Product rendering techniques

[Bobby Revolver]

Hi everyone,

I mostly use 3ds Max and V-ray for rendering product shots (such as the one attached) and lately I've been using a V-ray domelight with an HDR and used the same HDR as an environment to create reflections. I've noticed that when I use materials with a lot of reflection, v-ray planes with a simple white colour (to provide a backdrop) will have a big impact on the materials (understandably). Ideally, I would like to have the product rendered out without any planes impacting the product from any side, so that all reflections and light stem from the HDR. However, I do not want the actual HDR image to appear on my final render. How do you guys normally go about this? And is this a normal way to render product shots or do you have a much better solution for me? My renders appear pretty lifelike (in my opinion) as long as they are mainly metals or plastics with high reflection. I'm having a lot of trouble with wooden surfaces that do not seem to come to life when I render things in this manner. Any feedback is appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Anders

[cheerioboy]

What about going into the object properties of the ground plane and turning off visible to reflection/refraction?

[simmsimaging]

You can make the ground planes not visible to reflections and if you just use the HDR in a Vray light instead of in the environment and the light (not sure why you would do that?) you can turn off the visibility of the dome light. Then your render will have the reflections you want and the HDR will not be visible.

[Bobby Revolver]

Thanks guys! I'll try to put your feedback into use right away.