Protein bottle reflective lighting: How?

Support Materials and Textures
1

Hello!
I’m doing these product images (Power Fuel) but want to know how to set up the lighting so the label is reflecting like the green bottle example. The label needs to look glossy while the bottle is more of a flat black.

I applied two materials and tried to set up lighting accordingly, pushing the hardness of the label all the way etc. with not luck. Any pointers?

Thanks!
Judah

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032511 Pwr Fl-adj.jpg650×915 73.3 KB

2

Try adding a little mirror to the label. The bottle itself will be dull because its surface is a little rougher that that of the label. Specular highlights are a way of faking a portion of the reflectivity of a surface, or the “hotspots”, and this is only done in CG, not in life. In life, specular highlights are provided by reflectivity. Diffuse relfection = scattered light reflection off a rough surface. Specular reflection = reflection off of a smooth surface, like a mirror when the light follows more of a straight path off the object.

What I would do, is push the mirror value up on the label ever so slightly until you find a good result. Turn the gloss down slightly as well to create reflection blurring on the surface, since you’re not trying to create a mirror here. In blender, the more gloss value up to 1, the smoother the surface and the lower the gloss value, less than 1, the rougher the surface, but it is touchy in Blender, so small amounts usually give large results.

3

Thanks, I have tried some of these suggestions, but not in the small amounts. I’ll play with it today and see what happens!

4

For product shots, you may want a simple studio-esque reflection map. There are a couple here: http://zbyg.deviantart.com/gallery/6278123 or you could use an actual HDR images: http://smashmethod.deviantart.com/gallery/5886080

If you’re not familiar on how to set these up. Claas just made a really informative video on it here: http://www.blendernation.com/2011/03/22/hdri-tools-for-sibl-in-blender-internal/
All you do after setting up your environment is play with the glossyness of your reflections in the “Mirror” dropdown menu.

5

I really think this is the right direction. Thanks!