Hi. I’ve seen some very good work around here and I hope you will share some of that knowledge with me!
This is a product I created in Ironcad and imported to Blender. Rendered in Cycles with trasparent backround and qickly edited in gimp.
The thing I want to do with this is to make a professional looking product render to be used on a website and probably in an animation later down the line.
How would you portray a model like this to appeal to companies etc?
All help I get is appreciated!
The first thing that jumps out at me is the hard edges. Add a bevel modifier to your meshes and it will help the light catch the edges and look much better.
Second, the white wheels look too opaque. Try mixing in a sss or translucent shader. The metal is probably a little too reflective, I’d increase the roughness.
Third, the background is a little distracting. When I am doing product renders, I usually leave the background transparent and let the client figure out their own background.
I’d shift the camera up a bit to get some more perspective on the overall shape, too.
Is this some sort of drawer glide?
Welcome aboard!
Wow, thanks for the fast reply. Yes, a bevel modifier would probably make it look better!
Now that I think about it, the weels actually should have some translucency.
I actually had a piece of the same metal beside me and tried to recreate the same amount of reflection, even added subtle normal maps but isn’t showing in the render. But i will tweak it to see if I can get better result.
Yes maybe you’re right about the backround. I tried many approaches with reflective ground etc but never made anything good looking with it!
Don’t know what it’s called in english but will hold some heavy stuff! 
400 samples 1920x800
Now I have added beveled edges to every object in the render. Had some trouble with some parts so I skipped them for now.
Tried adding a backdrop with reflections but it might be a bit too reflective.
Mixed in a translucent shader with the regular diffuse and glossy. Tbh, I can’t really see a big difference but it might be more visible with different lightning.
Is this a better positioning of the camera would you say?
I would really like more tips and critiques to improve this to be as good as possible! Doesn’t need to be constructive.
I also want to hear peoples opinions. But this is probably not such an interesting render for people to comment!
might need more then one pic to show the 3D object!
also depends if you need shadows around or not!
you could show it as wiremesh or as a matcap render
always depends what you want !
one thing missing here
what is the size ?
need another object may be to show size
or show dimensions with arrows like in CAD
happy cycles
I want this to be a realistic, but nice looking render. Something a company will sell to customers etc. So if shadows is good for that sort of thing I will add it. Right now I’m just trying different approaches to see what’s working.
The size is roughly 4x11x76cm. I’m also pretty sure that the people who will see this render have a feeling or know what it is supposed to do.
Should I render this in a context where it is self explenatory of what it’s purpose is, or just make a clean render? Or maybe both.
Forgot to say. The last pic was rendered with an HDR image and only one emission plane. Very basic and I know you can get nice reflections and highlights if you play with more light sources etc.
I’ll add another render I did to try some “bump” in the material. Doesn’t work right now so I’ll add it later.
New render, only 250 samples so a bit noisy.
Would like to hear what you think about this one!
The metal is starting to look pretty good. The wheels really need to be a bit more glossy and translucent to look like the white nylon that such things are normally made of, though.
That last render is very good! I agree with @Zeropoint about the wheels though… Btw I also like the crease down the middle in post #6. Keep it up!
To my eye the last image is far more appealing than the first one in the thread. Nice progress! The “studios” and camera settings you use for product images can help you have a recognizable look and feel, a personal style, and I’d say this looks professional. Maybe just a little more work on the product materials.
Thanks guys!
Yes, I especially need to work on the wheels material.
I’ll probably try to find some research or tutorials of how to present a product in the best way etc.
What do you guys feel about the reflective ground? Is it something that distracs from the model/render or does it give it a more stylized look?
I Will probably go back and forward trying lots of different approaches but I guess I will have to decide to keep something as my default “studio”.
The needs of the client vary from job to job, having a quiver full of different options is always good. No need to settle into one.
I meant for these kind of models I am going to render now! And right now I’m the client for the renders, but the real products will have real customers!
I spent some time yesterday trying different materials for the wheels. I ended up using the SSS shader mixed with diffuse and glossy. I was pretty satisfied with the shader when just viewing the wheel in a studio lightning set up. With this however I’m not so sure how it looks.
This is rendered with an HDR+2 mesh lights to get more variations in the reflections but I don’t think it looks as good as the last one.
I also modified the metal shader. Added a layer weight node to match the reflections with the real material and switched the bump texture to a procedural one instead so I won’t get repititions.
Hi tim.holm,
keep it simple. A HDR lighting setup is not the best for a product shot. Normally you want to highlight specific aspects of a product. That can be some kind of difficult to achieve with a HDR setup, because you get a lot of random reflections on the product.
I would like to give you a advice. Try to do the lighting manually. If you just want to display the product without any stuff around ( for example a single color background ) then keep it clean.
Just the product, a studio setup of a white floor with a curved background that you can blur. So the only thing you have to do is set some Light-Planes and get a feel for the shadows and reflections.
Make sure to not overflow your model. So don’t go crazy on the lighting. If it’s too bright it’s most likely that the wheels will display as a white surface only.
Yes, I think skipping the HDR for these kind of shots gives the best results!
The picture on post #7 I only used a backdrop and 2 or 3 mesh lights.
Thanks for all the great advice I get here! I’ll keep posting pictures so if you see something you don’t like or like, tell me and I’ll keep improving my renders!
if first pic a real model or your cg model ?
bolts looks too perfect I think for a close shot !
also need works on the wheels mat
just for fun try to do a matcap render and see how it looks!
if you can share model we might be able to experiment some more may be!
happy bl
What do you mean real model or cg model? It is a real product that will be sold to customers. But the picture is a rendering of the 3d model.
I will make the bolts look less perfect!
I’ve tried different materials for the wheels but it’s hard to make them look exactly the same when using different lightning set ups etc.
I can’t release the model, and it’s a mess really. The models are all full of triangles and shading artifacts because of importing from solid works.
that is the idea look at model and then we can suggest more tips to improve
you can then get a better topo model for rendering and you keep you best model !
but it is up to you
or at least show us a wiremesh model
can you put a nice photo of the real model close shot so we can see the real material and compare it to the CG model
then may be improve you materials so we
show us real photo of the wheel then we can suggest a way to do it in cycles!
happy bl
Imported this version of the model through MoI to get a cleaner mesh with ngon’s istead of triangles. Easier when texturing etc.
it does have some shading troubles with some faces inverted. Tried flipping them but the artifacts still show up when rendering.
Also, pictures taken with my iphone. I hope it’s enough to get an idea of how it looks.
