[rccohn]

Hey guys, this is my first work with Maxwell, loving it so far. I had to get these out in a rush but I want to learn a few things for my next project, any comments very appreciated!

Here is the style of photo I'm trying to replicate:



Here are some of my attempts:





I did the leather and stitching in SolidWorks, so I tediously modeled the wrinkles/stitching instead of trying to use displacement. Good approach? Anyone know of an easier software than solidworks to do that type of modeling, or would you use some kind of displacement instead?

There are a couple of problems with the UV wrapping. I had an especially tough time on the cables, they're supposed to look like fabric.

On the shot w reflective floor, I faded the background to white using the alpha (using it as a mask w/ a gradient fill). Not sure if that's the best way. Does it look unnatural to have the foreground so shaded, while the back is pure white?

Any tips to get better realism? I like that the results look clean, but I can definitely tell that they're renders. I think these are SL 14.

Funny that if you look in the chrome ball, you can see exactly what the lighting setup was.

Thanks!

[hatts]

First of all I think it's off to a fantastic start, it seems like 90% there.

- Can't believe you modeled in those wrinkles...picturing doing that in SW is making me nauseous. However the result is good, I'd leave the big wrinkles as-is. But you are lacking the leathery texture along the headband, it needs the typical wrinkles. Normal mapping should do the job. Solidworks is atrocious to do anything mapping or UV related with, so I would export it to something "dumb" ASAP and finish your rendering elsewhere. Do you have any other software available? If not, try it in Maxwell Studio.
- Ditto for the cables...get them out of SW and finish them up. They don't look like woven cables yet.
- The alpha-floor technique is a perfectly sound method, obviously it worked, don't worry about the "right way"
- Consider exaggerating the fillet between the chrome balls and the chrome stems, right now it looks sort of abrupt
- This is already a perfectly submit-able image, but for the last bit of enhancement, try dirtying things up just a tad. The plastic could have a very subtle noise map for smudges, and the chrome balls should definitely not be that perfect. There are lots of micro-scratch materials on resources.maxwell.com. Also toy around with a bit of controlled noise and the slightest amount of chromatic aberration.

But again, fantastic start

[rccohn]

hatts - thanks for the response! Those all look like good tips.

- Can't believe you modeled in those wrinkles...picturing doing that in SW is making me nauseous. However the result is good, I'd leave the big wrinkles as-is. But you are lacking the leathery texture along the headband, it needs the typical wrinkles. Normal mapping should do the job. Solidworks is atrocious to do anything mapping or UV related with, so I would export it to something "dumb" ASAP and finish your rendering elsewhere. Do you have any other software available? If not, try it in Maxwell Studio.

Yea I know SW is not best practice, it worked this time but I wouldn't try using it for anything more complicated. I don't have any other software right now but I'd be willing to take something for a spin if it would be helpful later on. What would you use?

[hatts]

Yea I know SW is not best practice

It's not NOT best practice, it's an officially developed plugin after all, it's just not as thorough and deep as the polygon modelers' plugins. Rendering solids/NURBS isn't a real thing, so it's an inherently unhealthy relationship between Solidworks and rendering.

Go for it in Studio for now.

I use Solidworks for mechanical/product stuff and for anything remotely organic or artistic, or for any serious rendering, I use Cinema 4D, and would recommend it enthusiastically. It has a particularly smooth Maxwell integration.

The free option is to learn Blender but the Maxwell plugin is third-party and is worked on sporadically. Wouldn't be a reliable solution but free is free...

[rccohn]

The free option is to learn Blender but the Maxwell plugin is third-party and is worked on sporadically. Wouldn't be a reliable solution but free is free...

Yea maybe, I'll check that out. I just used Maxwell Studio for everything anyways, I didn't use the solidworks plugin. As long as I can export geometry from the modeler, studio seems to have everything else you need.

Cinema 4D looks awesome though too.

[Mihai]

Really nice job so far, I think lighting-wise what's really missing compared to the example image you showed is some more directional lighting. Even if you make an emitter about the same size as in the other image (judging by looking at the chrome ball thing), it may still not be as directional as in the real studio because in Maxwell the light goes 180 degrees out from the emitter surface. So you would need to place it in some sort of container to make the lighting more focused. It will give you those nice more concentrated highlights and areas of contrast.

Have a look at this webinar about studio lighting in Maxwell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMN3EsVShh4

(judging from the example image, they used a very small strong emitter at the top, which in your lighting setup instead seems to be a bigger emitter from the side)

Another thing is you almost always have to post process your renders a little bit, especially to add more contrast to the render since Maxwell tonemaps the render in a linear way.

Workflow wise, when dealing with complicated surfaces like these which need accurate UVs so the textures don't look like crap on them, I would recommend a standalone UV unwrapping application - unfold3D is a really good one. You import the obj into it, select a few "cutlines" and it gives you very nice UVs in seconds. Saves you hours on each project. You can use Maxwell Studio to export selected objects as obj, do the UVs in unfold3D, then reimport the obj into Studio.

[rccohn]

Mihai - awesome lighting tutorial, thanks!

Another thing is you almost always have to post process your renders a little bit, especially to add more contrast to the render since Maxwell tonemaps the render in a linear way.

Yea I was thinking that too. Also possibly rendering certain components separately, like the decorative cap (the turned aluminum piece). I wasn't able to get the best highlights on that without blowing out the rest of the image. Didn't have time to tinker with that though.

I'll definitely try that unfold3d software, those UVs weren't working out in Studio.

Thanks again!