Lighting Challenge #4: Bottle Collection

[cesarmontero]

Thanks, yes, I deserve the blaim for the models. Links to these challenges are always appreciated when providing credits, too.

-jeremy

blaim? they are simple but nice.

I like to give credits, even if the participation is minimal.
Giving credits trains the spirit to be more humble.
I think that is something that is lacking in the CG industry.
I will like to make a difference.:)

[BarberofCivil]

Different perspective. A little more tweaking of my lighting macro...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/barberofcivil/BottleCollection-2.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Different perspective. A little more tweaking of my lighting macro...

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/barberofcivil/BottleCollection-2.jpg

That texture on the trim around the window could look good on one of the bottles, maybe with a stained glass or crackle glass look. Try to get some more light on the bottles, though, and to create some sense that there is glass in the windows.

-jeremy

[otacon]

A lot of great renders in here. Hard to find a camera angle that has not been done already. Heres a quicky in lightwave.
http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/3053/bott000020gu.jpg

[cesarmontero]

A lot of great renders in here. Hard to find a camera angle that has not been done already. Heres a quicky in lightwave.


Nice contrast in the colors!
I know it is a quick image, but it looks nice
Nice to see you participating in this thread
:)

[cesarmontero]

Talking about undone angles.:)

http://www.archeidos.com/images/glass_bottles/bottles5.jpg
http://www.archeidos.com/images/glass_bottles/wide_top_post2.jpg

[MasterZap]

More fun...

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f366/MasterZap/bottle-in-front-of-me.jpg

Made the window dirtier, since, as you saw in last test, that poor "AEC plugin" tree I added didn't sell particularily well ;)

Did a hair of post work on this one, unlike the others which where "straight".

/Z

[glebe-digital]

Hey, the ceramic bottles are looking really nice!

I'm not sure about the glass bottles. Why does everything look so much brighter through the bottles, like especially the blue one, than it looks when you see it directly?

The reflections make it look as if there's light from two distinct sources, like a window at both sides of the room. It would be great if the illumination and shadows showed that same kind of directionality.

-jeremy

Thanks Jeremy, yes I'm very pleased with how the ceramic material has turned out [one to be kept for the material database!].
Reflections: Well yes, I built a 'box' with a window at the other end, just to create a more formal environment, so we're getting some extra illumination from that..........the blue bottle is -I agree- something of a conundrum. With lower attenuation in the blue material I would get less light through, but of course the 'lip' would then suffer maybe. More testing needed!

Once again, really appreciated you comments on this shot.

[meanlebh]

Talking about undone angles.:)

http://www.archeidos.com/images/glass_bottles/bottles5.jpg

Very nice and clean render Cesar, great fresh perspective. The field of view gives just enough lens distortion to still give us a nice sense of depth while remaining pleasing to the eye. It looks very much like an ad campaign of some sort. Nice work.

-Brian

[jeremybirn]

@cesarmontero & otacon - those are nice, clean effective renders. Thanks for the other camera angles.

At this point, if anyone feels that all the (good) camera angles have been done already, I'd say it's time to change gears and think about whether all the lighting environments have been done.

Just for fun: Here's a website where can buy your own Klein Bottles, it also contains a lot of pictures and a page on what is a Klein Bottle (http://www.kleinbottle.com/whats_a_klein_bottle.htm) :

http://www.kleinbottle.com/

-jeremy

[Huv]

Another try for me :)
http://emerick1.free.fr/testc4d/cgtalk/bouteilles6.jpg

[jfserejo]

A 'photography like' high contrast try...

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/6392/bottlecollectioncopy4fn.th.jpg (http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bottlecollectioncopy4fn.jpg)

[GiarcNamwob]

Here's my new one.. second pass.... 1024 19min....

[elvis75k]

We have a winner.. Here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3603176&postcount=472)

[MasterZap]

We have a winner.. Here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3603176&postcount=472)

Boy was that post a thread killer... :D :twisted:

/Z

[jeremybirn]

Boy was that post a thread killer... :D :twisted:

/Z

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, I set up a new scene and have my PC rendering tests now.

I look forward to hearing what kind of prize Elvis is giving out tho...

-jeremy

[cesarmontero]

We have a winner.. Here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3603176&postcount=472)

I think that some effects as the hotspots, and the caustics are nice.
The colors of the bottles, are very nice too!

However, I think you need to focus on the basics of lighting.
Lighting is NOT ONLY about effects as caustics and refraction.
Those are the cherry of the pie, not the cake itself.
I think that is the main problem with many renders here.
People are focusing too much in the glass, but not really in the lighting.

I would suggest to try your scene first with a default gray texture, for all the objects.
If that gray-texture-bottles look real with the light setup, then you know the lighting work is done.

1) shadows
The shadows projected are sharp, comming from the left to right.
The bottles seem to be at an interior, so, such shadows are not accurate.
In such enviroment, soft shadows would be more appropiate.

If you plan to make a lighting for an exterior, then change the reflections.
I can see from the reflections in the bottles, that there is a window.
By that, I'm guessting that the bottles are in an interior.
If the scene is in an interior with some open spaces, even then the shadows would be mixed, but not that sharp.

The lighting should "tell" the viewer exactly if the bottles are in an interior, or exterior.
Don't let the viewer have to guess, it should be "in your face" what is around causing that lighting.

2) integration of backdrop

There is a white edge along the window.
This happens sometimes when you render, and apply the backdrop in post.
Watch out for that, since it is a killer in compositing.
In your image, it is more noticeable in the wood from the window at the vertical strips.

3) low res texture

The plank texture looks low res in comparison with the sharpness of the bottles.
It looks too antialiased, and I think is killing your piece very much.
Some bump may help make the scratches more believable.
Watch out for the brown scartches, they have the right color, but no detail.
Or maybe they are no scratches, but just dust?
Put some detail on it, so we don't have to guess.

4) Bee and diamond ring

The objects give a surreal feeling to the piece.
However, if you want to focus in lighting and texture, get rid of them.
Adding fancy objects to a scene, take away the focus of what really matters here: the lighting.


If you want the people to know how good the cake is, get rid out of the cherries.:thumbsup:

Hope that helps!:love:

[elvis75k]

Jeremy: you scared me a lot.. just like a bomb! :)

Master (blaster) zap: Hehe.. i don't want to kill the thread at all. Queries about the glass, at this point, can be asked in Application Specific forum. If not, just kill me :scream: . If this thread is the cake and you want to get rid of the cherries..

At last i like to fix small issues in my work once more (textures, env, liquids)
if i get time to..

[jfserejo]

Hi all,

i'm begining to like this night test result but don't have a workstation for a sharp (HQ render presets ... my laptop almost melt with this pour one)

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/8357/render1hi.th.jpg (http://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=render1hi.jpg)

grretinga all

[bymak]

I think we are too close to finish. I just want to make my last attempt in maxwell .

http://www.bymak.com/sise_maxwell.jpg

[jeremybirn]

bymak -

That's some nice glass! Don't think just because Elvis has chosen a winner already that the contest has to be over on this page at all.

If there are things to fix (or look out for in the next challenge...) it would be first that you've got some serious tangencies where the necks of the tallest bottle and the yellow bottle line up. Tangencies like that are distracting and hurt the definition of both bottles. The other thing to check for is what parts of the image are the brightest. I have trouble with the inside of the windowframe being so much brighter than the sky. This isn't physically impossible, it's just that people always notice the brightest part of the shot and it would be more believable looking if you could tone it down.

Your render is nice and clear, and it doesn't have all that grainy look that some of the other maxwell renders show. The glass is crisp and believable, except maybe for the yellow bottle, where the refraction doesn't look right (maybe it isn't refracting into air in the interior?) The sense of contact between some of the bottles and the ledge they sit on could also be improved for the clear bottles.

-jeremy

[jeremybirn]

@jfserejo -It's hard to crit a test where so much of your glass is going black. It might be black because you are working at low quality without enough refraction steps to see all the way through, but that does mess up your lighting. If you have a slow machine and don't want to wait for too slow a render, try fewer bottles & lower resolution instead.

-jeremy

[skybum]

First time posting anything here. I only discovered this contest a few days ago... Anyhow, here's my take on the scene, so far.

http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/8291/bottles42to.jpg

This was rendered with Art of Illusion 2.3 (http://aoi.sourceforge.net/), an excellent, free & open-source package. The environment and all textures (with the exception of the embossed logo) are entirely procedural. Minor color-correction and contrast adjustment in post.

[jfserejo]

Hi Jeremy,



You are right... it is much to dark! I'm trying to do a 'outside light trough the window glass only' kind of illumination but it is not going easy!



I will follow your advice and test light setups with fewer bottles until I'm getting a more clear image (full transparency range view, reflections, etc) then let the computer work for some time...



I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, and all guys here, for these challenges that help so much everyone to get better render results every day.

[jeremybirn]

skybum -

Welcome! What a terrific way to make an entrance!! You might be on your way to winning one of Elvis's prizes! :thumbsup:

You have such a terrific image that you could almost stop here, but continuous improvement is what these challenges are all about. It would be great to see if you could make the bottles more light & airy as we see light filter through all of the glass.

I wonder if there needs to be such clearly defined window-shaped reflections on the inside facing surfaces of the bottles, especially the bottles on the right which are otherwise soft looking. Maybe those back bottles could be more transparent and back-lit, and that would make them lighter without needing to reflect the extra rectangles?

-jeremy

[cesarmontero]

About this render:
This is a render test for a lighting setup that resulted pretty nice.
In the next render, I'll include all of the other bottles.
I did some post in Photoshop for the bloom.
The rest is Lightwave/frprime.

About my next render:
My previous images where more focused on the mood of the lighting.
In my next approach, I will focus more on realism, without letting out the mood.
However, I will make a more elegant mood, more of a product shot.
I will get rid of all aspects of texture and light that are inecessary, like wood, backdrop, fancy tables, non-bottle textures, and similar.
In doing so, I will focus on the two main elements of this challenge: glass and light.

