Dornbracht Source

Hi!

Last semester I was on a sponsored project with Dornbracht, to design a specialized water source for the kitchen (Dornbracht’s main business is in bathroom faucets).

I designed a drinking water source, wall mounted, providing hot and cool water. Pretty much a stationary, high-end water cooler with a furniture feel.

Due to time constraints th 3d renderings were a bit rushed. so you can see quite some artefcats on them. Now I want to create improved renderings. Any suggestions how to achieve the best result, including camera setting, environment and so on are very welcome!

Some drawings
Photos from the 1:1 model

The original renderings, with lots of problems:

http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/forum/04-08-19_source_old_1.jpg

http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/forum/04-08-19_source_old_2.jpg

a: Far too much reflection on the glasses.

b: the material is dazzling: it is not high reflective chrome. but i is not brushed stainless steel neither (which i think would like best) stainless steel has no mirror like reflection as seen on the close-up.

All in all the overdone reflections give it a cheap “plastic” look comparded to the noble silky shine of your real world model.

BM

bjornmose: yep, looks more like plastic, I know. There was not enough time to fidddle with material settings much (light setup took already too long) back then. But without reflections, it looked even worse.
I’m not entirely sure, but I think I want brushed metal, not chrome.

A photographer wouldn’t light it like that. Not from that angle, and not with that intensity. That’s part of what makes it seem flat and washed-out. Without changing anything (yet) about your models, re-light the scene and put it on an appropriate wall.

go play with shaders…
for brushed metal tune hardness quite low, use moderate spec values. use fairly high ambient values.
help with some decent colored lamps to fake diffuse reflection of objects around.
BM

Materials aren’t perfect but it looks like you’ve been trying to get the idea out

Other things got in my way, but finaly i managed to continue with this:

http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/forum/04-10-02_source_24_01.jpg

Still needs a lot of tweaking.