Tips for getting a realstic render?

Artistic Support Compositing and Post Processing
1

Hello.

I am wondering, does anyone have any tips on making a reender look realistic? I know it has a lot to do with the textures, but there must be something else to it to.
Thanks

2

Yep. Lighting.

3

Not making models perfect, a good contrast and lighting setup, a good sense of space, if you have the time to wait, Ambient Occlusion, a good understanding of all raytracing features and types of lamps, and most definitely practice (although that’s pretty much a given).

…and much, much more.

4

Ok so are there any good lighting tutorials out there? I have never quite got that right.

5

Lighting makes or breaks a render, so you might want to dive into some lighting tutorials. You wont find many good ones for blender, but you can find a lot of good ones for other applications that you can apply blender.

Also, you might want to try Yafray; it has a lot of lighting methods that help make scenes feel more realistic.

6

AO+SSS+Centuries of experience!

7

check out “digital lighting and rendering” by Jeremy Birn -

8

Search the wiki on lights, lighting and light setups, there is a wealth of useful information there.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Special:Search?search=lighting&go=Go

9

Ok sweet thank you all.

10

What about Radiosity? Isn’t Radiosity considered far more realistic than ambient occlusion/ray tracing?

Also Phong. And bump/normal mapping is very crucial.

Edit:

I made a little list on my whiteboard to remind me what helps increase realism of the scene:

  • Raytracing (Can someone explain what this actually is, and what lights use ray tracing?)
  • Normal/bump mapping
  • Specular Mapping
  • Ambient Occlusion
  • Radiosity
  • Phong (Don’t understand in the least bit)
  • Texture pre-sets (Materials->texture->wood/cloud/etc)
  • Color ramps
  • Ray Transparency/Ray Mirror/Sub-Surface Scattering (layered materials)
  • Motion Blur/Depth of Field. (blender wiki has an excellent tutorial on this using nodes)
11

To get realistic renders:

The hard way: with Blender internal

-make good models
-Make good materials and textures
-Use a good light setup, simulate the bounces of the ligh, use area lights and ambient oclusion

The easy way:

-Make good models
-UV map all you models
-Use Indigo