I'm not sure if I will have the time to do this.
I'll try to do it tomorrow night.
This time, I will give my best.

http://www.archeidos.com/images/glass_bottles/bottles6.jpg

[free4all]

Hi,

Can I still join this challenge? How much time is left?

Cheers

[bymak]

bymak -

That's some nice glass! Don't think just because Elvis has chosen a winner already that the contest has to be over on this page at all.

If there are things to fix (or look out for in the next challenge...) it would be first that you've got some serious tangencies where the necks of the tallest bottle and the yellow bottle line up. Tangencies like that are distracting and hurt the definition of both bottles. The other thing to check for is what parts of the image are the brightest. I have trouble with the inside of the windowframe being so much brighter than the sky. This isn't physically impossible, it's just that people always notice the brightest part of the shot and it would be more believable looking if you could tone it down.

Your render is nice and clear, and it doesn't have all that grainy look that some of the other maxwell renders show. The glass is crisp and believable, except maybe for the yellow bottle, where the refraction doesn't look right (maybe it isn't refracting into air in the interior?) The sense of contact between some of the bottles and the ledge they sit on could also be improved for the clear bottles.

-jeremy

thanks for comment jeremy.

I think it was very useful activity. there is very succesfull shots here which they give inspire to me . and I can easliy say that, I never seen such a lot bottles in my life I m thinking avoid bottles and glass for a while . :)
take it easy eveybody...

[MJV]

Cesarmontero, thanks for the detailed critique. I agree with everything you said and was pretty much of the same mind already myself. I actually tried more than is apparent to get the lighting from the window looking right. Let me explain what I did and why I approached it this way. In real life, I would expect this scene to be almost a silhouette because the interior lighting isn't going to compete well with the exterior. I tried to make it look like direct sunlight from the window on the left was hitting the base of the bottles to combat the exterior lighting. I didn't think it was going to be easy but it proved even harder than I thought. I clearly didn't succeed in getting that across as your comments prove, but it should at least help explain why the hard shadows. Actually I used an a small area shadow but could have gotten by without it with much faster render times.

I should have worked on the wood more. The scratches as you say aren't detailed enough and just don't look right. Not sure what you're saying about the window edge line as it's not a composite.

So nobody liked the bee. Oh well. :) I'm trying the scene again with XSI so no more bee this time.

I think that some effects as the hotspots, and the caustics are nice.
The colors of the bottles, are very nice too!

However, I think you need to focus on the basics of lighting.
Lighting is NOT ONLY about effects as caustics and refraction.
Those are the cherry of the pie, not the cake itself.
I think that is the main problem with many renders here.
People are focusing too much in the glass, but not really in the lighting.

I would suggest to try your scene first with a default gray texture, for all the objects.
If that gray-texture-bottles look real with the light setup, then you know the lighting work is done.

1) shadows
The shadows projected are sharp, comming from the left to right.
The bottles seem to be at an interior, so, such shadows are not accurate.
In such enviroment, soft shadows would be more appropiate.

If you plan to make a lighting for an exterior, then change the reflections.
I can see from the reflections in the bottles, that there is a window.
By that, I'm guessting that the bottles are in an interior.
If the scene is in an interior with some open spaces, even then the shadows would be mixed, but not that sharp.

The lighting should "tell" the viewer exactly if the bottles are in an interior, or exterior.
Don't let the viewer have to guess, it should be "in your face" what is around causing that lighting.

2) integration of backdrop

There is a white edge along the window.
This happens sometimes when you render, and apply the backdrop in post.
Watch out for that, since it is a killer in compositing.
In your image, it is more noticeable in the wood from the window at the vertical strips.

3) low res texture

The plank texture looks low res in comparison with the sharpness of the bottles.
It looks too antialiased, and I think is killing your piece very much.
Some bump may help make the scratches more believable.
Watch out for the brown scartches, they have the right color, but no detail.
Or maybe they are no scratches, but just dust?
Put some detail on it, so we don't have to guess.

4) Bee and diamond ring

The objects give a surreal feeling to the piece.
However, if you want to focus in lighting and texture, get rid of them.
Adding fancy objects to a scene, take away the focus of what really matters here: the lighting.


If you want the people to know how good the cake is, get rid out of the cherries.:thumbsup:

Hope that helps!:love:

[mathmaxer]

this is my last test render

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/7373/02120010oo.jpg

[jojo1975]

Another post
Chenged angle, added DOF in renderer (no Photoshopped) changed glass material of some bottles. Addded six lights to increase contrast. Changed HDRI map
I love Cobalt Blue :)
7 hours of rendering ! I wnat a faster computer :)

http://www.webalice.it/giorgio.luciano/Cgglass2.jpg

[jeremybirn]

@cesarmontero - That's great! What a wonderful photography poster. ;)

@Math maxer - Terrific, spilled fluids are working. Fluids in the bottles maybe are missing the top surface?

@jojo1975 - Nice, I wonder if it would look better if you focused farther in, maybe focus on the klein bottle, then maybe it would be more interesting? Right the DOF calls attention to some very vanilla bottles and doesn't seem to add much...

-jeremy

[jeremybirn]

Here's another test of my own. This time I have the bottles inside, with sun and caustics through them... I added some frosted glass inspired by Master Zap, and I just put a frame around mine to be like Cesar. :)

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/WebTest4.jpg

-jeremy

[BarberofCivil]

A new render. I traded my interiorand exterior to turn it into an outside scene.


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/barberofcivil/BottleCollection-3.jpg

[BarberofCivil]

bymak -

...The glass is crisp and believable, except maybe for the yellow bottle, where the refraction doesn't look right (maybe it isn't refracting into air in the interior?)

-jeremy

bymak, the problem with both this bottle and bottle #5 (the one with the cap in the back) is that, in the model, the interior and exterior surfaces aren't connected, they are defined as two seperate objects, so this will effect how they render depending on your setup. It can often make it look as though the bottles are solid (or completely filled, which may be intended). I would suggest joining the insides and outsides of these objects as single surfaces if they are meant to be empty.

[Junkoman]

Think this is it.....My final render......
Using default Max renderer with standard Max lights. Rendered in passes and composited in PS.
C&C are welcome. Thanks.

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/2958/comp16ix.jpg

Think I overdid the 'overexpose' a little and the bottles cast no shadows....seems to have lost them in the process of compositing:shrug:

@cesar: You got some great renderings going on here.:thumbsup:

@jmBoekestein: Thanks for waiting. This is my final piece.Hope you like it.

[bymak]

bymak, the problem with both this bottle and bottle #5 (the one with the cap in the back) is that, in the model, the interior and exterior surfaces aren't connected, they are defined as two seperate objects, so this will effect how they render depending on your setup. It can often make it look as though the bottles are solid (or completely filled, which may be intended). I would suggest joining the insides and outsides of these objects as single surfaces if they are meant to be empty.

thanks BarberofCivil
I just check the object. you are right. it cause there seperate objects in that bottle. if I make interior part little smaler than the exterior part , it can be seem like a luquid. thanks for your attention.

[KurtS]

122,945 hits on this thread!
Congratulations Jeremy with a fantastic challenge!

[jeremybirn]

My site (3dRender.com) is being switched to a new server. It seems to be back up for most people, if not wait a bit or try re-loading. As soon as the switch-over is complete I will add new galleries and add more file formats to download.

-jeremy

[FranOnTheEdge]

We have a winner.. Here (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3603176&postcount=472)

Oh.


I didn't realise the time was up already. It's such a shame, I've been learning a lot about glass, but no where near ready to post MY feeble efforts in THIS thread. Probably never would be, but that's academic now.

Oh well.

[MasterZap]

Oh.


I didn't realise the time was up already.

It's not... there is no official end time. This is a continually growing challange.

Sure, when #5 appeaers, interest in #4 will wane, but until then... keep doin' it!

/Z

[BarberofCivil]

Rotated the exterior lighting a bit.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/barberofcivil/BottleCollection-4.jpg

[GiarcNamwob]

Any comments or suggestions are welcome...

1280 X 7?? 28 Mins on my Little laptop..... Maya Software Render.... No Photoshop....

Next to do... faking caustics and environment atmosphere... maybe grimming up the glass...

[lebbeus]

Those are great. For the first one I almost wish it eased out of focus a bit more gently, right now it's like one thing in focus and the a sea of uniform blurriness. Nice image with great colors, though!

I really like the 2nd one. Some of the reflections are really interesting for a physically correct render. Look along the bottom of the frame, and the orange bottle in the lower left reflects the white ground rather faintly (looks good though) - but then the yellow bottle reflects the white ground as if the ground were much brighter. Especially when you compare the yellow bottle's reflection of the ground to the way it doesn't reflect much of the green bottle next to it, it seems a little out of place, doesn't it?

-jeremy

Thanks for the comments Jeremy. Unfortunately I didn't save the camera from the abstract image, but I understand the "problem" with the sharp drop in focus--still learning the camera controls in Maxwell so I'll keep working on getting a good balance.

As for the weirdness in the second image: I think it comes from different surface roughness settings (the orange being less rough) and possibly from different attenuation values?? The klein bottle is very faintly reflected in the yellow bottle and it's possible that this is due to the klein's material (I was playing around with different 0/90 degree reflection colors; the 90 being a yellow in this case). I also added glare to the image which washed out the bright spots a bit, will post the non-glare version later tonight for comparison.

Thanks again for your comments, I'm enjoying this little exercise!

[jorust]

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/WebTest4.jpg

-jeremy

Great update Jeremy!

I love the textures on those bottles.
The lighting is beautiful.
It has a "hazy sunset" feel to it, and so does the nice caustic. :thumbsup:

[jojo1975]

Jeremy I simply love the texture and the bumps on bottles. Why don't trying also a "front rendering" ? the dark part below the bottles deistract a bit.
The caustics on the bottom of trhe bottles are great. HOw many lights did you use ?

