Need help with wood reflections

[3ddesign]

I've been trying to get my wood reflections more accurate and would like to ask for some help. Here's the effect I'm trying to replicate.



In the example the reflection of the flashlight in the wood is sharper perpendicular to the line of view and more blurry when the line of view is more parallel, exactly opposite of the color target reflection. I've tried separating highlight and reflection glossiness and experimenting with different falloff types and curves but nothing I've done can replicate the reflection in all four angles with one material. I've read that using a blend or shellac material might work but don't know exactly where to start.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Craig

[simmsimaging]

Let's see where you are at.

Should be able to get pretty close with standard reflectivity. Might need some anisotropy too but a good bump/normal map should do the trick to i think.

[instinct]

Glossy reflections work that way. Both in real life and in vray. So as Brett wrote that should be rather easy to immitate.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Macker]

Layer 2 materials with different reflection properties? One anisotropic, one not. Just an idea, doesn't look like it should be too difficult to achieve. Post a few pics to show where you're at.

[windowlicker]

I'd try an anistropic material, seing how your reflection changes shape from round to.. stretched. Another idea would be to use a falloff map in the Refl.gloss slot. Haven't tried it, ever, but I'd try it for sure.

[3ddesign]

Thank you for all the good advice. I experimented with anisotropic but I'm not sure how to use it and got nowhere. I tried a bump map but it didn't help what I'm trying to achieve. Compare the first image with the second one. In the photo where the wood is perpendicular to our view the flashlight reflection is quite sharp but the color target is very blury. In the photo where the wood is more parallel to our view, the flashlight reflection is blurred but the the target is more sharp. In the rendering I can't seem to get the flashlight reflection to be sharp in the perpendicular view without making the color target reflection too sharp and in the parallel view I can't get the target reflection sharp enough without making the flashlight reflection too sharp. I've attached the wood material screenshots.

[3DMK]

I think your photos are the problem here in that your DOF is causing the material to look like it's changeing [bluring] when in essence it's not.


Hope this helps

[joconnell]

Also, a big factor in this is that your wood material has no bump whereas the real wood does. Glossy reflections are nothing to do with the surface of a material, it's just how flat it is. A rougher surface will mean that the reflection rays aren't traveling in straight lines so you end up getting reflections that look less focussed and sharp. I'd try turning your glossiness back to 1, and then making a greyscale version of your diffuse map and putting it into the bump. The bump will break up your reflections and help with the glossy look.

[3ddesign]

Thanks again for the replies.

I decided to do a more controlled experiment so took photos with a large depth of field and documented the setup including lighting and rebuilt it in Max. I experimented with all the suggestions above as well as a few settings of my own with no luck until I tried changing the roughness number from 0 to 1. Now its starting to look close. But there is still a quality in the the wood reflection that I can't replicate with reflection settings. I'm going to try a blend material or shellac or some other and see where it goes.

Here's the photo:



Here are several test iterations with the last bottom right image being the best I could come up with using reflection settings:



Here's the best image so far. But it is still far from looking photorealistic so will continue experimenting. If anyone has ideas please share them.

[vlado]

You could also experiment with different BRDF types; the photo also has lens effects, which may contribute to the overall look.

Best regards,
Vlado

[3ddesign]

Thanks Vlado. I'll do that. Someone above mentioned Anisotropy which I dabbled in but didn't know what I was doing so gave up. I wondered about lens affects but have never gone down that road and have no clue where to start. Looks like I've got a lot to learn.

Craig

[3ddesign]

I think I'll stick with the wood texture that has a 1.0 roughness value for now. It seems to have fixed the highlight issues I was dealing with. Thanks all for the suggestions.

Chair Photo:



Chair Render: