Trying to set a simple set for transparent part

Hi everybody,

I’ve just started learning how to use Blender and I’m trying to understand how material, lights and textures are linked and behave when making a render.
I’m trying to make a photo realistic rendering of an acrylic part but I’m having hard time to set a nice scene. My goal is to show the part with all its great and luminous transaprency against a white neutral plane but the results I’ve gotten so far are poor unless I change the plane or world to a blue color.
Here’s a comparision picture:
http://www.vega-web.it/technoframes/render/base9mm-2.jpghttp://www.vega-web.it/technoframes/render/base9mm-3.jpg
What I’d like to make is a more realistic scene with correct light to enphasize transparency and clean look and also give some shadows or background, here’s an example of what is my aim:
http://www.unparent.com/images_hdr/HDR_objects_japanBlossoms.jpg

I’m a newbie of course, but is there maybe some nice step by step tutorial that shows final result of a job, I’m asking this because my question might seem too wide or generic so I need some classes before going on.

Thanks for any help.
Tatoz

how old are you btw?
ther might be something here; http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/tutorials/blender/
or http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
and definitely here; http://www.alienhelpdesk.com/index.php?id=4

I would suggest using Yafray.
heres some tutorials and settings you might want to use. You can use the glass settings and change the index of refraction.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=67320
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=21341

hope this helps.

Thx for the suggestions, I’m 35 yrs and only 7 days old for Blender with good experience in using mechanical 3D software (i.e. Solidworks) but desperately looking to learn how to make a photo realistic object from a solid shape.

Those images are using hdri. You are going to have to ask someone else on how to use it in 2.42…

Try using photoworks, if your version has it in SW.