Here another try. changed focus (now is on kleinbottle), added another material, increased a bit light.
Comments are wellcome
HDRI and six additional lights.
http://www.webalice.it/giorgio.luciano/Cgglass3.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Jeremy I simply love the texture and the bumps on bottles. Why don't trying also a "front rendering" ? the dark part below the bottles deistract a bit.
The caustics on the bottom of trhe bottles are great. HOw many lights did you use ?

Here another try. changed focus (now is on kleinbottle), added another material, increased a bit light.Comments are wellcome HDRI and six additional lights.

That's a good point about the dark part below the bottles. I only used 1 light for the caustics, making a caustic pass that was just filling in the key shadows, and haven't got any fill-light caustics to add color or tones to the places the sky is shadowed. I'll render that pass tonight and make another comp... I should also post a breakdown of passes and lights used after I get these last fixes done.

That's a nice render, but I don't really see the "focus" -- I see the focal point of your DOF is around the klein bottle, but nothing makes it pop from the scene. Maybe some highlights or rims or something else could happen around the center of attention, to draw people's eyes to it. Maybe it could use some more color contrast compared to the bottles it overlaps with. And check that the whole bottle is in focus, not falling out of focus on the neck. If all you're adding are some highlights or rims, you might be able to do a separate pass to screen on top and not need a whole new render in order to punch it up.

-jeremy

[jeremybirn]

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/WebTest5.jpg

I added a new sky caustics pass (click for image (http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/SkyCaustics.jpg)) to fix the black area under the bottles. The rest of the shadows are filled in the the main sun caustics pass that I didn't want to render again (click for image (http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/SunCaustics.jpg).)

The number of lights used in the scene is 47.

Only 9 are used in the beauty pass: 1 for the sun, 1 for the sky, 3 rims on the window trim, 3 interior fill/bounce lights, 1 non-shadowing light that was a copy of the key linked exclusively to the blue frosted bottle that needed some help. It's just these 9 lights doing most of the work:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/Beauty.jpg

The caustic passes mentioned above, and a highlight pass, had just 1 light each, so that brought the light count to 12.

The rest of the lights are an extra 35 lights in the rim pass, but that wasn't even a pass that included a glass shader or raytracing, the bottles just had a plain phong shader that rendered very quickly, illuminated by 2 or so rims on each bottle to help them pop a bit and accentuate the sun/sky color difference:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/Rims.jpg

I feel like doing this again, because I've got some improvements to the caustics, I want to change the texture on the windowsill and a few other places, one of the bottles is bugging me and needs some geometry and shader tweaks. I don't know if I will do it again this weekend because it basically would tie up my one home machine all weekend to start this render over. But I might do it during the week.

-jeremy

[cesarmontero]

Jeremy:

That is a nice image!
I like the twirling bottle.:)
Did you used another model for that bottle, or is it a texture trick?
Would you mind in sharing it if it is a new model?
I would love to give it a test too!


I like the image that has less strong shadows under the bottles.
I am however surprised by the use of so many lights.
Is the use of so many lights to simulate effects, and lower render times?
Simulation of radiosity or caustics?

Nice to see you participating with some images :)
I have been quite busy with my arrival to Mexico.
I will try to get another one as soon as I get some time free.

[MasterZap]

The number of lights used in the scene is 47.


I know you would disagree about this, but the number of lights in my scene is... one. Because in reality there is... one. The sun. (Well okay, the environment emits light too, but it's not "a light" in the tranditional sense in these renderings)

I know you are a deep lover of the "oldschool" way of thinking in CG, as witnessed by your book, and your render passes.

I'm not saying that is wrong, I'm just saying I am currently in a very different "frame of mind" with respect to that stuff. "If there aint a light there in real life there shouldn't be a light there in the CG scene." Of course, this doesn't make as "studio pretty" results (since real life photographers routinely use all sorts of bouncecards and extra lights) but it should get you realistic results.

Btw, I plan to write a little "review" of your book and send to you, if you are interested. It will happen when I have time, which is not now. ;)

/Z

[jeremybirn]

Jeremy:

That is a nice image!
I like the twirling bottle.:)
Did you used another model for that bottle, or is it a texture trick?
Would you mind in sharing it if it is a new model?
I would love to give it a test too!
There is no change to the model. It has a procedural bump map for the diagonal stripes wrapping around it. (A repeating Maya Ramp as a bump map can look like horizontal stripes like I have around the 5th bottle, but with fewer repeats and rotated 66 degrees it "twirls," as you put it, around the bottle.)

I like the image that has less strong shadows under the bottles.
I am however surprised by the use of so many lights.
Is the use of so many lights to simulate effects, and lower render times?
Simulation of radiosity or caustics?
I tried to answer jojo's "how many lights do you have" question in an informative way, you can see above that most of those lights are just for a rim pass that isn't a big part of the render... and I'm not doing much of anything to simulate radiosity, except for a bounce light in the scene.

-jeremy

[jeremybirn]

I know you would disagree about this, but the number of lights in my scene is... one. Because in reality there is... one. The sun. (Well okay, the environment emits light too, but it's not "a light" in the tranditional sense in these renderings)
As long as you looked in the outliner and counted accurately, how could I disagree??

I know you are a deep lover of the "oldschool" way of thinking in CG, as witnessed by your book, and your render passes.

I'm not saying that is wrong, I'm just saying I am currently in a very different "frame of mind" with respect to that stuff. "If there aint a light there in real life there shouldn't be a light there in the CG scene." Of course, this doesn't make as "studio pretty" results (since real life photographers routinely use all sorts of bouncecards and extra lights) but it should get you realistic results.
That's great. Not everyone wants to work for a studio or needs to learn every technique, but everyone wishes realism with fewer lights was easier to achieve.

I especially appreciate hearing that attitude from someone in shader development. Right now, one reason extra lights get poured into some scenes is because of inconsistent behavior in shaders, such as if you had a car paint shader that added metalic sparkles around a specular highlight, but didn't put sparkles around a bright spot in a raytraced reflection. If shaders treated all light like real light, then the convergence of specularity, reflection, controls over photon scattering, etc. would certainly simplify lighting as much as they'd simplify adjusting shaders.

Btw, I plan to write a little "review" of your book and send to you, if you are interested. It will happen when I have time, which is not now. ;)
I remain very interested!! In fact, if I don't receive it before SIGGRAPH, I will attempt to buy you several beers and coax it out of you in person.

-jeremy

[voolkan]

here is my render, just testing stuff. the light is supposed to be coming from
a candle, any comments?. btw im quite new to maya, i came from max.

edit: there is no caustics yet.

[jfserejo]

I kept working in my night scene, this time with one IES light coming from a big round lamp above the bottles, to add more realism in space mood and illumination (gave up the light from night HDR only because it was not working and the effect I could get where not to realistic – to be realistic the scene result to dark). I left a big globe blueish moon outside that bounce a tiny amount of light to the interior. Also closed the “box” around our scene to add interior light kept to the boundaries of “this room”. It seems that now the result is beginning to work! Add to work a little harder in caustics – I think the distance search amount is not enough for the soft result I’m trying… Please any comment suggestion are welcome. :)

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/1899/bottlecollection5uc.th.jpg (http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bottlecollection5uc.jpg)

[skybum]

Thanks for the feedback, Jeremy! I tweaked some things and did another render, but I'm still not getting quite enough light at the back of the bottles. It's probably because I'm not using caustics. And I'm not using caustics because, well, I'd like to see the finished render sometime during my lifetime... :-)

Still, the results are fairly pleasing:

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/317/bottles38az.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I also tried another view:

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/1253/bottles47ke.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[skybum]

(Duplicate Post Deleted)

[cesarmontero]

Thanks for the explanation of the texture trick on the bottle!


That's great. Not everyone wants to work for a studio or needs to learn every technique, but everyone wishes realism with fewer lights was easier to achieve.
-jeremy


The transparent bottle uses two lights, and my first image uses 1 area light.
Most of my scenes use two lights at the most (ambient and key).
A diamond scene I did uses just 1 light, no HDRI.
I never use plugins for texture or light, not even ambient occlussion.
It is possible to achieve realism with one light, it just takes time to learn.

I have problems doing this in organics, but for objects it is very possible.

I'm glad to see someone else trying to achieve realism with little lights.
Makes me feel less crazy :)

[MasterZap]

As long as you looked in the outliner and counted accurately, how could I disagree??

Bwahaha. What I mean was "you would probably not agree that its the 'proper' thing to do, to use only one light"


That's great. Not everyone wants to work for a studio or needs to learn every technique, but everyone wishes realism with fewer lights was easier to achieve.


Exactly. That's what I'm researching here.

"Anyone" (uhm, okay not my aunt Greta but.. ;) ) can get something nifty with a ton of light cheats, a trainload of compositing, and some beads of sweat.

Thats great. I would do that too on a movie production in a heartbeat. Partially because on a movie production you are at the whim of a director that suddenly may say "nah, the alien skin should be more moist, and I want it's precence to be more punchy, yet warm*"

I mean lets face it; any time you do a cheat... you... uhm... cheat. (Well duh ;) )

When you have to do a cheat it means something was... well... wrong somewhere.

In principle, you shouldn't have to do a cheat. In principle, you should get the right thing. I.e. the same as you would have gotten w. a real camera.

Now of course, naturally, the follow up QUESTION then becomes, do you want the "right thing"? Maybe what you would have gotten with a real camera would have looked like crap? That's possible, but it would be photo real ;)

Theres a ton of reasons "lookign real" might not always look "good", and you adress this very well in your book (the sitcom sofa location to avoid the multiple shadows on walls is a very good example).

But that is because they were cheating in the 1st place with the multiple lights.

So there is still another layer of "right". Sure it may look more "mundane" than the studio-looking thing, but it's... well....right.

I've become a fan of right.

This is a recent mental evolution in myself.. .ask me a year ago and I'd go "bah, humbug, I do everything in post, physics schmysics".

