FuzzMaster:
Those bags actually are pretty two dimensional! 
They’re thin foil bags with small tablets in them (notice the thin top, but a slight bulge at the bottom).
But your comment does underscore the fact that they need something to make them stand out more. Proper lighting may help, but I think the material will make the difference (more reflectivity & slight wrinkling).
Bijin:
Thanks for the lighting tips! I’ll try that setup & post the results later.
I think the bags looks just fine. They look pretty real to me. The material and modelling is amazing on those containers. Wow! Love it.
Well . . . here’s the final image:
. . . and a link to the web page it’s used in:
http://opproducts.com/Artwork_PurePower.html
The lighting was adjusted, although it may be hard to tell without any background.
At some point I hope to improve the realism, so as to have truly photorealistic product shots for our projects.
Thanks again to all who helped out with their input!
Wow I didn’t know you were doing a commercial project! Great job! btw, this *is Focused Critique, So, I think the liquid within the container is quite dark and not translucent enough. But you did say it was final image… so I refrain 
Quite good mate, quite good.
I appreciate the feedback jackj. Although it is finished (for now), I hope to improve the look of these product shots later.
As to the darkness/translucency of the liquid, the final image is probably pretty accurate, even if not exactly what one expects these materials to look like. The appearance of the real world version of these objects varied greatly depending on the intensity/location of the light source. They only looked more translucent when lit from behind, whereas this scene is lit from the front (with a small amount of bounced light from all other sides).
I’ll be experimenting more on these effects later, and I’ll definitely keep your crits in mind. Thanks for the positive & constructive thoughts!
Is there any way you could share the translucent material. I have been trying to replicate polypropylene for a while now and I can’t seem to get it.
Nice images. Why did you choose to use CGI instead of photographs for this application?
if you look at the date when Cire posted last, you will notice that the year of posting was 2006. It is not a great idea to pull a three year old thead from the grave. Please do not do this, it clutters up the forum a bit. It is preferable to post on a thread that was made at the current year.
your model ,texture ,camera position ,materials are all perfect ,except lightning makes the picture a little bit unrealistic.
PS .if you want the scene to look as if it is a photo taken by normal camera then put a single spot from the exact point the camera is looking to the object.
Wow, this is an old thread - actually, I think it’s the first one I ever posted! I only stumbled upon it again by accident … does the forum not send out email notification for threads after a certain time? Anyway, since it’s been resurrected, I’ll post an update and reply to everyone.
br_anwithay: I can share the material, but let me know if you still need it. I can’t be sure of the original file/settings, even for the more recent versions, since it was made a while ago. The best looking versions take a long time to render, between the glossy refraction & SSS, and still don’t look perfect.
jrboddie1: CGI was used because, at the time, we didn’t have any decent cameras, lights, etc. That’s changed recently, so we’ll be switching to photos for the sake of speed.
The Gunslinger: So true … but I’ll try to make this near-dead thread relevant by posting an updated image.
GE-FORCE: Thanks! Yeah, good lighting is always the hardest part. Thanks for the tip, but that method is normally used to simulate a single lamp, flash-type of setup … whereas I wanted a softer multiple lamp, studio-type of look.
Anyway, I’ve attached a more recent version of the shot. Also, our company website features other product shots, all of which were created/rendered in Blender … though some of them are are a bit old, and what I would consider low quality (and most of which will eventually be replaced with photos).
I think that the box needs a bit more seperation between the front and the top, just to add that extra little bit of realism 
Actually, there is a separation there … it’s just hard to see at this resolution and camera angle. In fact, the box is constructed realistically and is fully ‘functional’.
I think your final render looks very good and you have managed to get a lot out of the internal renderer, but to be honest the easiest way to achieve that level of realism you are after is to go with something like yafaray, indigo or lux.
Particularily when it comes to the transparencies and reflections of the fluid and plastics in your scene, at present the internal is unable to recreate the intricacies of caustics etc. Setting a scene up for realistic results in Indigo or Lux is less effort than you might imagine and actually after a while I have personally found it much easier to get a good result out of Indigo than an average quality render out of the BI.
LuxRender is a good option to check out at the moment, the development is moving rapidly and it now seems to have reached a stage where it is able to produce some very high quality stuff, I have been looking at it myself this past couple of days.
The major downside with unbiased rendering is the time it takes to get a noise free result, but if your not animating and you can let it run overnight it’s not a problem. There is a bit of a learning curve at the beginning but then this is 3d and the sort of features that are used will eventually work their way into the internal so you’ll prob be learning them at some point anyway.
Thanks seanser … but yeah, these products have already been through Indigo, Lux and even Gelato. The level of realism and ease of setup were great in the unbiased ones, but with the effects involved (translucency, SSS, glossy reflection/refraction, etc.) for the various elements, and needing print resolutions, it took way too long. But I think that final image was done before my tests in other engines.
