Physically accurate render of the Blender cube

Support Lighting and Rendering
1

Hi,

I’m trying to learn how to render physically accurate scenes, but so far I don’t know how to accomplish this. For a start, I rendered the cube in Blender’s default scene, but it is still apparent that it is CGI. My question: What do I have to do to make the cube look more realistic? I am attaching both a render & the scene.

Claus

cube%2002
cube%2002960×540 131 KB

cube 02.blend (602.2 KB)

2

of the top of my head:

  • the cube and surface is way too clean

  • the light is blowing the top of the cube (too bright)

  • the white is too pure nothing that white exists irl.

  • try giving the cube a reason to exist (like making it into a dice).

  • don’t use sun-lamp, use a spot lamp or something to make the source of the light realistic like a desk lamp or something.

3

This scene might be just a real photo, we can’t tell. It could be an art installation in a museum. Take a look at this page, you’ll understand what i mean: These CGI Renders Are Actually Real Photos

So, in order to achieve some ‘physically accurate scenes’, instead of creating abstract shapes and patterns, try practicing on some real world elements that gives us information about heights, sizes, colors, feels, stories etc… The more you add, the more you’ll see or get feedback about what you’re lacking.

4

The setup and composition is for a product shot. One way is to make it that.

  • Use references
  • Real world object, like a product package with or without the product. Maybe a white, coated, and pressed paper box with gold letters for jewelry, fragrance or makeup
  • Studio lighting setup
  • Materials with physically accurate features, especially reflections
1 Like
5

Mind the following components:

  • The object (geometry, shape, normals, texture, material, etc)
  • Lighting (Lights, HDRI, IES, Sun, direction, color)
  • The Camera (DOF, FOV, Chromatic abbr or not, etc).
  • The rendersettings (samples, bounces, dimensions)
  • The air (fog, mist, etc)
  • Colormanagement (Filmic, exposure, gamma, whitebalance, etc)

Just a short checklist to see if you didn’t forget something or take something into consideration.

6

When was the last time you saw (in real life) a big cube sitting on a white, featureless plane? The scene will never feel realistic as long as it has no relation to reality.

You should first make that cube into a real object (a cube of cheese?) and the plane as well.

7

small nitpick: the corners are too sharp. normal objects always have a bevel, even if microscopic. Try with a small subsurface modifier and protection loops veeery close to the edges

1 Like
8

I adjusted both the cube and the plane, and here’s the result. It looks better now, but there’s an artifact on top of the cube. How do I get rid of that? I subdivided the cube, then performed ‘smooth vertices’.

cube%2006a
cube%2006a960×540 372 KB

9

Just guessing, but I think the artifact might be caused by edges marked as sharp. Afaik the default cube has all it’s edges marked sharp, so if you smothed it with subdivision that might not go away. I’d suggest applying the subdivide modifier, selecting all the edges in edit mode and “mesh-edges-clear sharp.”