I learned some stuff since then. ;)




I especially appreciate hearing that attitude from someone in shader development. Right now, one reason extra lights get poured into some scenes is because of inconsistent behavior in shaders,

Agreed; I know, very much so.

such as if you had a car paint shader that added metalic sparkles around a specular highlight, but didn't put sparkles around a bright spot in a raytraced reflection.

Exactly. Although of course some guy may argue "hey, I want separate controls over the reflecrtivity of the metallic flakes vs. their 'specular highlight' reflectivity". And they may be "right"... for artistics sake. But when talking reality, they aren't right. If it doesn't look right with the "correct" approach... something somewhere else is broken....

And then AGAIN, it's the fact when "right" is way too computationally ineffient and there are some "plausible cheats" that is "right enough" and much faster. (like skipping raytraced reflections on said metallic flakes).

And so on.

It's the old cheap/fast/good - pick two. ;)

If shaders treated all light like real light, then the convergence of specularity, reflection, controls over photon scattering, etc. would certainly simplify lighting as much as they'd simplify adjusting shaders.

Exactly.


I remain very interested!! In fact, if I don't receive it before SIGGRAPH, I will attempt to buy you several beers and coax it out of you in person.


That alone may make me withold it artificially. LOL ;)

/Z

* = This is a joke for anyone into music. It's typical speak that anyone mixing music never wants to hear. "Punchy" and "warm" are very undefined terms and means differnt things to different speakers, but whats worse, it's difficult to make things both... they tend to be either punchy.. or warm... ah... I've been in the music biz too long. So when the record company exec comes in and says "make the bass kick, the highs sizzle, louder than all other records out there, yet subtle, and make everything punchy, yet warm..." thats when you throw things at them.

I'll shut up now. Or I start to talk about how I equate taste with EQ curves, as in "This garlic has a strong 200hz with some 4k overtones...."

[cesarmontero]

Thats great. I would do that too on a movie production in a heartbeat. Partially because on a movie production you are at the whim of a director that suddenly may say "nah, the alien skin should be more moist, and I want it's precence to be more punchy, yet warm*"

I mean lets face it; any time you do a cheat... you... uhm... cheat. (Well duh ;) )

What you can do, is to achieve realism with little lights without coloring at first.
Try to use the less lights possible.
Then, with other lights, achieve the extra "feeling".
Trying to separate the MOOD from REALISM.
It helps a lot to later on to do tweaking.

I take this approach most of the time.
Think about the following:

A real movie shot (no CG) starts by default with realism, it is there by default.
Then lights come and fix the existent lighting into a specific mood.
So, trying to follow the same methodology as in real life does helps.

Then, after you make that scene with the realism you want, cheat it to lower render times.
Lighting is like math: solve the equation first (solve realism).
Then simplify it to make it more efficient.

:)

[MasterZap]

rendered very quickly, illuminated by 2 or so rims on each bottle to help them pop a bit and accentuate the sun/sky color difference:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/Rims.jpg



This was a cool trick, to use plain phong-ish shading with basically nearly a "light per object" to get those "perdy rim" things.

That's for when I go back into my "bah, cheat everythign" mental mode. May be tomorrow, may be later this evening, who knows. ;)

/Z

[jeremybirn]

@ skybum - Again, looking good! There are parts of the image, like the yellow bottle neck in the upper left of the image, that have really been "nailed" -- you have a look there that's really working. Still parts go too dark and the interior reflections look too bold and silvery in places. The high angle is nice, probably it doesn't need the vertical stripes of fog, at least not with them so bold like that.

@ jfserejo - Nice start. Some of the bottles look like they have been cut in half. The light could use a softer gradient from where it is brightest to the darker areas more distant from the bulb.

@ voolkan - Welcome! Keep working on it. Make the glass transparent, tone down the reflections, look through this thread to see what others did and other feedback.

-jeremy

[jfserejo]

Hi all!
Thanks Jeremy for your feedback; Here is another try to the night scene with a little more gradient (I think this show more clearely the location where the lamp is direct iluminating). The filter of the IES lamp light as a darker filter - warm yellow for old lamp mood, against the wall, wood, glass, ...

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/3315/bottlecollection29oi.jpg

[jeremybirn]

@ jfserejo - Looking better and better!

3 strange things: The frosted glass look seems to go away so it looks smooth outside of the light pool. The metal base to the bottom of the window looks brighter screen right where it's outside the light than it does right in the middle under the light as seen through the bottles. And the bottles seem to cast much darker shadows than the solid wood shelf underneath them (this is probably due to another light hitting below the shelf, but still looks strange to me.)

-jeremy

[FranOnTheEdge]

Oh I'm so glad it's not over. Such a lot of lovely images. That image of the "sun caustics" by Jeremy Brin was beautiful all on it's own.

not sure how you DO sun caustics though...

[jfserejo]

The metal base to the bottom of the window looks brighter screen right where it's outside the light than it does right in the middle under the light as seen through the bottles.

Yes you are right! I have puted two light "boxes" with little apertures to illuminate some dark areas and trying to smooth the sharper shadows... looking at it now I know the placement is wrong and I couldn't see this before! ... That's why I love this forums :)

1st lightbox is on the right of our space pointing to the lamp... had to review this "pointing" :) - I don't know how to rig this light with a camera to look trough it, so missplacement was expected!?

And the bottles seem to cast much darker shadows than the solid wood shelf underneath them (this is probably due to another light hitting below the shelf, but still looks strange to me.)

Same here...

2nd lightbox is near the floor pointng up! I will decrease the intensity to a minimum (or even turn off) to see if the efect I was trying to reach is possible.

[BarberofCivil]

Another exterior based scene. Closer camera, and different exterior environment. Tried a bit of a cracked glass effect on the front bottle along the lines of Jeremy's suggestions.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/barberofcivil/BottleCollection-5.jpg

[vbk!!!]

Hello,

Just a little test to render dusty glass.
No time to post before : too much work !

http://www.vbk-451.net/temp/bottles_c2%20copie.jpg

Lightwave, Fprime, and a little post.

[reliablesponge]

these are all interesting but how come most of you guys never disclosed what rendering software you used?

some software has the "GI-easy-button". if any of u used those, it really doesnt say how good YOU are.

so...it's only fair to the challenge to mention what renderer you use.

[BarberofCivil]

these are all interesting but how come most of you guys never disclosed what rendering software you used?

some software has the "GI-easy-button". if any of u used those, it really doesnt say how good YOU are.

so...it's only fair to the challenge to mention what renderer you use.

I think I said in my first post I use POV-Ray/megaPOV and use an HDRI based lighting macro I have been working on. I picked up on POV as a hobbyist about 12 years ago and never got into the "professional" systems.

[vbk!!!]

reliablesponge (member.php?u=85442)

You're right man.

For my picture i didn't use GI. It's raytrace only.
I used 2 HDRI for le reflections. One Area Light at the window for the soft shadow. 2 pointlights for the interior lighting.

[BarberofCivil]

One more for good measure...


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i52/barberofcivil/BottleCollection-6.jpg

[jfserejo]

these are all interesting but how come most of you guys never disclosed what rendering software you used?

some software has the "GI-easy-button". if any of u used those, it really doesnt say how good YOU are.

so...it's only fair to the challenge to mention what renderer you use.

Software: I'm using max8 with vray rs.
Lights: Bulb lamp IES light, outside vray sphere light for moon
Environment: night scene HDR image (explicit sphere env.)

[cesarmontero]

these are all interesting but how come most of you guys never disclosed what rendering software you used?

some software has the "GI-easy-button". if any of u used those, it really doesnt say how good YOU are.

so...it's only fair to the challenge to mention what renderer you use.


Software: Lightwave 3D + FPrime 2.1 (fprime does not allows any other plugin to be used)

Lighting Specs:

1st render, "colored bottles, frontview": 2 area lights, 1 bouncer.
2nd render, "colored bottles, topview": 2 area lights, 1 bouncer.

3rd render, "single bottle, lower view": 2 distant lights, 3 bouncers.

[jeremybirn]

Lets get more than just what software was used!

This thread's been such a winner so far, it would be perfect if more people wrote about how they did things.

Write whatever you feel like: the overall approach and lighting scheme, or just software-specific notes about what settings worked for you. Do a full tutorial on your own site and post a link here, or just post some kind of breakdown or or screenshot into this thread. When a gallery page is put together for this thread, there will be links to tutorials or breakdowns there too.

I'll do a breakdown post myself tonight, along with one last render...

-jeremy

[MasterZap]

some software has the "GI-easy-button". if any of u used those, it really doesnt say how good YOU are.

Interesting way of seeing it.

So if you completely fake and cheat your lighting with 147 bounce lights and still need post work to get it right, then you are "good".

But if you are able to properly use the global illumination tools of your application of choice, and set up your materials in such a way that it looks correctly straight out of the renderr without 147 bounce lights, you are somehow not good?

Intriguing ;)

/Z

[helluvapixel]

Lets get more than just what software was used!
Write whatever you feel like: the overall approach and lighting scheme,...

Totally agree, people get too hung up on what software was used rather than the actual technique. Almost any shader or light can be duplicated in every package so knowing how you get there is most important not the vehicle that helped (to most degree).

[jeremybirn]

@ vbk!!! - It looks more like frosty glass than dusty glass, I guess because the frost or snow on top of them looks so bright and shiney. Still cool looking though!

@ BarberofCivil - Nice! The crackle-glass is looking good. The interior view is nice, too, where you just see the dim orange for the lamps. Maybe some of the other glass is too heavily bump mapped, or at least it bugs me to see the same sawtooth pattern in several different bottles though.

-jeremy

[BarberofCivil]

@ vbk!!! - It looks more like frosty glass than dusty glass, I guess because the frost or snow on top of them looks so bright and shiney. Still cool looking though!

@ BarberofCivil - Nice! The crackle-glass is looking good. The interior view is nice, too, where you just see the dim orange for the lamps. Maybe some of the other glass is too heavily bump mapped, or at least it bugs me to see the same sawtooth pattern in several different bottles though.

