POLESTAR DESIGN CONTEST

FRONTIER

Year//

2021

Software//

Blender, Photoshop, Infinite Painter

Frontier is an electronic bike concept created for Polestar's 2021 online Design competition. The concept adopts design cues from the companies vehicle and presents a narrative for e-bike implementation within Brisbane's CBD.

THE BRIEF

PROGRESS

Pure, progressive performance - Polestar's ethos. These three words capture the essence of the electric performance brand, their design-led approach, and their ambition to bring electric mobility into a more progressive, sustainable future. The project needed to capture the essence of Polestar's ethos, while demonstrating and pushing the progress of technology application. When designing the Frontier Bike, close attention was paid to the charging process - Where would the user dock the vehicle and how do they access it?

PROGRESSIVE TECHNOLOGY 

FRONTIER CONCEPT

Frontier is an all-electric bike created for use within Brisbane's CBD and surrounding suburbs. The project was inspired by the lime scooters implementation currently in use around the city - but aimed to expand the plausibility of personal electric vehicles as a primary method of intercity transport. 

TEXTURING AND LIGHTING

RENDERING PROCESS

This project was initially created to help further my understanding of PBR workflows and scene-wide textile density management. I used a number of new techniques to efficiently manage scene texture density and managed to achieve a high level of detailing with the use of a single 4K texture map.

SETTING TEXTILE DENSITY

STEP 1

UV squares and UV Packmaster 2 were integrated into this workflow to allow for efficient space management of the exported UV map while ensuring consistent density was maintained across all the models.

MATERIAL CREATION 

STEP 2

A mixture of Blender and Substance materials were used to texture the scene. Blender cycle's node editor allowed for animated materials to be created such as light and screen toggles which ultimately increased the flexibility of the scene.

LIGHTING SET-UP

STEP 3

A combination of scene lamps and gradient-based HDRI mapping was used to achieve a well-contrasted scene. With the addition of a physical roof and overhead emissive plane lighting, a factory ambience was achieved.

EXTENDED CONTEXT

FRONTIER ELECTRIC BIKE

Situated in key areas around the city, solar-powered charging stations connect to a larger polestar charging infrastructure and provide loyal customers with benefits while encouraging users to adopt an alternative form of transport. Serving also as a platform for future developments, it hopes to increase adoption of sustainable transport.