I’ve finally added materials to my watch model and am posting the finished article.
I am relatively happy with the results. The shaders are modifications from Blender Guru’s PBR shaders tutorial. A few things could definitely be improved, but i would appreciate any feedback regarding the materials. Point of note, ive not added any dirt mapping or wear and tear and the background is not a HDRI, so reflections are plain lamps. The model is meant to be a studio render of a new product. This has restricted its ‘realism’ I’m sure, but these photo’s do exist out there, and I would therefor appreciate feedback on how to improve the render under these limitations.
The model is really nice but it all looks like made from plastic… the reflections are to dark… in these kinds of product shots it all usually looks shiny and sexy and expensive…
You need to put it in a better studio lights setup
With HDR textures or with mesh lights it doesn’t matter, but you have to give it nice strong reflections
to emphasize your model’s lines and give a neat contrast with the background.
Take those examples: one, two, three
Thanks, I actually had the lighting setup a lot better for an initial front view shot but everything looked flat. It think i’ll try and tweak the lighting to fit the new camera angle.
Great comment, I think your right. I had some serious doubts over the lightness of the reflections, I’ll adjust and re-render. Though… some of the parts are in fact plastic, the casing, outer dial and strap should be metal though. And they definitely need adjusting.
I have taken the liberty to play with your picture 30 seconds to show you how much things change.
Only camera raw filter in Photoshop.
I’ve forgot the settings, but, just a bit of +exposure, high contrast, clarity and play with blacks, whites…
It’s always better to have a good starting lighting setup, and do a little post production work so you don’t get artifacts and also you can’t do miracles, in fact the image I’ve made is still far from being
ok (still quite flat and greyish highlight)
But anyway I made it only to show you how much a more dramatic contrast can improve a flat image.
Absolutely not, that looks great. I think its also a big case of me having looked at this image waaaay to long. I appreciate your time and perspective. It needs more highlights for sure. I might have a little play with photoshop and improve it.