-jeremy

Thanks for the comments. Actually the bottles aren't bump mapped, I think the bumpiness comes from subdividing the model as I don't have a good prog for that and used Wings which didn't really do it proper.

[jeremybirn]

I fixed up a few things about my scene and rendered it again. Damn I need a new computer...

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/BottlesFlat_lo.jpg

Click here to see it at the original resolution... (http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/BottlesFlat_hi.jpg)

-jeremy

[cesarmontero]

jeremy:

That is a nice improvement!
This image feels more integrated, and as you say, more easy to read.
I will let you know what caught my eye at first sight:

The hot spots on the left of the render at the table, are hotter than the hotspots on the bottles at the same level. I would then argue that it would be probable that they where caustics, but the larger ones as the one under the blue bottle on the left are too big perhaps as to be caustics.

Since the balance in highlights/shadows of the bottles in relation to the wood is really nice, I would suggest to lower down those hotspots in wood, in order to attain tighter balance in the logics of light at the scene.


Such a simple thing and so many words to describe it....
I hope I got my point across, and that it will be useful.:love:

[jeremybirn]

OK, brought that down a bit:

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/BottlesFlat_lo2.jpg

Click here to see it at the original resolution... (http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/BottlesFlat_hi.jpg)

-jeremy

[jojo1975]

@Jeremy
First of all let's say this challenge wa a wonderful occasion for people like (a newbie) me to learn a lot. I guess it will my first render in pass :) since now I was more focused on modelling than in lightning.
You image is wonderful, What i like most are the kind of glasses. The frosted glass looks perfect. The caustics looks great (as I told in my previous post) even if IMHO a bit too strong, but it's a matter of taste.

About the topic of "cheating". I cannot say anything about as pro, but I can spend my two cent as a lover of photography and art in general.
If the aim is focused on emotion, I mean the emotion that the artist want to move on the audience, everything is OK. GI, 1000 lights, photoshopping, compositing for hours etc.etc.
If we want only a "challenge", in my opinion a bit less "artistic and more "technical" we can talk about techniques and decide from the start to have strict rules (no GI, only lights, compositing in passes or not, best photorealistic achievement etc. etc.) . and in this way I will say that I'm for the philosophy of the simpliest, the better. I mean, not compositing the bottles like in a photographer studio, but "take a photo" of bottles near a windows.

About the competition I guess it will be usefull at the end if people woul like to post also materials of materials setting , making a glass library could be very useful

Hope to final compositing my image before he end of the week jojo ;)

[GiarcNamwob]

Wow.... Fluids are slow.......

went from 24 minutes to 1 fr 15... crazy.... anyway.....

here is my newest shot..... all critiques are welcome.....

1280 maya software render...
1 SpotLight Raytraced Shadows
1 Ring Light Dmap Shadows
1 Directional Bounce no Shadows
No Gi or HDRI... no composite

[badie]

Made with C4D 9.6, GI, AO, 1 Infinite Light
http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b10c.jpg

[badie]

Rendering C4D 9.6, GI, AO, 1 infinite light, Power Mac Quad :)

http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b10c.jpg

[jfserejo]

I think the "strange things" that was resulting the from light that misslead the viewing object are now a little better... I fealt the necessity of starting testing with caustics on for more depth glass presence and shadows. The bottles opening is projecting a good amount of it into the ceramic bottle... :)

This rendering was in vray with GI and Causticso on... Used one night scene HDR for the cenario and two lights: One big spheric VrayLight with blueish tint for the moon I placed far from the window. And used one IES placed just under the lamp bulb glass (this one is vraylight material to iluminate the inside of the lamp).

Greetings all and great thread this one :)

http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/8607/t43renderoutput0291ii.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Rendering C4D 9.6, GI, AO, 1 infinite light, Power Mac Quad :)

http://www.deltazone.org/%7Efc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b10c.jpg

Badie -

That's a very nice image. I love the colors. The textures are great. Lighting shining through stained glass would seem to open all kinds of possibilities.

Some of the bottles are looking good, especially the reflective, opaque ones. Others like the one all the way on the right seems to be fading away, not really refracting or showing up much.

The view out the window to the red flowers looks a bit too big and bold as well, somehow those flowers being so much bigger and brighter than the bottles doesn't ring completely true to me. But I'm confused by the circular area on the left - is it a mirror? It kindof looks like a mirror the way it hangs in front of the wall and seems to reflect part of the curtains, but then what it reflections looks like a bright outdoor scene different from whats in the room. Could it be a window? A framed picture that is somehow self-illuminating? A sci-fi portal to another dimension as we saw in challenge #2? I don't know.

-jeremy

[cesarmontero]

Badie:

Same comments as Jeremy here.
I do know the place shown at the left in the circular area.
It is perhaps too much of a known place as to integrate it in the picture.
I remembere the rooms of that palace, and they are not like the one shown.
This could cause cultural noise.

I think that the image is really nice.
I would just tweak much more that mirror and window exterior.
They look very much out of place.

[Jera]

Hi guys, very nice thread you have going on here, lot of high quality stuff. I've been checking it out for a while now and decided it was time to make an entry.

I took a shot at rendering multiple passes and compositing them which turned out a bit different than i expected (still a lot to learn there) so maybe some of the pros here can point me in the right direction.

Anyway, scene consists of 2 area lights, 1 spot and hdri, rendered with vray.

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/2800/bottles14wb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Geccoka]

Hi guys, here is my attempt. Rendered with finalRender Stage-2 for Cinema 4D. Took 2 days to render @ 3072x2124.
GI+Physical Sky and one spotlight for lighting with area shadows. I also used caustics and AO. The background is a hdr image (not included in GI calc.). Some postwork...

http://gecco.uw.hu/3dworks/FINAL-640x480.jpg

And here is a link to a bigger version (1280x960) (http://gecco.uw.hu/3dworks/FINAL-1280x960.jpg)

[badie]

Here's Two Render Tests :)
i'll Start the Final Render this night :)

http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b11f.jpg

http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b12.jpg
C4D 9.6, Quad Macintosh, 4.5 Ram

[jeremybirn]

@ Jera - Good start, I guess the bright areas on the bottom of the bottles are one of the compositing problems you mentioned. Try to give your scene a bit more of a center of attention, or several centers of attention, maybe giving some directionality to the light so there were highlights, shadows, etc. could help draw people's eyes to centers of interest in the image.

@ badie - It pays to run small tests on a small part of a scene, like with just 1 bottle visible, before you re-render the full thing too many times.

@ jfserejo - Keep going with those improvements. Start at the lamp and ask first if every part of the scene appears to be illuminated by it. You can probably see a lot of things yourself that need to be tuned.

-jeremy

[badie]

Many Thanks Jeremy for great Advises, I experimented many Renders & theses are the last,
I encounter many Problems with Glass Textures & Lights… & little C4D Bug, but Now I started the last render with Good Light Rig :)

[jfserejo]

Thanks Jeremy for your feedback. This exercise is being very important in many aspects, but I think the most important, for me, is the fact that learning to look, really look to a render result can be as important as knowing the program technique and tricks. It doesn’t care if we know all about GI, nice caustics, sharper results if we cant “enter” in the scene itself; its lights, its surfaces, its textures… Since I started to learn 3dsMax, not so long ago, I consider that light always is the most important element in 99% of the scene cases. Like melody in music, or balance in paint



Well, all of this to say I’m enjoying so much this opportunity, and hope to have time to enter the following ones to.

[jeremybirn]

A comic strip to read while you are rendering:

http://www.wire-heads.com/istrip/index.php?strip_id=7

Somehow Master Zap got to be a character? ;)

-jeremy

[MasterZap]

Somehow Master Zap got to be a character? ;)

-jeremy

Bwahaha.

Well, not really. Most of the time I'm more like the 1st guy. ;)

Doesn't change the fact that the 2nd guy has a valid point. Perhaps not in that situation - LOL :rolleyes:

/Z

[BonzaiGopher]

Hi all,

First, thanks to Jeremy for this challenge - I've seen some awesome stuff here, hopefully I've learned something too! :)

My first post to this challenge was waaaay back on page 24 (I think)... I've been playing around some more and here is the result. Rendered in Carrara 5.1 Pro at 800x600 in about an hour. (P4 2.6GHz, 1GB Ram, ATI 9600 Pro, Win XP Pro)

Comments or advice cheerfully accepted! :)

Thanks,


Glen

http://ca.geocities.com/gallen8969@rogers.com/testarea/bc3-7.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Wow.... Fluids are slow.......

went from 24 minutes to 1 fr 15... crazy.... anyway.....

here is my newest shot..... all critiques are welcome.....

1280 maya software render...
1 SpotLight Raytraced Shadows
1 Ring Light Dmap Shadows
1 Directional Bounce no Shadows
No Gi or HDRI... no composite

I don't think 1 hour 15 minutes is crazy for a render. You have nice raytracing and caustics, I can see that taking a little longer. Doing the fog in the same pass as the raytracing could be slowing things down too.

I love the little rag in the background. The bottle with brushes in it is also great. I like the overall direction you're going with the foggy/dusty render. Most of the texture mapping is working, I guess the opened parts of the windows seem to have lost the distinction between the frame and the glass but otherwise it all reads pretty solidly.

The light/dusty look needs to be punctuated very carefully with the deep and saturated colors, right now some of those are popping out too much. That cotton candy pink bottle looks almost like plastic, an the saturated blue with purple highlights could be toned down to be better integrated into the scene, although the blue one's cork is working better than the cork in the wine bottle though. Even the green bottles have areas like the bottom of the left one that go too saturated a yellow/green, as if maybe a shadow wasn't showing up in the refraction.

-jeremy

[jeremybirn]

@ BonzaiGopher - Welcome! Your basic set-up looks good. The "sun" light seems to be diverging as if the sun were a point only a few feet outside the window, though. For the bottles, I've given this advice before, but do some tests to really nail just 1 of the bottles by itself before you do the full scene again. Then you can focus on quality in the subdivision, the refraction, the reflections, the shadows, etc. without the renders taking forever.

