Ring

[sirzero]

Hi all,

I'm currently trying to improve on my texturing and lighting skills, and made a simple ring to practice on.
I know there still is quite a way to go, as I'm hoping for more realism than what I've got so far.
In the first picture I'm using 2 area lights, and in the second it's one area light and one point light.
As for the ring I'm using the GoldReflection image that came with Lightwave for the reflections and a small procedural bump. Same procedural also used for specularity and diffuse.
Any suggestions on improvements would be greatly appreciated :)

[TomR]

Hei hei.

You maybe turn down the diffuse a bit and ad a ray tracing map.

:thumbsup:

[sirzero]

Hei TomR

Trivelig å se at d er flere nordmenn her :) Har ikke holdt på med Lightwave så veldig lenge så trenger en del trening enda. Har du drevet med d lenge?

Sorry for the norwegian there :)
What do you mean by add a ray tracing map? Where and how do I do that? I'm guessing you don't just mean to turn on raytracing in the render options?
Please elaborate...
Other comments and suggestions are welcome.

[loki74]

yeah, I can't imagine what else he could be referring to, other than turning on raytracing.

You've probably heard this a million times before, but I would suggest adding an HDRI.

About decreasing the diffuse--remember this as a rule of thumb: Diffuse + Reflectivity + Transparency < 100%, or the object is giving off more light than it recieves.

I'm not sure how much an incidence angle gradient would add to a surface that would already be very reflective, but it might improve the look.

[sirzero]

Thanks for clarifying that loki, but raytracing is already on..
I will look into adding an HDRI... never done that before, so any advice on how to go about it would be good.
I knew about the diffuse, reflectivity, transparency rule... I will try to lower the diffuse a bit and see if that helps.
As for an incidence angle gradient, I am already using that. A simple gradient going from value 0-100. That's all I need, right?

Maybe using a different plane will help...
Will try a few things and post my results.
Thanks for the help so far :)

[TomR]

Hei

Har holdt på i litt over et halvt år, men bare en mnd med LW :) Så eg trenger en del trening eg og.

Sorry for that.

What I was referring to was to add a images in the surfase editor -> environment -> reflection options -> ray tracing+ spherical map and add a reflection map.

[sirzero]

Thanks for the tip TomR, but I've already done that. Although I'm using spherical map, not ray tracing+spherical map.

About HDRI, Im trying to do some test renders using that now (never done it before). I'm ending up with terribly grainy results... is that just down to AA level. Mine is currently set to Enhanced Medium, but still ends up very grainy. Any settings I could adjust to get rid of this?
Also, should I turn off all lights in the scene, and just use the HDR image?

[sirzero]

Here's an update.
The first picture is with lowered diffuse, that seemed to work well.
The other one is showing the grainyness when I'm using HDRI. Anyone who knows why this happens? Is it all to do with the AA?
Brightness is turned down to 40% for the HDR image, other than that it's using the default settings.
Any suggestions on how to improve this?

[loki74]

Ive never had this problem, so I dont know exactly how to fix it. But it isnt new; I remember others getting the grainyness with HDRIs.

I could be wrong, but if my memory serves me correctly, this is fixed by going into the image editor and under processing add the HDR Exposure... what the settings are to fix it, I forgot... try the auto settings, that might work.

[Captain Obvious]

Turn on raytraced reflections in the render options!

As loki says, go into the image editor and add HDR exposure. Turn up the white point just a little. Also, increase the number of rays per evaluation in the global illumination options. It will render more slowly, but look much better. And yes, with a bright enough HDRI, you can turn off all normal lights.

[sirzero]

Thanks for the help guys :)
CaptainObvious, raytraced reflections has been on all along. I think the reason it didnt show up was that I wasn't using raytracing + spherical map as TomR was saying earlier on, so my mistake.

I found that the spottiness in the render was partly due to the fact that I didn't use HDR exposure, and that my radiosity rays per evolution was set too low.

Anyway, here's the update. It has definitely improved, but could still be better I think. It's a bit too dark as it is, so will up the brightness of HDRI a bit and re-render.