Trying to achive better reflections and flooring

[reyloads]

Hello V Ray Geniuses! I finally found something that I can try to aspire to be. I was looking through the Viz People website and I found that they have a pretty large collection of 3D models. I was looking through the catalog of furniture models that they have and I was awe struck. Their furniture renderings are awesome!! Being a furniture design / renderer, I was so happy to find these because I feel that it is hard to find awesome renderings of wood, especially wood upclose and in detail.

I am hoping some of you might be able to help me achieve similar results in my renderings. I have posted a dresser that I have recently done as well as a chair rendering done by Viz People. I would like to get similar results in he areas of reflection, lighting, and flooring.

I will be working on doing this for the rest of the week and I will be updating this post on my way. If any of you have any advice, comments, concerns or questions please ask and I will respond quickly.

Thanks a lot guys!
Rey

[reyloads]

I have never done this before, but I noticed that I could post a zip file. I compressed my rhino file as a zip file and checked the "save textures" option. Let me know if this works for any of you. Maybe this will make it easier to see what I am working with...

[kubbek]

Hi! I would start with creating more realistic studio environment with background and maybe also ceiling. Than I would experiment with lighting using rectangular lights only (you can add spotlights later when you need more visible shadows, but it is harder to create realistic lighting with them).
Your wood material surely would benefit from some specular texture.
You could also lower burn value in color mapping to have more detail in lighter areas of the image.
I can see that you put some hdri in environment slot, but as no textures were attached, I couldn't say what impact on the scene it has.
Bests
Kuba

[reyloads]

Hello! Thank you for the input. I will work on getting the studio environment more realistic and well as add a specular map. I will also mess around with the burn value.

What do you mean about adding textures to the hdri?

Thanks Kuba!

[reyloads]

I think I know what you mean. I dont think that the HDRI environment textures saved with the 3dm. I got the file from the free samples of HDRI Hub. Link below.
http://www.hdri-hub.com/hdrishop/freesamples/freehdri/item/102-hdr-container-free

[kubbek]

I downloaded the hdri and in my opinion you have to much light in the scene. You can lower intensity of some light sources or tweak camera exposure settings.
The scene is also probably to evenly light, so you can not clearly see shapes of objects you are taking picture of.

[reyloads]

That makes sense too. Thanks for your help. I was working on it all day yesterday and I figured out that it's a mixture of having too much lighting and that my reflection layer on the wood is odd.

I am having trouble trying to find a setting that works right. So far I ave just been overwhelmed because there are so many factors that are effecting everything. I'll upload my progress in a little bit.

[kubbek]

One more tip from my side: it is easier to tweak lighting separate from materials. Simply tick "override materials" in global switches, set its color to light grey and work on lights. When you are satisfied with lighting than untick "override" and start again with materials.

[reyloads]

That is a great tip! I this would probably help with trying to get the light just right without having to worry about all of the effects the light is having to the specific material. Awesome!

[reyloads]

I think I finally got it!!! What do you think? I also posted my rhino file if you wanted to actually see what I did.

I basically added a simple studio back drop and a 3 light set up. Then I adjusted the reflection of the wood a little.

Better? Any more improvements?

[renee81]

much better,but I would tone down the bump on the wood

Renee

[kubbek]

It is realy better indeed. Maybe you could experiment with camera view. Now it is a bit cellphone-like wide angle.
I would also lower bump and put some black and white version of the wood texture to some of the reflections slot. Mostly it works good with whites or blacks of the fresnel.

[Micha]

You could use light color contrast at your lights. I miss a cold light as contrast to you warm main light - at the moment it looks warm dull. Also you can set a the ground more reflective and for the ground material set a white or black color as reflection env at the material options. So you don't see the HDRI env (if you use one) at your ground reflections.

[reyloads]

It is realy better indeed. Maybe you could experiment with camera view. Now it is a bit cellphone-like wide angle.
I would also lower bump and put some black and white version of the wood texture to some of the reflections slot. Mostly it works good with whites or blacks of the fresnel.

Thanks. I am pretty happy with my results. I will play around with the camera angles as well as lower the bump map a little. When you say to buy a B&W version of the diffuse in the fresnel reflection slot, which slot do you mean? Parallel or Perpendicular? Or do you mean the IOR or Reflect IOR?

[reyloads]

You could use light color contrast at your lights. I miss a cold light as contrast to you warm main light - at the moment it looks warm dull. Also you can set a the ground more reflective and for the ground material set a white or black color as reflection env at the material options. So you don't see the HDRI env (if you use one) at your ground reflections.

Thanks. I could probably change the color of my direct light to a light blue. That might change the overall temperature a bit to make it less warm. Also, what are you saying to do after I make the ground more reflective?