Realistic Lighting Of Foliage

[peterguthrie]

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You got us, Peter!

umm, I was only referring to Colin btw., havent really read through this thread completely yet

[pailhead]

I think you guys are being very rude.

[deflix]

I think you guys are being very rude.

Probably more a matter of misunderstanding. I thought it was a wind up because the poster didn't respond to the advice that everyone gave about making nice leafs.
Leafs are one of those things, and once you get them right its cool. I hope Graeme takes solace from the help here rather than the silly banter!
peace.

[pailhead]

Maybe it took him a few days to see the thread and by then he already encountered the "aah, it's a joke" comments. I would be very demoralized myself.

I agree that it's not the best looking foliage, but i'm struggling with this myself. No matter how many advice i get, and how many settings i see it just doesn't seem to work for me.

[joconnell]

So off we go! There's a great discussion on one of the links in this thread, but lets turn this one around and make it a more helpful discussion with feedback and tweaks from everyone.

[peterguthrie]

My advice as with all materials would be to make sure the scene set up even allows for nice realistic renders, so something for objects to reflect, nice sky etc. To get that translucent leaf effect you often need a good strong sun and point the camera almost at the sun, just like in real life.

When testing materials I often swap around hdri skies just to see how the material behaves under different lighting.

Having said that i'm pretty sure the (ancient) example someone linked to earlier was a super simple vraysky and sun set up.

[yyk]

To get that translucent leaf effect you often need a good strong sun and point the camera almost at the sun, just like in real life.

The thing is, a leaf should have that nice soft translucent look even in a cloudy environment. There's something wrong with our shaders if we need to force them to look credible. If there's one thing I'd request it would be a more advanced vray2sided material.

[Neilg]

The thing is, a leaf should have that nice soft translucent look even in a cloudy environment.

I honestly cant remember the last time I did an image in a cloudy environment