-jeremy

[elvis75k]

I don't think 1 hour 15 minutes is crazy for a render.

Mine took 4h:20min.. that is good for a single frame @ higher resolution.

[badie]

An Other Test
Many Thanks to Jeremy's Advises :)

http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b16.jpg

[jeremybirn]

badie -

Wow! A great render kept getting better and better. Really good work.

I wonder when I look at it whether more light could make it through the glass, when the window ledge right by the window stays completely dark like that. Maybe a part of it is not having enough sky fill coming through the window from above and the sides, but part of it is not enough sunlight refracting through the glass?

Anyway, apart from the glass maybe not being emphasized enough, it's a lovely image.

-jeremy

[kary]

Haven't had a chance to participate so far, but this has been a very fun thread to watch. Who knew there'd be that many interpretations of a small group of bottles? ;)

http://www.karyblack.com/wip/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/bright-bottles.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.karyblack.com/wip/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/bright-bottles.jpg)
I did a quick 'bright' bottle version last night that I'd like to finish up and turn to dust/grime.

I found a pair of big glass bottles the other day that are covered in a great layer of dust and grit (10 years in a oil furnace room sorta thing). I'm hoping to get some ref shot from them once I can either get a light there, or figure out how to pull them out without risk of tetanus or ruining the grime surface ;).

[silvia]

Love your render badie!

[Womball]

Your render is fantastic Kary. I think I would do something similar if I were doing this.

[silvia]

kary, how did you get that soft glow look? Is it straight render or did you post process?
What 3D program are you using?

[lazzhar]

Haven't had a chance to participate so far, but this has been a very fun thread to watch. Who knew there'd be that many interpretations of a small group of bottles? ;)

http://www.karyblack.com/wip/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/bright-bottles.thumbnail.jpg (http://www.karyblack.com/wip/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/bright-bottles.jpg)
I did a quick 'bright' bottle version last night that I'd like to finish up and turn to dust/grime.
..

Nice rendering and colors! It looks very attractive , I like the overall softness a lot.

[badie]

This Render Take about 2 Hours on G5 Quad 2.5 Mhz :)

[badie]

The Last Update of my Render, :-) it Take about 3H

http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b17.jpg

[Jera]

Thanks for the feedback Jeremy!

[badie]

the last UpDate with Ambient Occlusion
http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b18AO.jpg

[jeremybirn]

badie -

That's an interesting comparison. In most respects I like the lighting in the previous one better.

There isn't anything wrong with AO, it's just that the version with AO got a lot brighter in some places. Also, it has AO applied inconsistently, so areas like the corner seen in the mirror, where things don't get AO, look very flatly shaded now.

Maybe the problem is that you are using a flat ambient pass as the basis for what the AO will darken, and the fill lights you had been using before actually made for better fill light. You could try rendering a fill light pass that had everything but direct sunlight in it, include your interior fills, the light from the sky (that's an area where more is needed, the windowledge doesn't appear to get any sky light now), and all the other fill. Then use that fill light pass to multiply with the AO pass, before you add the direct sun.

-jeremy

[badie]

You Are all right jeremy here it is a render without AO :)
http://www.deltazone.org/~fc4d/images/badie_Bottle-collection-b18.jpg

[jeremybirn]

Here's a breakdown of my entry. Start with the final render:

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/WebTest6.jpg
Click here to see original resolution, rendered at 1665x900. (http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/BottlesFlat_hi.jpg)

I settled on a 1.85 aspect ratio for the scene pretty early on, I decided to stick with this lower resolution instead of a full 1920 across just to save a little render time and avoid filling the whole monitor with the render view.

I rendered the scene using Maya and Mental Ray. The scene set-up started with an environment to reflect, which are two textured hemispheres, one for the outside environment, one for the interior. There's also a flat background plane for the view out the window, and an extra plane with a bright sun image to boost the sun reflection:

http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/screenshot1.jpg

This gave nice reflections on the bottles:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/BottleReflections.jpg
For things like glass bottles, what's around them to reflect and refract is as important to the lighting as the lights.

For lighting, I used a directional light for the sun, with slightly soft raytraced shadows and emitting caustic photons - after some tests I settled on 2 million photons to get well defined caustics:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/screenshot2.jpg

I added a sky fill for the light from the sky, it was dimmer, much softer, and cast fewer photons so its caustics would be softer:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/screenshot3.jpg

I also added some fill and bounce light from the inside, much dimmer than the main outdoor lights.

The bottles used the L_glass shader. To get the impression of a "collection" I tried to make a different look for each bottle. A lot of the bottles have different Maya procedural textures on them, for example, there's a leather procedural as a bump map on the 2nd bottle, and a ramp texture to make stripes running across the 5th bottle (the blue one.) The 10th bottle (light blue frosted glass) had a glossiness of 0.1 - sampling the glossy bottles and bottles with dispersion was by far the slowest part of the render, it could have gone much faster if all the glass were completely clear. Here's a sample shader, from the 12th bottle (the green one with diagonal ramp bump map running around it):
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/screenshot4.jpg
Sometimes it was hard to keep parts of the glass from going black or too dark. I had to keep the filter colors very close to pure white, sometimes if there was a color map on a bottle I needed to set the map's color balance above 1 in order to keep it bright enough. I also set the render settings for 12 refraction steps, with a max trace depth of 20, in order to make sure you could see through all the layers of refractive glass and internal reflection bounces.

-jeremy

[me_stephen]

Jeremy,
Thanks for the detailed breakdown of your lighting rig - very informative.

[elvis75k]

Wow Jeremy! I like the breakdown very much!
Very clean. Thanks also for the Spiral_Etched info.
The image is wonderfull, evocative.

[Hamburger]

Good too see you went with l_glass in the end. It is a wonderful shader.

[mcu202]

Hi - this is my first post so I dont think I can attach a picture but I'd love to hear any suggestions on my attempt at the bottles. You can view it here:

http://www.mirelle3d.com/bottles.tif

thanks

[Patrick210]

This is my first time posting an image here. I enjoyed going through this thread and utilizing the provided models. Here's a link to my version of the image:

http://www.tutengraphics.com/fullpic.php?fullpic=graphics/Computer%20Artwork/Carrara%205%20Pro%20Images/Doc10a_cc.jpg

[JCBug]

Hi, I'm French and this is my first post too.
It's exciting to see the work of fabulous digital artists.
Here is my little picture.

I'm sorry, but I've broken a bottle,
and all is wet now. I have to clean...

http://www.arctique.fr/production/Broken-bottle.jpg

[Palantion]

Nice job Patrick 210

[vbk!!!]

hop
Another test of dusty glass ... Some spider webs are missing again.
I use more comositing than the first one.
If i take the time, I will add dust and spiderweb in a last picture.

http://www.vbk-451.net/temp/bottles_02_final.jpg

[jfserejo]

Well before we all pass to the sub-aquatic world ... I'm not happy with some things yet but I can say that the result grow since the first post...
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5858/t43renderoutput038c9hr.jpg

[JCBug]

Good light and textures, jfserejo !
What happened with the center bottle ? it's very very white.

On my picture, I have modified the broken bottle,
I think it's a little better.

http://www.arctique.fr/production/Broken-Bottle-03.jpg

[jeremybirn]

@ jfserejo - Great, it was already a nice piece, and it has improved alot.

@ Patrick210 - Nice job! Probably the sense of directionality could be improved if the rims weren't symmetrical around the left and right of some of the bottles.

@ mcu202 - Nice image. If you upload a .jpg file next time, and put [IMG] tags around it, then it'll show up for everyone to see. I think the refraction isn't going back into air within some of the bottles, at least one in the middle is refracting as if it were all solid glass.

@vbk!!! - Nice dust! It would be more subtle if they didn't reflect as much of that big white area, whatever it is inside the room like a glowing white rug?

@ JCBug - Wonderful scene! It's very surreal, doesn't take itself too seriously, so I think people will get it without needing to think too much about where it is.

(I'm sorry that bottle broke on you -- next time I'll model more carefully!)

-jeremy

[jfserejo]

Thanks JCBug and Jeremy for your feedback :)
Well the bottle in the midlle is supose to be ceramic (dark pink glossy ceramic) but is getting over exposed. I like the overall light so I will change only the shader of that.

Jeremy your scheme showing us your aproach is great... I wont give up on this thread without a breaf resume of my work settings to... the right side reflection of the sunny image is warming the scene nicely! Thanks for sharing.

JCBug beatyfull reflections! I bet is in a night club or discotheque :P

[JCBug]

Jeremy, thanks for your nice comments (and your humor)...
I'm very, very proud of your interest for my work.
You are a Master in the digital world.
I'll try to continue in the same spirit,
and I'll do my best for the future.
(I know... Lance Armstrong always said that)

Jfserejo, you're right ! Why not a 1970's night club ?
(cause of the lights design). Thanks for your good opinion ;-)

[rkrehe20]

here is my entry...kinda late, but I love refractions and what not so i threw this together

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/metalgearrace/bottles4.jpg

[Eomer41]

There are a lot of good pictures on here, and good lighting. Here is mine, it only took about a half hour to set up but I wanted to give this challenge a try. Used Lightwave. The Lighting was one spot light for both pictures, shadows were turned off. I used a hdri image map for the reflections, it worked with the reflections.




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/whitev/bottles0000.jpg

The next one is black and white:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/whitev/bottles.jpg

[jojo1975]

Before passing to next one,
just a new verison of my bottles. Chosen the colors, I love white and blue, and a try also to add a caustic pass :)
Sorry for the jpg quality

http://www.webalice.it/giorgio.luciano/caustics.jpg

[jeremybirn]

@ rkrehe20 - Nice. As discussed for some other people's images, you have to watch out for the refraction on some of the bottles where the inside is a separate surface than the outside, that they don't refract as if they were solid glass. Some sense of directionality to the lighting and maybe reflections that obeyed fresnel effect could add to yours.

