General Advice on Reflections

[tecsun]

you can run a few test before you get the reflectant right in the position you want. Normally I would do it in this way:
1) turn off all light in your scene & set your environment to pure black
2) assign a Mirror material to your object
3) assign a self-illuminated material to your reflectant

then start doing few test render to see how the reflectant being reflected on the object, adjust the position of the reflectant until you get what you want. By using a Mirror material, it will be a lot more easier to see the reflection over the black background. (Note that the reflectant should be big enough so that you will get sth similar to your sample)

Good luck~ ;)

[MikeBracken]

I agree. Also with a mirror type shader the tests will be quicker because of the low sampling of the mirror like reflections (vs glossy reflections).

Regards,
Mike

[retro002]

Thanks. I had not so much trouble with setting up the render, what I find far more difficult is understanding what shape of reflection I want - looking at good 3d or photography reference helps a lot, but I hoped to find some basic guide .

What I found on the web so far:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=218885
http://www.hdrlighting.com/hdrimages.html
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=207165

[noizFACTORY]

hey retro,

thanks for sharing those tutorial links. they look great!
post your renders here when you're done :)

[retro002]

you're welcome. actually i have finished the scale - still not sure if the reflection is good this way.

[noizFACTORY]

Since your camera is bang on, the highlights don't form a strong visual silhouette. Your shading and lighting looks good to me though and I think you can slightly rotate the camera so that we can see the highlights wrapping around the object's edges. That might look visually more pleasing. Good start however! :thumbsup:

edit: hey, actually, i looked at the original reference image again and then had a look at your render too. it looks better then the original photo! good render. i just think you could kind of put this on a table or something and have it rendered from another angle :)

[retro002]

i am not sure what you mean with original reference image. actually i tried various angles, but all the reflections were total crap - i do not understand how to make a more interesting highlight. maybe you can post an examlpe image of what you mean?

[noizFACTORY]

oops! mixed up a few words there, my bad. what i meant was that this render looks much better than what you had attached in your first post. and in the reference images of the wrist watch and the cell phone you'd posted, the camera is not directly facing the object. so maybe try to get a similar angle.

[retro002]

ah -ok now i understand what you mean. the first picture was just to show that i didnt have a clue about reflections, i was not finished with textures & shaders. i have attached a picture of my setup, maybe it is not good. also maybe i should change the glass cover, would that affect the reflection or is it just the angle of the outer arc determining it? using my scene at the moment rotating the camera will give no good reflections.

[noizFACTORY]

it actually looks good for a start. the thing is, you need something in your scene to reflect on the watch as well, right? the shape of your glass cover (i.e. the arc) would affect the shape of the highlight of course. but that doesn't seem like a big problem right now.
may be try adding some elements in your scene that reflect on the watch...

[retro002]

your last sentence actually nails the problem - i have no clue how a prof. studio setup looks like. i guess its very simple, like a lathed spline maybe with a gradient material on it or maybe half a sphere or sth? do you have any example of that? as i said i started this thread, because i have no idea of how to do that.

[retro002]

What i stumbled upon, surfing the web:

http://cg-india.com/Tutorials/V-Ray/3dsMax_tutorial_SL_01.html
http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?t=58390

also I found out it helps the subdivide/smooth your edges, to get a better reflection result.

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