Drift: Can We Make an Explosion the Key Light?

Heavily inspired by the Fast and Furious series, this piece began as a study of RBDs and fluid simulation in Maya. Once I understood the dynamics workflow, I re-approached this shot with a focus on effects lighting; using the explosions as the key light to shape the scene. To help my workflow, I used a Subaru BRZ model that I found on CG Trader, and the background city is Neo Tokyo 2 from Kitbash 3D. Admittedly, this shot required more lights than I've ever used before. Each modeled light bulb in the garage had it's own VRay light material  on it, as well as 2 rec lights : 1 for diffuse, and 1 for reflection (which I used a light texture to get the light geo to reflect against the car as it moved by). There are also a multitude of low intensity lights in the city. This shot was created using Maya, Substance Painter, Fracture FX, Phoenix FD, VRay, and Nuke. I also used an iPhone app called VirtuCamera to help give the camera movement a bit of irregularity to it.

P.S. If you look closely enough you'll spot an "Akira" and "A Silent Voice" billboard in the background city =]