Maxwell Render | Official public forum

Hi guys, first time poster here! I've just recently bought the software and am still TRYING to learn the ins and outs of it all. I design and render jewelry for a living, I've recently got very interested in the rendering process and decided that maxwell was the package I needed to get the realism I was after! The pic is of my 3rd render with maxwell so be nice

I used to use hypershot and which just recently has been replaced with "SHOT" but they were STILL not the quality I was looking for. Seeing the jewelry galleries from some of you guys blows my mind and is VERY encouraging!!


ONE thing I'm having trouble with is my studio set up. Is there some sort of universal template that works best for jewelry?

Thanks all and look forward to your feedback.

Jay
1

Nice dispersion! Did you use the diamond ior?

Yes I used diamond IOR I just put like 4 panels with a high temperature setting on it some hot some cooler (I dont really kknow what I'm talking about) you can see them in the reflection in the shank. I'm guessing that's where the dispersion came from?

My problem is I can't seem to get a good contrast from the shank to the setting. As you see the entire seen is just kind of washed out.. I want the ring to POP off the screen instead it's just sorta there.

There are some forum members here that do really good jewelry renders. Maybe one of them can give you some good specific advice about scene lighting. Do you have any experience with jewelry photography?

Hi Jay, your dispersion looks great! It is difficult to get nice dispersion and at the same time have your metal looking the way you wish. Here are a couple of tips....

In jewellery rendering you have to keep your metal looking new... i.e. fewer scratches, but you do need some so that the light can have some reflections at the surface and look realistic and 'trap' the light- too shiny metal and all of the light is reflected. Have a look in my gallery at the brushed wedding bands and you can see what I mean. You can see that the metal which is brushed is easy to light whereas the metal in the same band which is high polished is a bit trickier.

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... =7&t=33342


Shiny metal in jewellery renders will be highly reflective and will only reflect back what you have in your environment.... if you want nice fall offs and gradients to reflect in your ring you have to have them in your scene either with emitters having gradients applied or hdri environment with gradient soft boxes to light your scene.

The trick is not to have your metal look washed out and your diamonds to still have fire.

So in a nutshell, you just have to play with your lighting until you get it set up the way you want.

Nice start and hope that helps
Cary

Looks great! The dispersion rainbow effect really adds something extra!

Bubbaloo's comment about photography triggered a vague memory....
I think jewellery studio setup was discussed somewhere in this forum? Think that is where I found this link:
http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents ... graphy.htm
Something about a "sparkler light" that might be useful? A light almost by the camera if I understand correct.

Even though Maxwell can actually handle if you model one of thoose "tents" with light going through "cloth" but it renders faster if you follow caryjames advice.
Or just having black panels as floor and background with white emitter planes on both sides with a sparkler light by the camera? (and making sure that no environment light is on.) That should give more contrast to the render?

Unfortunately I've never tested any of this myself. (wanted to but not sure how to create the actual diamond shape...it's so complex )


EDIT: I think this was the thread I was thinking about? caryjames explains more in detail about emitters and some examples of studio setups are shown:
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 3&t=31975&

Thanks for the help guys!! It'll take some time to read over this information but I'll post another as soon as I can.

I see on most of the set ups there is a "roof" above the diamond, it's usually slanted, what material should that be?? I know it would probably make or break the render if it was not the proper material so what should it be??

Thanks!!

Very nice materials.

Jay325 wrote:I see on most of the set ups there is a "roof" above the diamond, it's usually slanted, what material should that be?? I know it would probably make or break the render if it was not the proper material so what should it be??

Hm, I guessing you mean the setup that Blitzor shows at page 5 in the thread I linked?
In the middle of page 4 he posted a very nice render of two gold rings with diamonds, and the reflection in the gold on the topsurfaces indicate that the slanted roof is black in the bottom and white on the top.
I'm guessing he used the texture he show as pic 3 on page 5. Then the slanted roof acts as a light emitter (that would simulate the result if you had a thin white cloth and shine a light or flash through it) and you need to make for example an MXI emitter of a similar gradient texture. An MXI can be done using MaxwellRender( grey starticon in Maxwell2.1) (not studio with red start icon).
Caryjames explains that better on the bottom of page 3. ( I'm a rookie when it comes to MXI emitters )

Still not where I want to be but coming along I guess. From top to bottom was my rendering sequence. Still got a long way to go before I'm happy with these renders but hey gotta start somewhere! Each render has a number next to it if you wish to make a comment regarding any of them. Thanks in advance for any wisdom or guidance!


2
3
4
5
6

start? wow
saludos
luis

I think your renders are already looking great. Especially with jewelry being so difficult to do. Good work! Although I think the tessellation could be improved on the actual modelling itself.

very nice, fine work

Thanks everyone, and Rob I do agree the tessellation with my program is pretty disappointing to say the least!!

Here's a design I finished yesterday. My background still SUCKS but I blame CaryJames for not helping me in that department JK

EDIT: Had to remove this picture sorry