How can I render a wine glass like this:
Mine will have wine in it. I have tried messing with the lighting but can’t seem to get a good result.
Mine will have wine in it. I have tried messing with the lighting but can’t seem to get a good result.
WineGlassSample.blend (574 KB)
This was the closest I could come to it, which relies on just mirroring the entire object. I tried using a reflective plane then limiting reflection to the glass and not the environment texture, but could not get it to work.
The glass and wine come out pink.
That looks like a paid thing, and I can’t see how it’s setup.
Huh? Just register to that site, download the file (it’s free and public domain) and analyze the setup…
It might well be that this image consists only of the specular-output lighting channel … with nothing from the materials nor the world.
One way to do that (speaking “BI” her) is by using compositing nodes. Select for all of the various lighting-types to be produced in a RenderLayer, then use only the Spec output. You generally can’t avoid generating the other outputs, but you simply don’t use them.
To completely reproduce this effect, you might need “interesting lighting,” such as square-shaped spots artfully arranged. You might need to physically mask the layers. You might possibly use layer-specific lights and producing several RenderLayers whose outputs are then combined (using Max, not Add, mixers …).
The good news is, “like any other work of ‘Darkroom Voodoo,’” what goes-on in the darkroom stays in the darkroom. No one sees exactly what you did, with what you had, to get what you finally got. (They just go, “oooh! ahhh!”) 
“Get the shot that you want … just get the shot that you want, in as little time as possible …”
For instance: there’s no law against duplicating the bottom-half of that wine-glass model, flipping it vertically and positioning it directly below the glass. Move it to a different layer or give it a different object-ID to allow it to be treated differently. Use a vertical gradient to attenuate various characteristics of the inverted glass to visually mimic the behavior of the table, and cut-off the image (as the artist did in this case …) before anything inconsistent with “a reflective table” can possibly show up in-frame.
You could even literally finish the shot after rendering, by duplicating a slice of the raster, inverting it and repositioning it, and mixing it appropriately. (“Max,” not “Add.”)
“In computer graphics, ‘cheating’ is good.”
I don’t really know how to use composting nodes but I will give it a shot. I currently have the glass flipped upside-down, and it works.
You could try lighting it like in these tutorials
Unfortunately I have to have it with a completely black background, otherwise I would do it like that.