Creating realistic renders - how?

[Gary_P]

I work in Max 4 & 7, DAZ Studio, a little Poser, Hexagon and Carrara but I haven't found a way to make a render that looks real.

I don't speak French, so I can't ask the artist of this one:
http://forums.polyloop.net/travaux-c...urbs-snif.html

It's wonderful! How is it done? Is it lighting? Is it textures? My textures are usually taken from the object itself.

[jbshorty]

i think the #1 factor is good lighting. Bad lighting will ruin your scene, no matter how realistic the models and textures are. Good lighting can produce very nice renders even when there are no shaders or textures applied!

shorty

[sadot]

Originally Posted by Gary_P

...I don't speak French, so I can't ask the artist of this one...

Ask him...many of the french users knows English

Show us your model, thats how we can help you . . .

[LoneGunman]

I cannot stress enough how time is important here, take your time. If necessary, work on one scene for a month, results will follow, just set it up as a goal and do not give up on it.

I believe that investing enough time is worth it...

[Sketchy]

Originally Posted by Gary_P

I work in Max 4 & 7, DAZ Studio, a little Poser, Hexagon and Carrara but I haven't found a way to make a render that looks real.
I don't speak French, so I can't ask the artist of this one:
http://forums.polyloop.net/travaux-c...urbs-snif.html

It's wonderful! How is it done? Is it lighting? Is it textures? My textures are usually taken from the object itself.

I have nothing to contribute except a comment. Sorry.

I have to admit that I haven't been spending a lot of time when it comes to the rendering aspect as much as modeling. Time is just not on my side these days.

I would guess (I noticed myself guessing these days also) that that's the kind of rendering most people want to see. I would call it semi-realistic in the sense that if you shoot the same object with a camera you won't see the same effect. You still need to apply some Photoshopping, ie, dark portions are made darker and light portions are made lighter.

I would also guess that the artist in this case also did some post work such as applying dark outlines on some parts of the model. This is to achieve a sharp contrast between object and background. This is what makes most of Modo's renders as seen in Lux gallery look very different, imo. The contrast is very distinct. Although it is a bit exaggerated, the render looks more real as if you could actually touch it.

You'll see a lot of such renders in the Modo site.

[jbshorty]

Actually the renders Gary mentioned are not very realistic, and i think that was the intention of the artist. There are a few obvious CG indicators in the scene (from the HDR lighting, to the crooked texture placement, to some of the shaders)... Generaly speaking, I feel people tend to rely too heavily on HDR lighting. Another thing i notice is lack of good ambient lighting. Real photos tend to have soft shadows, even when lit in very extreme setups. But in CG, lack of soft shadows is a dead give away. This has been my focus of study lately to improve my renders.

About the "black outline" effect - i think it's just an afect of the HDRI. you can see it's a sunset image. the other side of the sky must be dark. If this image was made only with an HDRI (and used with low intensity) then it might create this type of sharp contrast. Or perhaps an extra light was added to illuminate only one side of the object... In Modo (and perhaps some other render engines) you can apply an "incidence angle" gradient to darken the materials as it angles away from the camera. If you adjust the gradient curve to create a very sharp ramp and then push the key positions towards the edge, a very sharp illustration outline affect can be produced. It's a cool illustrative effect that shows form very well, but certainly not a realistic one.

shorty

[Thomas]

The best way to help you is to show your renders, like this, we will be able to see where the problems are, and don't forget to give us as much information as possible on your render settings, lights setups, materials parameters, etc.

I also want to add something to others comments : light is really importants, but the complexity of a shader is also very important. A shader is not only a simple color and a specular : it's a complexe map with a lot of details, a specular color and specular spread which is based on a map too, with bump, etc. flat materials won't help too, even if you have a very nice lighting.

[juanmanuel]

And good modelling and uvmap layout helps a lot too. It could be you have a wonderful lighting, but the silhouette of the shade looks faceted instead of smooth. Or you have a perfect shape and lighting, but have the textures stretch out unnaturally.
And remember, in the real world, almost nothing is either completely smooth or completely sharp. Or completely clean or completely dirty.
I think it is a combination of a lot of things.
But as Thomas says, if you submit your image to the forum for critique, you'll get valuable feedback as to what many people have to say on improving your image.

[Sketchy]

Originally Posted by jbshorty

Actually the renders Gary mentioned are not very realistic, and i think that was the intention of the artist.

Exactly.

About the "black outline" effect - i think it's just an afect of the HDRI.

That is very unlikely. You can use all the rendering features of your renderer all you want and still not be able to come up with a selective application of black outlines in your model.

Personally, I would like to achieve a sort of BertMonroyish effect when it comes to rendering. This Photoshop artist doesn't even apply the overrated DOF effect on his artworks.

[jbshorty]

Just a very quick test of using gradients by incidence angle to create an outlined render in Modo. One object with outline and one object without...

[Sketchy]

You're getting close, jbshorty. A combination of Toon Pro and photorealistic composite in Carrara might achieve the effect plus some Photoshop postwork. I'm not sure. Bottom line for me is that we all have our own interpretation of photorealism, albeit slight the difference may be. These images, for instance, are far more eye-catching than what you normally see in photographs, which we associate with realism, of course, yet...

Sample1

Sample2

Sample3

Sample4

These are what I call exaggerated photorealism. Of course, you will never achieve these kinds of effects no matter how many times you shoot the same object with a camera and with all sorts of combination of lighting and background.

[Couerl]

Shorty have you tried the real lighting system in Modo yet? IES lighting was a main interest of mine for interior shots and reusability, there's a lot of free IES files out there I think.. Carrara gets very complicated in some lighting situations and I wondered how Modo did there.

[jbshorty]

Originally Posted by Couerl

Shorty have you tried the real lighting system in Modo yet? IES lighting was a main interest of mine for interior shots and reusability, there's a lot of free IES files out there I think.. Carrara gets very complicated in some lighting situations and I wondered how Modo did there.

IES is very interesting for me too, but i think that is a 301 feature...
shorty