@ Eomer41 - Keep going, subdivision, light, shadows...

@ jojo1975 - Nice colors! Can you make the caustics visible refracting through the glass? It looks strange that they only add a glow around the bottles...

-jeremy

[slatr]

Closeup of my bottles

http://i3.tinypic.com/15i1auu.jpg

[jeremybirn]

I'm putting together the web gallery for this challenge:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/index.htm

If anyone wants any corrections, please reply or just PM me. (If you didn't post your full name, then your name probably needs a correction in the gallery...)

-jeremy

[jeremybirn]

slatr - Nice, but the refraction looks a little hyperactive in that one, as if they were full of water or something.

-j

[BarberofCivil]

I'm putting together the web gallery for this challenge:
http://www.3drender.com/challenges/bottlecollection/index.htm

If anyone wants any corrections, please reply or just PM me. (If you didn't post your full name, then your name probably needs a correction in the gallery...)

-jeremy

Guess I didn't make the cut this round :(

[RadVfx]

A comic strip to read while you are rendering:

http://www.wire-heads.com/istrip/index.php?strip_id=7

Somehow Master Zap got to be a character? ;)

-jeremy

Hey, Jeremy! Long time. Thanks for posting the link for Wireheads here. Just the kind of audience I was looking for. I update every Monday and Thursday. Good looking stuff, guys. Keep it up!

- Jimbo

[FranOnTheEdge]

here is my entry...kinda late, but I love refractions and what not so i threw this together

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v104/metalgearrace/bottles4.jpg

Oh that's really pretty, I like that. Kind of understated.

[Eomer41]

jojo1975 - Looks nice, but it looks like there some kind of shadow or something at the bottom of the bottles.
Here is my second try, the first image has three lights, two area lights on the side and one point light in front. The second image was used with five point lights, I think I had some problems with the shadows on the second render. No hdri maps were used. Both pictures were made with FPrime.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/whitev/bottlesimage.jpg




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/whitev/bottle.jpg

[Luc-fr]

Hi all, it's with somme delay that i post my test, sorry :shrug:
Rendered with Cinema4D 9.6, AR2.


http://www.lc-3d.com/mes_wips/lighting_test/test2.jpg


I hope that you like it :rolleyes:
:)

[jojo1975]

Luc-Fr, very cool materials ! even if in my monitor the image looks a bit dark :(
I' m rerender a caustic pass, to avoid the "too much" glowing at the bottom of the bottles even if I like those overdone caustics ;)

[akwavox]

I think i'm late ! :)
Anyway, here is some test with the Bottle Collection. Using Cinema4D V9.

The first in radiosity, using Cinema4D V9, without any light. Just a bit of luninescance in the ceiling shader, and an HDRI image outside.
Quite long to render ( about 1h40), due to the complicated glass shader.
Unfortunatly, no caustic here... too long
http://akwavox.com/fc4d/bouteille/bout3.jpg

Another one, another feeling. Always in radiosity, with a low blue light outside, and a basic light for each candel. This was created with C4D V9.5, to have the possibility of using the Ambiant Occlusion. Please note that the flowers and the flames are not from myself but i forgot the name of the creators...
http://akwavox.com/fc4d/bouteille/bout5.jpg

thank you in advance for comments !

[eavillar]

Hi again, here is my last render for this challenge #4. I hope you like, i know another challenge is running, so, i hope get some free time to join that challenge#5.

http://www.eavillar.com/botellasvrayfinal.jpg


Software: 3dsmax 6
Render: V-Ray
Lights: 4 ( 3 omni - 1 Photometric )
Time: 48 mins.

I have another render using DOF, but i'll post it later my IPS is really slower today, even my host; so, if you can't see the image please wait a few sec (more than usuall). Thanks and regards.

Emilio Villar
(Apocalipsis)

[jeremybirn]

Apocalipsis - That's some nice looking glass! I'm not sure I like how blown-out it gets near the center of the ledge, especially the part under the klein bottle, but overall it's a very clean image. Maybe you should do some water next. ;)

akwavox - Nice, clean glass first image. 2nd image is nice but the shadows look very hard-edged and candle-light should usually be softer and more flickerly looking.

Luc-fr - Wow, nice collection of glass looks there. One of them even looks like fibreglass. Maybe the one all the way on the right is a little less convincing, because it looks as if it is missing the inside, only rendering the outside, making it very thin.

Eomer41 - Try rendering just 1 bottle for your tests, or just a part of the bottle at low resolution, so you can really focus on getting that glass look.

-jeremy

[ank2000]

This is my first post at this forum, and the first time that i've actually shown anyone anything i've done in 3D! (of course, in this case it's only the materials and lighting.) So thanks for inspiring me to post something :D

http://www.ank.com.ar/imgs/bottles.jpg


This one took about 10 minutes to render, using Max 8 - default scanline renderer, no radiosity or anything of the sort. I worked on it for 2 hours or so. Consider it semi-WIP :)
Now, this may be my first post... but I guess that's the last time I'll ever see my bottle collection! :eek:

All comments are more than welcome :D

- ANK

[Xtruder]

Hi,
this is my entry for the Lighting Challenge #4: Bottle Collection.
I've tried to achieve something visually nice...not something realistic.

Software used:
Autodesk Maya
Nextlimit Maxwell (render)
Rendertime: about 2 h (for the highRez one)
Cpu: Notebook P4 3.4 HT
Ram: 1GB

High Resolution (http://www.aadp.it/public/bottles1600.jpg)

[jojo1975]

Ok I guess here one of my last. Now wanted to start some underwater ;)
used for this one 4 light and HDRI. Fill light, rim , and two spot and HDRI.
Caustics are no more "glowing" and a bit more "realistic". All in a "blue tone".
Quite satisfied with the results and also about how much i learned from the challend.
Rendered in passes to increase a bit the reflection. Klein bottle "moved".
I will use this scene as a benchmark as soon as I will change PC. with my slow pc (Athlon 2600 768 Mb of ram it takes 7 hours).

http://www.webalice.it/giorgio.luciano/CGTALK/bottleFINAL.jpg

Jojo

[jeremybirn]

jojo1975 - Great. I still think parts like the ledge look like they are glowing a bit, but you got some good glass there!

Xtruder - Nice frosted look! Maybe there could be more color and shadowing from the center bottles onto the ledge and one bottle is having normal problems?

ank2000 - Well, if this is the last then we won't talk about shadows. If you do another one after the ball hits the bottles, let us know!

BarberofCivil - Sorry about the mistake, I fixed the missing image on the latest gallery update.

-jeremy

[BarberofCivil]

BarberofCivil - Sorry about the mistake, I fixed the missing image on the latest gallery update.

-jeremy

No problem. Thanks. I've been really enjoying these challenges, thanks for setting them up!

[BarberofCivil]

No problem. Thanks. I've been really enjoying these challenges, thanks for setting them up!

Oops, I see my name listed as Tibor Mann still. I hadn't realized I hadn't changed it yet. Just a pseudonym I use until I know a site's legitimacy... I've changed my online profile accordingly.

[irananimator]

i have entered here rcently and dont have enough information about this thread.i got the scene and did the lighting
i used 3dsmax and vray. i wanted to show a pic that a light is shining through the window in night.
http://server3.uploadit.org/files/irananimator-Bottly1.jpg

[jeremybirn]

irananimator - Be careful, you dropped one! :) Just kidding. Welcome to the forum! That's a nice image. Do you know what's causing the pure white areas on some of the bottles? If you could fix that (maybe less diffuse or tighter specular highlights?) that would add to the glass look.

BarberofCivil - I fixed your name.

-jeremy

[mphare]

Well, I had worked on this during the challange, then got caught up in other stuff and forgot all about it. It's no where near the other work I'm seeing up here, but you gotta start somewhere.

http://www.electriccartoons.com/ecalbums/Still-Life/Final_006.jpg

[jeremybirn]

mphare - Thanks for posting, that's a nice scene. A few of the bottles look (visually) as if they are floating above the windowsill. But the big thing I'd recommend is to work more on the glass shader, getting the Fresnel effect to tone down front-facing reflections and highlights. You can render a simpler scene with just 1 bottle visible to find the settings that look glassy, before you do any more renders of the full scene.

-jeremy

[mphare]

I know what you mean about the glass shaders.. they are giving me the biggest fits.
I'm not sure I see where some of the bottles are 'floating' above the shelf.

Here's a render of a single bottle after a bit of work on the shader.

[xiaoyun34747]

render with mental ray FG and shake compositing http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l26/xiaoyun34747/Rendering/bottle.jpg

[raghuramp]

Hi jermey
this is my first version.Please comment on my work.

http://server2.uploadit.org/files/raghuramp-Bottles_Final.jpg

[herbertagudera]

okay, i know its kinda late still posting here, but just you guys know, my Lighting gallery on these Challenges is now up and running, again.

Hopefully i could still edit the broken links on my posts here..

anyway, here's MY Gallery (http://challengegallery.blogspot.com/)

a job well done for all who participated in the challenge! Cheers!

[nojak]

I know what you mean about the glass shaders.. they are giving me the biggest fits.
I'm not sure I see where some of the bottles are 'floating' above the shelf.

Here's a render of a single bottle after a bit of work on the shader.

I think it looks like it's floating because there's basically no shadow or reflection on the surface it's sitting on. the shadow is too light, and it needs to throw some light around, too, since it's refracting light.

[snippsat]

Hi this is my first try on this light challange.

Have been been watching all lightchallenges for a while.

Many great entrys,a little late but here are my bottels:)

Max-vray.ps.
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5898/flaskerfv9.jpg

[FranOnTheEdge]

Gawd that's good! I love the way you've got the window glass to look as if it's been raining outside. Excellent!

[Aayush]

Can someone guide me on how to attach an image so that it shows up in the thread?

