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Hey guys,

I work in the jewellery industry and am currently training in jewellery design, and at the moment I'm very disappointed in my ability to get something life like compared to real gemstones and jewellery using Maxwell (when you can compare it to the real thing directly what doesn't look real in a render is quite obvious - this could a curse), and wondered if anybody could give me some help or tips on how to improve my work flow.

I'm seen various different renders of jewellery using all with varying degrees of realism, but in my opinion these ones from the Maxwell website gallery are the closest to looking real as I've seen so far:
http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/ ... es/7/1/351
http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/ ... es/7/1/545
http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/ ... es/7/2/202
http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/ ... es/7/1/349 (this one is especially good)

Can anybody give me some suggestions on how I can get renders a bit more like the above? Obviously every scene will be set up different, so I realise there is no magic setup!

Best regards,

Gareth

Any chance you could post some of the results you're getting so far? They'll help determine what needs improving and how to go about doing it.

The render which you pointed out as being especially good actually has very basic lighting and the materials look like they are made straight from the wizard, also there are no complex properties like sss or abbe on the materials and little or no post work has been done.
I would say the quality of the image is down to the modelling being good but I can actually see some smoothing artifacts on the filleted edges (probably imported from nurbs). The complexity of the model definitely helps sell this image as real object.
As Rob says, it would really help to see what kind of results you are getting, but in the meantime...

If realism is the main thing you are after you should probably find some high quality, white balanced hdris to use and build a simple studio style infinite curve. Even if you choose to use a different scene later it can be a good starting point.
Obviously, accurate scale is paramount for realistic materials and camera settings.
Use wizard materials, but mostly as a starting point.
Refractive materials almost always have some level of scattering. In many cases it is so slight it is not worth the increase in render time (glass, diamond etc) but in the case of clear plastics, gems, colored glass etc it's often worth applying very slight sss, but you be the judge.
Use polygon modelling for curved glossy surfaces if possible to avoid artifacts and dodgy reflections.
Modelling is way more important than people seem to give credit for. Make sure every edge (unless razor sharp) and every crevice has a micro fillet or chamfer. Objects should rarely be geometrically perfect, think about how the properties of the material and how the objects were formed.
Upload some images of your work, it really helps.
Cheers

Jules

Hi guys, thank you both for looking in to my message and offering help.
This is currently my best render:

Here is another image (not my work, this is someone else's render) of the quality I would like to achieve to get close to - or even better!

Your render looks good but quite flat. If you compare your render to the other reference the main differences are lighting, setting and post production.
You really ought to apply some curves in Photoshop! I would maybe think of using a different color for the ground plane because it is almost the same tone as the mid tones in the metals, either darker or lighter.
If you want a light backdrop but good contrast you could try shrinking the plane until it is just big enough to fill the frame. Also, the surface texture seems a bit large an undefined.
If you don't already, you should try to export a .exr file to work with in post, so you have the full dynamic range to work with, I always work in 32 bit before converting to 16 or 8 bit for final adjustments.
When working with shiny and refractive materials lighting is extremely important. You can see from your reference that the lighting has a good range of dark's, mids and highlights, I think your lighting lacks a bit of contrast.
Try relighting the scene using black flags and cutters if needs be to pump up the contrast. To be honest, if your model had the same lighting and tone curves applied as your reference it should just as good if not better.
Another tip, always look for shiny spheres in an image if you want to see exactly how they have lit the scene.

Jules

Your image is underexposed and the metal lacks some highlights.
The white stones are ok when you edit them in photoshop.
You could add some more spark to the colourful stones.
Also, change the bg to something more even and a hint more reflective.

You could add a strong light on the back directly opposite of the camera so that your bg will reflect into it directly. This will give you a nice white background with strong reflections from the rings in the front.

Make sure your lights form gradients that the metal can reflect.

Hey bograt and MikaelP, thanks very much for your replies. I have done some adjusting and this is what I currently have:


The coloured stones don't have as much life as I hoped (mainly the blue and red stones - for example that front middle red stone especially), almost as if they need some light from the front but I can't seem to do this without over doing it and causing big white reflections on the stones - does anybody know how I could tweak them a bit better?

It all depends on the lighting, meaning from which direction light comes, to get the refractions and reflections you're after. Have you tried putting a 1x1 polygon emitter plane fairly close in front of your objects (between the camera and the objects, that is) and hiding the emitter plane from the camera and so forth - something photographers can't do in real life, but Maxwellians can ; )

Im actually a professional jewellery photographer and we do it by combining two separate photos or more You can do the same with multiligt and photoshop.
Yes, you will need one or more lights from the front and side( Im pretty sure one emitter won't do for all the stones as the face many directions).

Usually you will need to combine multiple renders in post as metals and stones need to be lit differently in most cases.

I dodged the top right and left parts of the metal on the rings to give them more form. You can see this makes a big difference already. You could make the effect more prominent.

I think the last image you posted is suitable input for Post Production. Saving some more channels, which aid with
local adjustments (such as material ID or Object ID) probably made sense. I would advise working on both ends:
Improving scene setup in order to minimize Post work but also consequently learning image manipulation techniques.
One will always need Photoshop or a comparable program, hardly any rendering stays unretouched. Here's a 1 min paint-over.

render with transparent background and shadow channel than you are free to create any background and to adjust and correct colors of the render ;
and using multilight help you to get the best lighting ; also you can use differrent hdri for reflection (for metals ) ; refraction ( for gems ) ;and lighting

in this test i use differnet hdri for refraction
the first image : lighting with hdri only



the second image : adding of led light above the camera

This is just opinion, but if I did this render, I would add in some subtle post effects (bloom, glare etc). Don't go crazy with it but that will help it look more realistic. At the very least, you would probably get some soft glow creeping around the edges of the rings, which are caused by a bright white background like this.

I seemed to have not poked my nose in here yet with my obligatory plug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvo_SnC3yQA

That was made December 2013, let me know what you think.