Diamond ring

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Numb69
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Diamond ring

Post by Numb69 » 11 Jul 2012, 07:27

Hello people

I would need some critics and probably tips to finish my projects :)
So after struggling with softimage for 2 days, and reading posts from XSIbase i finally achieved somewhat good results for a diamond.
I used the dffraction shader and thx god for Maximus who provided the render tree setup in his shader presets (ure awesome dude ;) ) I was able to get some decent results. For the silver material which is still not tuned, I used architectural material and bumped the ior to 2,full reflection.
I got the photometric lights from wombat and a HDRI plugged in the environement,FG on (Raytype switch with one texture for reflection/refraction..and the other for FG)
My setup is linear, basically gamma 2.2 but I also render to gamma 2.2,I find it easier then tweaking exposure in PS.(No mia_photometric exposure)
Also added a bit of glare.

My concern is,the overall look is a bit washed, and the diamonds doesn't seem to have enough contrast,they look like plastic (especially the smaller ones on the side). I would be able to tweak it in PS, but as far as it goes for SI, what else can i do to get better results.
Attachments
Test Render
Test Render
Real ring: Sharp diamonds and contrats in the material
Real ring: Sharp diamonds and contrats in the material

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rray
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by rray » 11 Jul 2012, 10:18

Two ideas I had, 1st is I'd use a higher resolution reflection map - the convex shape magnifies the map and this shows the blurry low res quality, which makes the ring material look plastic like.
2nd idea is to make sure all specular and diffuse is off in the materials.
About the reflection map, I'm not even sure if you use one, but generally more contrast/sharpness in the environment would be better.
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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ActionArt
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by ActionArt » 11 Jul 2012, 17:22

Here's a couple thoughts that might help. I'm not a pro jeweler or jewelry photographer so take it with a grain of salt.

You might want to leave off FG altogether since in this case you don't need color bleeding and all it will do is reduce your contrast and "wash it out". With a very reflective surface like this it may not be what you want.

You'll probably need some strategically placed black cards to get the highlights you want, it looks like maybe you have a lot of white and gray in the environment. Take a look at some photo studio setups used for this purpose, that may help.

Just wondering, IOR of 2 on the silver material? Not sure what the reason for that would be although with no transparency, it should make no difference.

One last thing, the holes or indentations the diamonds are set in may have a big impact on their look. Maybe check how they are actually set in real life. The shape and color of the holes would make a difference I think.

Keep going :)

NNois
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by NNois » 12 Jul 2012, 00:27

juste to reply about the IOR stuff...
In fact Architectural shader and his IOR property play also on the look of a metal shader. For this you need to check IOF on the fresnel.

But in this case i would have put 20 in IOR not 2 ;-)

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Rork
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by Rork » 12 Jul 2012, 10:40

ActionArt has a point.

I did a job once with diamonds/pretty shiny rocks, and ended up having a separate piece of geometry under the diamond as a casing.
Making this white helped a lot bringing over the feel of the refractions inside te diamonds.

And of course lighting and bounce cards will help a lot too. Search the web for studio setups for photograping chrome/reflective objects, that might help getting the look more towards the examples you posted.

rob
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Maximus
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by Maximus » 12 Jul 2012, 14:42

Hey, take a look here

http://www.tabletopstudio.com/jewelry_photography.html

and try to recreate this in 3d, i usually found lots of tehcniques there really interesting and great for product shots.
Hope that helps, that website has a lot of info for a lot of product shots.
Another thing that might help is i always use the mip_matteshadow shader for the ground, make it fully white or black depends on the plate you want and use some catch reflections. have the ambient occlusion option too. Really handy for this.

Max

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Rork
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by Rork » 12 Jul 2012, 14:52

yes, that's the one.

they also have some tips for glassy stuff: http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents ... graphy.htm

rob
SI UI tutorials: Toolbar http://goo.gl/iYOL0l | Custom Layout http://goo.gl/6iP5xQ | RenderManager View http://goo.gl/b4ZkjQ
So long, and thanks for all the Fish!!

grahamef
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by grahamef » 12 Jul 2012, 18:50

Zap Andersson wrote a blog post about rendering diamonds with mental ray:

http://mentalraytips.blogspot.ca/2009/1 ... s-and.html

Numb69
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by Numb69 » 13 Jul 2012, 01:43

Awesome stuff guys,thx a lot for help now I have work to do lol :D
The tabletop studio website is so nice, I overlooked that aspect, anyways one last thing if I can ask,probably its a noob question,but how would I go and diffuse the light, like they explain on the site, I know that you can use pannels/diffusers, but that method looks different from what I see..

@grahamef, thx man Ive already been there, but I had to rely mostly on the XSIbase thread, since in SI its always more complex doing things :)

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Maximus
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by Maximus » 14 Jul 2012, 01:49

i did this time ago, but wanted just to point out that what makes gems shine are the reflections, dont forget you have the post effects too, so you might gonna pump the effect in ps.

Image

this is maxwell with no post btw, since i had on an old folder i posted it.
Scene setup was just 2 panels, i know its far from perfect but wanted to just point out the shiny/panels reflections.

Hope i've been of some help

Max

Numb69
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Joined: 17 Nov 2010, 05:52
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by Numb69 » 17 Jul 2012, 18:34

Thanks Max you re always helpful ;)

Here is my latest render. Ditched the HDR, did a studio setup, 4 panels, 1 photometric light and 1 spot light pointing into the diamond, for more shininess. Did a fast compositing in PS, already much more satisfied, I'll try to tweak the lighting from here.
One thing thats bothering me is that the rings reflect the square panels, it doesnt look too good, Ill have to work on that..
Attachments
Default_Pass_Main.1.jpg

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ActionArt
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by ActionArt » 17 Jul 2012, 19:59

Looks much better. If the flat panels prove a problem, you can attach an HDR image of a studio light to the panels and use that as the light. The will get rid of the hard straight edges. There are a lot of those images floating around for free I think.

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Rork
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Re: Diamond ring

Post by Rork » 18 Jul 2012, 09:47

Also, have a look at the "Lightsmith" collection for sIBLGUI when using a photo studio setup.

rob

p.s. link :http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html - halfway on page
SI UI tutorials: Toolbar http://goo.gl/iYOL0l | Custom Layout http://goo.gl/6iP5xQ | RenderManager View http://goo.gl/b4ZkjQ
So long, and thanks for all the Fish!!

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