[arunurakkadan]

hai aayush..its simple when you post a replay..in additional option there is an option to attach your images.....arun.G

[jojo1975]

@Tom Larsen Great work he glass is superb, but I'm very curious to know how you obtain the water.. is added in photosop or particle flows ?
Great work :)

[emainzer]

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n300/jester_007/glassBottles.jpg

just a simple rendering with mentalRay. No lights were used, just 2 hdr images, one for the exterior "nature scene" and one for the interior kitchen.

-e

[jeremybirn]

I agree with everyone else, snippsat's render is terrific.

That's a good start, emainzer. The klein bottle looks as if we should see farther through it, and instead there's just a metallic reflection. Maybe some of the glass needs a higher trace depth (more refraction steps), and also needs a Fresnel Effect in the shader so the front-facing reflections don't go too bright.

-jeremy

[Thykka]

Here's my quickie.. Rendered with fR, GI, caustics and a single direct light.
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6627/bottleshx5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[jojo1975]

I know that probably could be OT, but I've made a tutorial using klein bottle and some obj of this challenge (I modified one of the image I posted and obviosly linked to the challenge). It's a simply tutorial about HDRI and materials settings in 3dsmax and Vray. I hope it could be useful, hope to see everyone in the new challenge at the end of september.
Cheers
Jojo
Here's the link of the Tutorial
http://www.webalice.it/giorgio.luciano/Matryoshka/MatryoshkaTut.html
http://utenti.lycos.it/giorgio_luciano/ (mittor, click on Matryoshka)

[Liumiao19820823]

Hello... Every cg talker... First, I have to thanks to Jeremy to give us this big opportunity. In fact, I used GI joe to create a fake GI feeling, and the other 3 sport lights. 1 sport light which is from right of the image as a key light, and the other 2 as fill light. Filally, I used a image plane to simulate the hight light on the bottles... Please feel free to criticise...

[Liumiao19820823]

Hello... How come my image doesn't display here? I am a new member. Help... Thanks...

[jojo1975]

Use insert image or at least insert link ;)

[Liumiao19820823]

Hi.. jojo1975. thank ur help... But after I click the insert image. It asks me that need to put URL. Do I need to upload my photo to any site first? Thanks...

[Leotril]

Hello... How come my image doesn't display here? I am a new member. Help... Thanks...


Hi.. u need to upload ur imager first to a imageshack or something similar they give you the link code ... that code start with somethin like this [IMG]..

[Liumiao19820823]

Thank leotril and jojo1975. Finally I got it. Here it is.. http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/1343/bottlefinalhalfsizems4.jpg

[oxygencube]

Hey all, Nice images. I am giving this a shot but am having trouble. I am using the I_Glass_v2 shader and am having problems with these two bottles. I am using Maya 7 and rendering with Mental Ray. I have upped my reflections and refractions all they way up too 100 and my Max Ray Depth to 20 and still haveing problems. Any suggestions?

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3883/problemsiv6.jpg



Thanks

oxy

[YourDaftPunk]

Keep your reflections and refractions to 5 or less while testing. 100 is insane for any render- stop that!

Also, apply a lambert to all your materials and get good lighting first. Maybe try an area light on each side. Since it is Maya 7, create a point light and in its attributes *turn on raytrace shadows, *under mental ray section, turn on area light and *bellow that under light shaders create a physical_light shader - the intensity of the light is now controlled through the V value of the color in that shader.

[jeremybirn]

Oxy -

If you're having trouble with extra "blackness" in the l_glass shader, check that the actual color values are bright enough. Rays get filtered through the color values for several bounces that build up, so going too far from white can bring you down to really dark output. Test-render one bottle by itself in close-up before you try rendering all of them, to make sure you love the shader settings.

Also, refraction brings in other parts of your environment, make sure the edges of the scene or some other area isn't going black and showing up in the refraction.

-jeremy

[oxygencube]

Thank you both for the words of advice, after looking at the models it turns out I had to switch some to 'double sided' and flip the surface direction on a few surfaces. I will be posting my progress images and would love feedback as this project is for class work.

Thanks again
-oxy

[oxygencube]

Hey all,
Here is my progress shot. I am having some good success with the Dielectric Shader in MentalRay for Maya. I know I still need to smooth out the Global Illumination and add in the caustics. I am not sure what is causing some spots in the glass to go black. I think I need to tweek the max trace limit or somthing. Just looking for some feedback at this point. Thanks

The background image is somthing very rough. I am doing a camera move, and am not quite sure how I am going to tackle the window/background just yet.

Thanks a bunch,

-oxy
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/8598/bottles03af3.jpg

[Leotril]

Hi

@Oxy : Very Nice.. i like the look ur going for .The work here has been really inspirational to me

I use 2 Hri images map to one sphere .. i need to work on the bottles all at default fr now
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8092/botella2hz6.jpg

Im havin some problems with the hdri images dont show in render as my setup on maya perspective view ,, and the end up al strech out also the hri images are kinda low res and the baking of GI is also low res for now ..
I use one directional light outside .. no lights in the interior i notice now that is all black .. that means that theres a problem with GI no reddis look in the room like in reflections.. color bleeding i dont think is working either i need to bake out again .:sad:

[LeeGriggs]

Hello, here is my test render using hdri. I am afraid it is a bit low res, and I have had to filter it a lot to get rid of the noise. I would re-render it but Ive lost the scene :cry:

cheers,
lee

[KahlanAmnell]

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/6042/bottleslb7.jpgYall have some amazing work here.

-My second submission. The first was in the eye challenge.

I have alot of work to do in learning texturing in lighting but i will keep workin to improve my skill. My problem here was that using raytrace for reflection and adding GL just takes to long on the render time. So this was the best i could do without the two.

[jeremybirn]

Getting the glass look right, focusing on the reflections and refraction and shadows to look like real glass, takes some time. If you're worried about slow renders, simplify your scene to just 1 bottle and focus on rendering that until you've really nailed the glass look.

-jeremy

[MinaRagaie]

KahlanAmnell... I don't think the question should be to use reflections or not??
I think the right question to ask is should you use raytraced reflections or reflection mapping??

Cause when you think about it it's never gonna look like glass unless it reflects.
Reflection Mapping is what made reflection possible in animation years ago... and it can still come usefull every now and then when raytracing is way too slow.

Try rendering a panoramic image of your own Scene and use that as a reflection map. That would help but it won't make the bottles reflect each other the way they should.

another technique is to be selective about what to include in the raytraced reflection (if your renderer does not support that render reflections out in passes)
for example the bottle on the far left might reflect only 1 or 2 bottles to the right.
You can also lower the trace depth a bit.

Basically all these techniques are some sort of cheating.... But...
when combined with Fresnel effect and refractions no one would be able to tell what you cheated.

Try it out and let me know how it goes...
Happy Rendering :)

[chrisstevens]

THis is about 6 hours worth of work.....probably could have did a better ....but i have a job lol...but critiques would be GREATLY APPRECIATED! :)

[gerardo]

hop
Another test of dusty glass ... Some spider webs are missing again.
I use more comositing than the first one.
If i take the time, I will add dust and spiderweb in a last picture.

http://www.vbk-451.net/temp/bottles_02_final.jpg


Nice dust effect VBK! Maybe you'd want to add it some caustics?



Gerardo

[buggsy]

Here is my entry. I'm happy with the setting but still don't feel the glass is right. I haven't used any area lights and I'll try one with soft shadows.

Buggsy

[Cuni]

Hi all,

a little bit late but I wanted to try if I can reach your level of quality.
Great entries.


Here's my first attempt

http://img272.imageshack.us/img272/9072/ampollesgv8.jpg


Maya/Mental Ray, Lglass shader and patience ;)


Thanks.

Cuni.

[jeremybirn]

Nice work, Cuni! Good glass, nice colors!

buggsy - That's good, it seems as if it goes black in the center where we want to see through more of the glass though, see if you can make it stay transparent even through several bottles.

-jeremy

[buggsy]

I've worked to get a better transparency in the bottles. I suppose it comes down to interpretation but I feel that if their (the bottles) to transparent that they take on the appearance of being made of very thin glass rather than a weight that is consistent with bottles of this nature. Let me know what you think of the revised rendering.

Buggsy

[jojo1975]

@Chris Cool work, can you render a bit bigger to see some details ? the caustics of the bottles are a good start and also the "engraving" on the bottle on the right. I would rather used a more blurred background to distract a less bit the viewer

cheers
jojo

[jeremybirn]

buggsy -

If you're worried the glass will look too thin, you could focus on making the bottles cast nice deeply colored shadows (unless you're planning to add caustics, then black shadows plus the colored caustics would work.) But then, as long as you like the refraction and reflections you're getting, don't be afraid to let the viewer see the light that gets filtered through one bottle then another then another when you're looking at glass bottles brightly backlit by a window.

-jeremy

[doodlerboy]

how come when I add caustics the scene get really bright even though I put everything very low(The photon intensity is at 1 and it's still brighter than anything) plus the exponant is at 1.2 and the photons are at 1000. It won't give me a clean look at all. Is there anyway to fact a caustic? My refractions are fine. Just getting the caustic look in the bottles are hard. Any advice will help.

[doodlerboy]

So this is what I got so far. I really can't figure out how to get my bottles to give off caustics. I tried using caustics and was working the the settings all day but it always came out to bright, whether the settings were Low, Medium, Or High, it still came out bright. http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/6413/lightchallengelw6.th.jpg (http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lightchallengelw6.jpg)

[jeremybirn]

If the photons are too bright, turn the intensity down - no problem there, right?

You can leave the exponent at 2 for the most realistic results. If you use a directional light, then it won't diminish the initial brightness much to leave the exponent at 2.

Of course you can fake caustics and do the challenge just fine with colored raytraced shadows, but it could be useful to get comfortable using caustics properly...

-jeremy

[jeremybirn]

This is an old challenge now. This thread is being archived. If you scroll down to the Challenge #4 section of the downloads page, you'll see that the models can still be downloaded for your tests, and also that a gallery has been made of top entries.

-jeremy