears that Lotus may have chosen at least 4 of the FE colors to be representative of the original Lotus colors.

Seneca Blue reminds me of French Blue

Hethel Yellow reminds me of Lotus Yellow

Magma Red reminds me of Regency Red.

And Nimbus Grey reminds me of Silver Frost Metallic.

I don't remember, nor did I find anything from back then that looks like Dark Verdant or Shadow Gray. I'm guessing those are homages to the last generation of Lotus cars just prior to the Emira. I find it fitting that they've done this, as it fits within the overall theme of the Emira being the culmination of their entire history of making ICE cars, and yet the style is a glimpse of things to come vis-a-vis the Evija and the electric future.

I hope there aren't any glitches in production, as I can't wait to have one in my garage.

 

[Mike-engel]

Having spent some time creating replicas of the FE colors for the 3D Emira model, I noticed there was a familiarity. It was Magma that did it. I had a 1972 Europa twincam in Regency Red, and Magma Red reminds me a lot of that color. I remember first seeing a Europa in French Blue way back when, and thinking it was stunning looking. There was a guy in the college area who had a yellow Elan S1 who gave me a ride in it, and I remember being impressed with how it rode and handled. I had a 1964 Triumph Spitfire at the time and the Lotus was night and day better. After thinking back on those days, I did some image research and it appears that Lotus may have chosen at least 4 of the FE colors to be representative of the original Lotus colors.

Seneca Blue reminds me of French Blue
View attachment 2473

Hethel Yellow reminds me of Lotus Yellow
View attachment 2474

Magma Red reminds me of Regency Red.
View attachment 2475

And Nimbus Grey reminds me of Silver Frost Metallic.
View attachment 2476

I don't remember, nor did I find anything from back then that looks like Dark Verdant or Shadow Gray. I'm guessing those are homages to the last generation of Lotus cars just prior to the Emira. I find it fitting that they've done this, as it fits within the overall theme of the Emira being the culmination of their entire history of making ICE cars, and yet the style is a glimpse of things to come vis-a-vis the Evija and the electric future.

I hope there aren't any glitches in production, as I can't wait to have one in my garage.

Great observation! And can I say about that Elan +2….oooo lala. Want it.

 

[Johnson]

+1 @Eagle7 — a great observation!

Incidentally, I’ve been following your latest renders with interest. Damn, you’re really getting the hang of the lighting… looking superb. My only comment is that some colours (red in particular) look like there’s a bit of a “fog” over them… as if the image is over-exposed. I’m tempted to import them into Photoshop and auto-adjust the levels, but I don’t want to mess with your good work. Thanks again!

 

[Eagle7]

+1 @Eagle7 — a great observation!

Incidentally, I’ve been following your latest renders with interest. Damn, you’re really getting the hang of the lighting… looking superb. My only comment is that some colours (red in particular) look like there’s a bit of a “fog” over them… as if the image is over-exposed. I’m tempted to import them into Photoshop and auto-adjust the levels, but I don’t want to mess with your good work. Thanks again!

Thank you! No, I'm still getting the hang of working with the PBR system. It's the better system, but I've never used it before, and it's been a pain trying to figure out how to make the color shaders for it.

I've been working off of photos of actual cars in Fire Red for Magma, but that color is really hard to replicate because of the way it reflects light. It has a lot of light scatter in the highlight areas, but suddenly shifts to a much darker tone at the edge of the shadow. There's not much transition there which has made it very difficult to figure out how to model that. The "fog" is in the specular layer where you can set the roughness which determines the light scatter. The range is from 0 (none) to 100. Little or no roughness results in a mirror-like surface, while greater amounts spread and smooth out the specular highlights so the surface looks less to not shiny at all. Trying to set it so the Magma highlights look like the car pictures, results in light scatter everywhere, so the dark areas don't even look close to the picture. If I set the scatter to match the dark areas, the light areas all become dark. I finally wound up creating multiple layers using color gradients, and setting them with opposing fresnel effects to try and get the shade and light areas of the car to look closer to the car pictures. It's still not great, but probably still better than the official configurator.

 

[Johnson]

Yep, 100% better than the configuator. Your skills have helped us all in choosing the right colour. I can’t tell you how important that’s been. Particularly here in Australia, where we’ve been asked to lock in our choices before seeing the full suite of painted cars.

 

[Eagle7]

Yep, 100% better than the configuator. Your skills have helped us all in choosing the right colour. I can’t tell you how important that’s been. Particularly here in Australia, where we’ve been asked to lock in our choices before seeing the full suite of painted cars.

That's good to know. This is what I set out to accomplish. There is of course nothing like actual photos of real cars, but since Lotus just hasn't been able to post some up for us for some reason, the renders I created are close enough to give you a reasonable idea without being shocked at the actual photos whenever we get some. The pictures of the Hethel Yellow car in China showed I was pretty darned close on that color, so I'm confident the renders are at least 90% true.

 

[eclat2emira]

Having spent some time creating replicas of the FE colors for the 3D Emira model, I noticed there was a familiarity. It was Magma that did it. I had a 1972 Europa twincam in Regency Red, and Magma Red reminds me a lot of that color. I remember first seeing a Europa in French Blue way back when, and thinking it was stunning looking. There was a guy in the college area who had a yellow Elan S1 who gave me a ride in it, and I remember being impressed with how it rode and handled. I had a 1964 Triumph Spitfire at the time and the Lotus was night and day better. After thinking back on those days, I did some image research and it appears that Lotus may have chosen at least 4 of the FE colors to be representative of the original Lotus colors.

Seneca Blue reminds me of French Blue
View attachment 2473

Hethel Yellow reminds me of Lotus Yellow
View attachment 2474

Magma Red reminds me of Regency Red.
View attachment 2475

And Nimbus Grey reminds me of Silver Frost Metallic.
View attachment 2476

I don't remember, nor did I find anything from back then that looks like Dark Verdant or Shadow Gray. I'm guessing those are homages to the last generation of Lotus cars just prior to the Emira. I find it fitting that they've done this, as it fits within the overall theme of the Emira being the culmination of their entire history of making ICE cars, and yet the style is a glimpse of things to come vis-a-vis the Evija and the electric future.

I hope there aren't any glitches in production, as I can't wait to have one in my garage.

Can't believe I missed this, love the comparisons!