Hi all.
I’ve been using blender for the last 6 months now and would like to share one of my finished blender creations with you guys. Any crits welcome.
BwianM
I think the whole top part looks ok. But the bottom of the bulb, looks like plastic. Try fiddling with materials and make it look more metal.
An airbrush artist, say, might produce an image that looks very much like this. (Probably the interior of the screw-mount would not be visible… a little more development of the base would be done inside the bulb…) So, let’s start by applauding this!
What could you do to further improve it? As others have said, it’s materials. Spend some time studying the materials/textures system in Blender, particularly the fact that you can have more than one texture in a material, each affecting different aspects (and there are many…) of how the material ultimately appears. Also notice how the faces of an object can be separately selected and assigned.
Consider also that you can easily go straight past realism and go all the way to sterility. “Perfection” that is utterly lifeless, and hence, unrealistic. So, look at the picture and ask yourself what “seems wrong” about it. Or, “seems it could be a little better.” Now, having written-down a list of those things, look at each issue critically. That is to say, observe it closely with the intention of spotting exactly what it is about the image that prompted this until-now-intuitive until-now-gut-feeling about what you were looking at. Try to turn that gut-feeling into an action-plan.
Also… %| … save your work each time. For instance, this blend-file should be saved. And made read-only. The next variation should be separately saved. And so on, down the line.
:o
Very informative post Sundial!
The lighbulb looks pretty good, it good use slighty better materials, and a scene. (Like lying on a counter top or with an open box of lightbulbs on a table or something.) What you have is fine, but with some tweaks and a scene addition, it’d look even better.
Just to add a bit to sundial’s excellent post, I’ve seen in a book on using photoshop for professional photo restorations that it is helpful to open your image into a photo program and circle problem areas and make notes on your image. I’ve been using this method with several renders, and it’s invaluable in making sure that you change things, and know what you want to change.
Keep up the good work.
DwarvenFury
Thanks for all the crits. I must say I still have a lot to learn about materials. Are there any good tutorials you guys can recommend I work through?
BwianM