GI-tests-what am I doing wrong?

[Dtox]

Maybe a little background on this.

This is only the 2nd render I've ever done with full GI and materials.
Other renders I've done are mainly clay renders with only a simple shader with the color channel active, and in some cases AO in the diffuse channel.

The other full render was a spherical hookah which was to be a CGSphere submission.
Ultimately I wasn't happy with the results and didn't submit it.

I then focused on learning to model well. I wouldn't say that I'm happy with my modeling skills, but I'm getting better and am confident I can do a full render with a goal of semi-photorealism.

I've done few HDRI renderings that turned out fairly decent.
I actually like lighting more than modeling/texturing so I prefer to setup the GI manually.

At the moment I'm taking a break on modeling to do some lighting tests.
Lighting tests allow me to take a break, but still be learning and accomplishing something.

My interests are focused toward product renderings ATM, so my experimentation is in studio lighting and pseudo light box arrangements.
Once I get an overall lighting model that I'm happy with, I'll use it to render the full scene.

One of my problems is that after working with a scene for too long, I can only see what I'm unhappy with. Not what actually looks good.
I'm uber critical of all my work. It's always been the case with everything I do.
I set my goals too high, then get frustrated when I fall short.
Even if I actually achieved my goal, I might not even recognize that, and obsess over what's wrong with the work.

Anyone else do this? How do you get past it?

At this point, I really need an outside POV. Just to know if I'm on the right track, or wasting time going in the wrong direction.
If the latter is the case, maybe a suggestion of which direction to proceed.
Maybe I should just keep doing what I'm doing til I get it right? A good boot to the arse might be in order also??

I'm the quintessential embodiment of 'paralysis by analysis'...

(on a side note-why don't any of the reply controls such as smilies and tags work in safari)?

[Dtox]

Is it just so phenomenal that everyone's speechless?

Or do I have salami breath?

[seco7]

One word ... menthos!

I'm not sure what you are looking for to offer advise, are you looking for dimples in the glass, like a golf ball? I personally don't exclude the glass from GI as a rule, but I'm not sure if others do.

In general, please see Per-Anders most excellent post here.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=95&t=404342

Beyond that my advise would be to play play play. I also do alot of product rendering with anodized aluminum, polished aluminum, powder coated metals and glass. I personally prefer to keep the materials as simple as possible because I do alot of sharing between scenes. I use a very slight bump in virtually all powder coated materials to add to the realism and the Lumas shader alot for anodized aluminum.

I often use the GI and HDRI scenes included with AR as baseline scenes to help compare how materials look in different environments; if I'm having a tough time dialing in a material in my own all white studio scene for example. For me, changing environments can really expose where a material if off or out-of-balance or whatever you want to call it.

I have also come to use Stochastic mode almost exclusively (again, personal preference).

Once, in a fit of anxiety over a studio scene looking flat and lifeless, I busted out the digital camera and a diffuse cube we had laying around the office and I found something very interesting. The photo looked flat and lifeless too. This was an important lesson for me, be sure you know what you want in your rendering because you may get it ... and it stinks.

I finally broke down and learned to love post work. Layers in the PSD are my new best friend. I find this equally true no matter what render engine I'm using btw.

Of course this is just my personal experience, someone else may come at the same problem from a completely different angle.

Steve

[Dtox]

Yeah, thanks for all the info.
This is pretty much what I'm looking for, other peoples lessons learned and info picked up along the way.
Thanks.


I have also come to use Stochastic mode almost exclusively (again, personal preference).
I'm curious about stochastic mode.
Any tips on possible obstacles I'll run into when using it?

I also do alot of product rendering with anodized aluminum, polished aluminum, powder coated metals and glass. I personally prefer to keep the materials as simple as possible because I do alot of sharing between scenes. I use a very slight bump in virtually all powder coated materials to add to the realism and the Lumas shader alot for anodized aluminum.
Excellent.
How did you achieve the powder coating?
Can you show an example of what the material looks like in the material editor?

I do alot of scene sharing too. And I try to use procedurals as much as possible, and also keep the materials simple.
It's sometimes hit and miss, but I'm getting there.

are you looking for dimples in the glass, like a golf ball
No. More of a pitted texture to the glass. But I'm rethinking the glass material at this point. Might just go with a smoother glass with more transparency and nice reflections.

Layers in the PSD are my new best friend.
I've been messing with the multi-layered renders a little. I didn't do any real renders with it yet, just played around a bit.
I need to start using that.
When I did it last time, all my layers were put into strange groups, with strange blend modes assigned.
I couldn't get it to display correctly, so I just rendered the single pass image above.

I need to research it more.

[georgedrakakis]

hi Dtox,
you can find a lot of shaders here
c4d_textures (http://www.c4dtextures.com/modules/rmdp/) & frenchcinema4d (http://www.frenchcinema4d.fr/hub.php?doc=matiere) & a little bit here my resources (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=94&t=488519)

i wouldn't recomment using the banji shader for glass, cause inho sometimes you get endless render times.
you can keep tracking all the posts by STRAT, Per-Anders & Ernest Burden, lots of valuable tips about almost anything.

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