[adzling]

can anyone shed any light on why my output from maxwell/ formz is looking like this:



when someone else was able to render an object with the same material that looks like this:



is it just differences in scene composition (lights/background etc.)?
I mean my render doesn't even look like the same material....

any pointers are appreciated!

[numerobis]

yes, to bring it to life you need reflections, especially with such high reflective material. a studio light hdri, like this http://www.hdri-studio.com/N011.html
or emitters and a contrasty background. look at the reflections of your example.

[adzling]

thanks for this.
frankly i am still a little surprised that they look so completely different...i would expect SOME highlights and reflections (of the light source) even without an environment.

i will try out the HDRI and emitters....
i might even spring $20 for one of your setups.
which one would you recommend for product shots?

[Chris Krüger]

Like numerobis said, you need something to reflect to get reflections. What kind of light source did you use?

[Kyle]

It is purely down to your lighting and environment setup. You can see some slight reflections on the cylindrical part of the model. It looks like your light source is too bright and is washing out the render. You need to use a hdri for the reflections as previously said.

There are some hdri maps that you can use in your Maxwell Render folder just to test things initially before spending any money on them.

[adman]

The white is blown out with too much light. When surfaces are so flat with no radii on the edges to throw highlights it will tend to look 'flat'.
Very glossy flat surfaces need the biggest HDRI's because it will be reflecting a tiny sector of the map.
I have given flat surfaces a very big, flat wavy bump to reflect that flat surfaces of this kind are rarely perfect.
Also your viewing angle will not show the hdri reflections very well because it is white and it is reflecting from one flat white face into another.
Just seeing a reflected edge or other detail will help.

[adzling]

thanks, here is a little better result with different light settings, i can see reflections in the underside of that surface towards the top.
i will try an hdri later today.

btw im using a skydome + two emitters to light the object.
I read somewhere that a skydome is a good option for lighting product shots where rendering the environment is not so important.
would everyone agree with that?

input is much appreciated.

[Eric Lagman]

Skydome is not a good choice. Everything gets lit too evenly. It washes everything out and gives no contrast. Use emitters or a nice hdri or combination of both. Did you check to make sure the white color in your materials is not set to RGB 255. It should be in the 230-240 range so that it does not reflect too much color. It looks like that might be part of the problem along with your lighting setup as others have mentioned.

[brodie_geers]

You might look into how product photography is done. Basically, you want a dark room with a few lights placed in specific areas so you control the light completely. In maxwell that means you either want to set your environment lighting to NONE or else use an HDRI that simulates a studio environment.

With your current setup, it's more like you've got your lighting studio in a brightly lit room (actually it's even worse than that since skydome applies light evenly from everywhere).

-Brodie

[adzling]

thanks for the tips keep 'em coming.

the materials are all within range from an HSV perspective (nothing over 225) so that's not the issue.
however it does make sense that the skydome with lighting from all directions would be causing problems.

i am currently rendering out a test image using an HDRI via the IBL setting with a couple of lights (emitters).

looking pretty similar to previous rendering so far.

next test i will turn off the environment lighting and use a few emitters to simulate direct point lighting in a darkened room.

Question: in this kind of "studio" scenario do you normally apply the HDRI via the IBL setting or by applying the HDR to an emitter?

(it would seem to make more sense to me to apply it to the IBL as it's spherical geometry would allow reflections from all angles whereas if i apply an HDR to an emitter then the emitter would be projecting the HDR image onto the object..am I right in assuming that?)

[brodie_geers]

You can use either but in very different ways.

I'd start with just an HDR placed in your IBL environment slots. Something like these ( http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=62769 ) is what I use.

For more control you can turn environment off and create your own lights. In that situation you could just use planes with an emitter material applied. Many people though will use an HDR emitter with the HDR image being something like a radial gradient (bright in the center, slightly darker at the edges). This method can simulate a photographers "softbox" a bit more realistically than a simple emitter material.

-Brodie

[adzling]

thanks Brodie.
here are the results of a render using one of the HDRI maps you linked to within the IBL.
I turned off the option to render as a background but left all the other options on.
I turned the reflection intensity up to 5 for the IBL.

It's starting to look better, showing reflections better etc.

A few questions for those in the know:

1). Would adding a physical ground plane (like a matt or glossy white floor) help?
2). Do people typically fiddle with the reflection intensity under the IBL HDRI setting or is an alteration from the default value of 1 viewed as creating unrealistic images?
3). Does anyone know if the materials from maxwell 1.x are compatible with maxwell 2.x?

all this input is really helping, thanks!

[brodie_geers]

1. Probably not at this stage. You can put it in there but it won't do much to add reflections or change the look of your model.

2. I do sometimes. For best realism, you'd want to keep all the hdri's at the same number (whether that's 1 or 50 or somewhere in between). But if bumping the reflect. looks better, do it.

3. Compatible but not optimized. I usually redo materials created in 1.x but it's not necessary.

BTW, the only issue with the HDRI's is that sometimes the reflections aren't real sharp. For your particular model if those hdri's aren't looking quite good enough, physical emitters may well work better to give you sharper reflections.

-Brodie

[itsallgoode9]

keep in mind, the lights or ibl has to be moved around so the reflections can be seen by the camera. In this case you'd probably want at least one tall softbox put nearly directly behind the camera, off the the left a little bit. This would give a reflection running up and down the pole, as well as highlighting the broad side of the box section at the base. When it comes to lighting, you have to think of the way highlights will bounce off an object. basically the light has to be in the correct location to bounce off of the object directly into the lens of the camera, otherwise you won't see the reflection at all.

The image below kinda demonstrates this.



This image shows a sample of the same product with the light in different places. As you can see, if the light isn't in the correct spot, you really get no highlights.

[itsallgoode9]

Here is a quick rough overhead view of your product and how lighting might work with it:

Basically follow each one of the colored lines from the light to the camera, so you can see how how each one would light each surface. The angles are probably off, but it gives you an idea. Also, in this image I am using reflectors, which is not efficient for maxwell, so I would just use so low powered emitters in place of those to create that light.