I have been suggested a 3 point lighting setup in the past but it didn’t really work for me (I used two for this)
Does the glass seem too… plastic-y? (is there a way to make it seem more solid and… well, like glass? Attaching a screenshot of my shader window below*)
I did try to sculpt it to make it look imperfect but I preferred not doing it
Before asking us some lighting advice, how about you tell us what you want this picture to be? what is the goal, what you want to empathize…
Yes it does look like plastic. For some reasons, if you look at references, the side of the tube tends to look darker on glass, but not necessarily on plastic, your picture doesn’t even look like there is a side. If you want to get it to look realistic, how about you actually put the glass around it? or make it be a bit thicker? How did you model the transparent material? i can’t see your shader
if you are looking for photorealism, this drop looks awkward, too cartoonish, you can follow this as an example. And move that drop a bit to the right, you would be really skilled to press strong enough to give it enough speed to go that much on the left without putting out another drop. So maybe straight under the exit of the pipe, or slightly to its right considering you press it slow enough to stabilize and the border of the tube.
i would also suggest you to break the “hat” in two materials at least, to make a difference between the deformable part and the rest, maybe make the solid part more specular, as if it was a bit polished
To correctly model a fluid in a glass container, you need to create materials with different IOR for every “surface type”. So essentially your setup would need a correctly modeled glass pipette and materials with correct IOR for glass-air, glass-fluid and fluid-air surfaces.
See this link for details:
Also, glass usually looks better if there are some realistic reflections on it. You can try a HDRI image of studio (or maybe a laboratory).
Thank you for the tips! I think I need to rework my model. I kept it simple since there arent any folds that one can see in a pipette but I will do some more research on this. It probably has something to do something with thickness.
correct IOR for glass-air, glass-fluid and fluid-air surfaces.
I have the fluid outside the glass and the fluid (foundation) is thick enough that you cant see inside the layer.
I will definitely try HDMI. I agree with reflections adding realism (although we try not to have any reflections inside the studio). I generally stay away from HDMI because of lack of control (or maybe I just dont know how to use them properly)
I basically want to make a cosmetic/ 3d still that are sometimes seen in posts from brands like Nyx. It doesnt have to look completely real but there are a few things I want to look real than others (ex: the glass)
or make it be a bit thicker
I am a bit unsure of how to do this. I didnt add thickness to the model (like I would when creating a wall) but I did add a subsurface modifier with a thickness of about 0.4 (I’m sorry if I’m making an obvious mistake, I’m quite new at this). Do I need to add another layer around the glass wall to get that thickness?
I was able to play around a bit more with the settings (i basically just changed the transmission to 1, roughness to 0 and base colour to white with the vibrance 1). The result is this:
Not sure if it solves the issue but i might prefer this to the previous one.
Your tip regarding the position of the drop was also very helpful and made sense.
drop looks awkward, too cartoonish
Thank you, I will certainly play around with the shape before I finalise it. The link you shared is for a raindrop, would is also work for thicker fluids (like foundation/ tint in this case).
edit: I also feel like I’ve interchanged the specular from the squeezey hat to the cap part.
The “upper half” of the syringe looks nothing like the lower half. Therefore, I suggest that the only reasonable way to get the results that you want is through compositing, with the z-depth filter.
The “glass tube” looks just fine on the upper half. Therefore, begin by extending it to the full length of the tube. Then, separately “deal with the payload.” Composite this behind.