domotica panel [update]

[flipside]

Hi!

Here's a wip of a current project I'm doing. I need to render these panels because they are hard to photograph. The real pictures never look like how you see it in real life. So my job is to render these panels so that they look like the viewer sees them... I need to make them 'more interesting' than the existing pictures.

Here's my attempt:




And here's one of their pictures:





The dial button is darker than the brushed panel in real life. Also the brushed effect is much more visible than in the picture.

Suggestions on how to make this render better are welcome! The renders are marketing tools, they should show the product as beautifull as possible.

Kind regards,

wouter

[Gijs]

I don't know how 'clean' your background must be? If it is on a background-wall, you can use a perspective, otherwise, I would use far less perspective than you have now. If it should have a technical look, you could make an almost perspective-less view, or even a front view. A Front view with much light coming from one side can look quite exciting.
The edges look all quite sharp now, and the buttons seem to ly on top, I can't see the openings of the buttons. Also I don't expect the brushed material to have so dark shadows (at the side of the buttons)
Personally I would go for a right hand style (like the photograph) if you are going to place it into perspective.

[flipside]

Hey gijs thanks for the comments!

The client wants both perspective and front view, background must be pure white. I will probably adjust the perspective more like the picture view (less perspective). Good point about the right hand view, never tought of it that way!

The buttons fit really tight, and I modeled it with exact dimensions, but maybe I need to exagerate it more to make it noticable. The edges of the plate are rounded, which shows up when rendering higher resolution.

This is an important job for me, and I wanna impress them big time with the first rendering I show, so please keep the tips coming You can be picky here!

[asango]

looking good so far.
2 issues.
your stainless brushed needs to be both a little bit longer and a little less contrast-y. it might be nice to see a little stronger high-light gradient on the stainless as well, to really make it pop. but that will have to be a judgement call relative to what the client is looking for.

the square buttons look good modeling wise...the b-side details come thru nicely, but i would try to lighten them up a touch. in the photo they look like they could be back lit and/or just have a lighter tint to the platic.

[flipside]

Yeah I agree on the contrast of the brushed metal grooves.

The buttons are back-lit in my render I'm using translucency on the inner plastic material, which is pretty hard to control. I modeled everything like the real thing (even the inside) and then applied non faked materials to it all, and thought it would look very real by doing so. But with translucency this is not the case. Vray translucency is good for objects where the effect should only penetrate a few mm, but for materials like this it just isn't right. Normally these buttons are backlit by really tiny lights. When I try that in vray, the light has a hard time traveling all the way trough. If I adjust everything untill it does, then it gets completely blown out from the moment you turn on the skylight a bit. It's very hard to balance it out.

[asango]

ive had the exact same problems in many of the product renders i do.
for those small LEDs backlighting the buttons, have you been using decay or not? that might help, sometimes i find the lights w/o decay are much more predictable.

[Mathew Everett]

will you add the text in PS or in Max? or a different program?

[flipside]

Mmm indeed will try some max lights maybe. Now I used vray lights for backlight.

I will add text in max also. Not sure how I will do it yet.

[asango]

i wasn't refering to the max lights, just the option to use decay in the vray lights.

[flipside]

Ok will try that first then

[flipside]

Here's a small update. Still working on the backlit buttons!

[Candelero]

Cool, its going really good...

Don't forget to fix the middle round button geometry ... i am missing some LOOPS in it, comparing it with the photo...

[flipside]

Yeah but the loops are there because of lousy manufacturing, they don't want them in the rendering

[Candelero]

Yeah but the loops are there because of lousy manufacturing, they don't want them in the rendering

ROFL

[Mirko]

Looks good so far!!!

But maybe the brushed material should be a little bit "softer" (less contrast? less bump?). I think the white and the black areas in your bumpmap should be present at 50% each. At the moment it looks a bit like a white picture with a view black lines on it (70% white - 30% black).

The real picture also shows that the big knob is brigther than the metal plate. In you rendering it is the other way round.
Your CG knob is also very sharp edged. And I am missing that small crease which goes around the knob.

But it looks very good already!