[RiK3D]

Hey CGHub!

I am a texture artist down in Dallas working my way in to my first studio gig. As I recreate my portfolio with an emphasis on texture and material creation, I've started learning more techniques than I used in the past. When I graduated, I had only worked with UVW Mappaing and Photoshop for texture creation. I'm currently working on an animated short with some folks from school and so I've now started using Max's procedural texturing system to see what kind of look I can achieve.

I'd appreciate any sort of critique, comment, or carefully crafted question you've got!

[RiK3D]

This is my current WIP piece, a vintage Victor Victrola from the early 1900s. It's nearing completion, and I'm currently tweaking textures and the lighting rig. I'm using 3ds max with mentalray as my render engine, and this render was made with an HDRI environment map with Final Gather for global illumination, and a photometric target light providing the main specular highlight.

The wood texture is the only photograph bitmap, everything else is custom made Arch&Design materials and masks Ive created in Photoshop.

[RiK3D]

Hey all,

I've been working on a scene mimicking a photograph I took of a some Gerbera Daisies I took a few months ago at the Dallas Arboretum. It's been and on-and-off piece for a few weeks, and as I get closer to finishing it, I realized that I haven't gotten any feedback.

The goal is not an exact replica of the photograph, but a final render that is photo realistic to the point that you could mistake it for a photograph.

I'm using 3ds max 2012 with mental ray, and its built in Depth of Field feature for the first time. The foliage background is a bitmap image rendered in the scene (not composited) and the flowers are an Arch&Design material. Texturing was all done in Photoshop with a combination of photographs and custom brushes, with one texture map for the petals and one for the rest of the flower. I plan on rendering other angles that will show other areas of the flower. This is the primary shot that I want to replicate.

I'm open to any suggestions, whether it's textures, lights, shaders or anything else.

Below I've got my main reference photo and the latest render:

[Zentrope]

Add a bit of Stamens(using hair system) and increase the color saturation in the middle of the petals.
You can either composite the BG(more flexible option) or
decrease the depth of field or blur(whatever is used to define the bg but at the same time not distract the focus(i.e- flower)
Rest looks fine indeed

[RiK3D]

Originally Posted by Zentrope

Add a bit of Stamens(using hair system) and increase the color saturation in the middle of the petals.
You can either composite the BG(more flexible option) or
decrease the depth of field or blur(whatever is used to define the bg but at the same time not distract the focus(i.e- flower)
Rest looks fine indeed

Thanks Zentrope. I've never used the hair/fur system in max and so I know next to nothing about it. Time to look up tutorials!

I used an image plane with the background foliage so that the depth of field blur would be more accurate looking, as it was calculated in the scene, at the same time with relative distance from the flowers. Though rendering the flowers alone and comping in Photoshop is an easy alternative. I'll give that a shot.

[RiK3D]

Here's an update to what I've now got. I have not added the stamen yet; I've spent some time reworking the diffuse and ended up using an Sub Surface Scattering material to get some more depth. I think the color vibrancy is much better now. My next step is to get the unbloomed (word?) stamen in there and rework the small flowered stamen to be more lush. Even with a high Anti Alias, the Depth of Field blur looks very dirty. I'm going to render a ZDepth pass and composite the green background in separately.

The few hair and fur tutorials I've gone through have not given information on how to replaced a generic hair fiber with a mesh; the foreground flower's stamen do a have a bud at the top of the strand, and so I don't think a thin hair fiber will look legit. I'll keep looking for tutorials that can help me do this, but I may end up just manually placing them as needed. If anyone has a suggested website or tutorial to achieve this, please throw a link up.

[amileduan]

Renders of the flowers is beautiful,especially the colors,very similar,but I think the stamens or pistils need more work.

[RiK3D]

Thanks for the feedback!

I ended up modeling the smaller stamen and manually placing them around the inside perimeter of the petals. Also remade the blossomed stamen more lush and threw some omni lights in to brighten their white.

Waaay better results with a Z Depth pass compared to mental ray's built in DoF camera settings, and I composited in After Effects for the first time. Good stuff. Still tweaking the blur settings and it needs an AO, and some petal rotations but it's close.

Here's another update

[RiK3D]

Here's the latest and greatest. I'd say it's on the cusp of completion.

Ended up compositing the background in separate. I had no idea After Effects had such great compositing tools. The Luminosity Lens Blur saved the day when it came to selling the depth of field. I ended doing a few touch ups in Photoshop, including some additional blur where my DoF map fell short and some color highlights on the petals.

AO map came out much darker than I wanted, and so that was tweaked before going into AfterEffects as well. Also some minor color correction with the Curves Editor.

If anyone has any more suggestions or sees something I missed, please do tell.

Also, I'm not sure if I should put the reference photo in my portfolio to show what I was aiming for, or if it would better leaving it out.. On one side, it shows how close I was able to get, and on the other it also shows where I may have fallen short. Anyone thoughts?

[RiK3D]

Made some more tweaks. I increased the size of the bloomed and non-bloomed stamen, and bumped up the color saturation for the bloomed ones.

Also added some color abberation and more noise imperfections.

[Zentrope]

Looks amazing! but the previous one was much closer to your reference pic except the stamens part.
But all in all it's good and if you are adding it in your portfolio don't add the reference picture and show different passes and wireframe and the final image.
Also try to add little Chromatic abberation and you are good to go

[RiK3D]

Thanks Zen!

There's actually some red and cyan color abberation in this latest version. I went with a subtle amount so that it didn't go overboard and look too off. Maybe it's too subtle?

There are three key differences between this render and the previous one. 1) Increased the size of the stamen, 2) added a higher orange saturation to the stamen 3) Manual color correction on the overall image to adjust the hue of the petals. What made the last one closer to the original photo than this one?

[Zentrope]

If you ask me, post #10 is better than the actual reference because of more color variation in it!
The actual reference is a bit over-saturated , similar to post #9!
Post #10 is having more natural feel and better stamens details in it, which is making it more organic and natural!

Hence your work looks better than the actual pic

[happyfish]

The overall is very awesome and beautiful .and the flower color is so nice .but i think you need to do more practice in order to let it more true.

[RiK3D]

Thanks, happyfish. There are definitely some things I would do differently if I did this piece again. It was a challenge for my first organic shot, and most of that challenge came from trying to match a real photo. I learned a lot though and I like how it came out.

Thanks for the feedback.