Studio photograpy (white cards) tips needed.

[little_mikey]

hi guys.

got a prospective client who wants to visualise
bathroom fittings..taps, faucets, showers heads etc.

they are all either stainless steel or chrome.

looking at real life photography of such objects,
its obvious they are using white cards for illumination.

but i can't seem to achieve a decent result in the computer set.
does anybody have any tips to share? esp those who have
really done real life studio photography?

thanks!

[percydaman]

Something I've done in the past is create a environment map in photoshop with square light cards and such. Took that pic into hdrshop and converted it into a .hdr image. In vray's vraymat your can then adjust it accordinly to get the highlight you want.

[franzISKA]

ahoi!

i tried it once with white planes, which were selfilluminating (pure white)and just visible from one side.

so it was possible to place a camera direct behind such a plane, and everything was very clear.

so long

m
franzISKA
g

[little_mikey]

thanks for the tips so far.

but do u guys also build a physical environment like a room
or something?

if not, wldn't your chrome object just be purely white
and black?

just cant seem to get those nice gradient of whites to 'silverish'
lines on the fittings..

[Psy]

make a gray box with white cards on one wall and ur object in the middle and cam aimed at it.

no reason why that wouldnt work.

[dieciduej]

This is a method I’ve been playing with. Start a new max file and create a box centered about 0,0,0. The box is just for positioning the white cards. Next a place a camera at the 0,0,0 location and also move the target to 0,0,0. Then I place several planes around the box, these will be the white cards. I use a double-sided self-illuminating material for the white cards. And usually I don’t make it full white just slightly off white (240 to 250).

Now I hide the box. Since the camera is at 0,0,0 I use Vray’s Box Camera and render a 640x480 image. No GI, no nothing. The rendered image is in the form of a Vertical Cross, for cubic environments. I save the image as an HDR file, using SputterFish’s HDRI plugin.

Open up the file you want to light with the white cards. Create a material with VRayHDRI as a map. Drag this map into a material slot and check copy. This is the map I use for Vray’s GI Environment. Pick the white card image from above and check cubic environment. Drag the map into Vray’s GI Environment slot in the Render Scene window and away you go.

I don't know if that will help.

JoeD

[flipside]

Use a black to white gradient background plus you white cards