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[popestt]

I am pretty unexperienced with anim8or (although ive been playing with it off and on for a few years) but i sat down last night to play, and after a couple of hours, came out with this...
I have tried everything I know to get the material of the faucet right, but just cannot get it to look natural.. here is the original photo that I was modeling from...

any suggestions or Ideas to get the material to match more closely? also, any suggestions for lighting would also be greatly appreaciated, I have tried, and failed, multiple times to get any lighting that i like..
Thanks
todd

also, if anyone has any suggestions for making the base of the bowl look more like in the photo, that would be great!

[Indian8or]

Hi,

This is indian8or.  Like you, I am not an expert in handling anim8or, but I would like to make a few friendly suggestion just as a "forum buddy."

You have done a great job there.  I liked it, especially the detailing of wall texture and color.

Only thing that I feel would make it look a bit more real is proper "bump mapping" the base on which the bowl is resting.  That way, you can make the tiles look more realistic.  Also, the tiles of the base in the actual photo are quite spaced apart, so in your model you can actually use some extrusion there.

As far as faucet and base of bowel (the stainless steel part) is concerned, I think a bit higher specular value and adding surrounding reflections will do the trick.

You need a white light straight above the arrangement.

NICE STILL LIFE!!.

[floyd86]

Metal materials are hard to reproduce, i'm having trouble with that too. On this page you find some materials which are pretty good: http://www.anim8or.com/smf/index.php?topic=1361.msg10039#msg10039. To make the more reasiltic for your scene i would use the glossy attribute instead of the reflection, this might turn out nicer. You can read about attributes over here: http://anim8or.com/download/preview/art_raytracer.html.

As for the sink: the dielectric attribute will make this look better, i think.

[hihosilver]

To help with realism what you want is reflections.
There are two ways to do this.
The first way is to use the ART raytracer which will give you realistic reflections of the actual scene.  The difficult part with this is making the scene complex enough.  When there's nothing behind the camera, all it will reflect is the blank color of the background.  So one way to fix this is to get a Cubemap texture and load that up for the surrounding of the scene.  The sink model will then have realistic reflections.

The other way is to fake it, using an env map or "environment map".  This way is fake but can produce realistic results with fast render-times.  To do this you'd need images for the environment map, basically the same as the cubemap.  Normally these images would consist of a: front, back, left, right, top and bottom images.

[popestt]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I would love to learn to use the ray tracer, But Im not familiar with any of the terminology of 3d modeling, and so didnt understand really the documentation about it, and the attributes.. is there a simple way to explain how to use these effects, or is it something I just need to read a lot about, and play with.. Also, Im not sure If I did the materials in the "proper" way for them to react correctly with the lighting (such as, when I render with different lighting, The walls in the back usually are very dark, while the bowl looks almost like its glowing, so I just added more lights in front of the background), I pretty much just played with the values until it looked right in the render.

[floyd86]

Animation is has always tweaking with the setting for me, untill it just looks right. So playing with the setting is good way to get the right result. The more often you do it the fast the setting will be right.

Attributes are pretty simpel to work with: by downloading some of the examples up here: http://anim8or.com/download/preview/art_raytracer.html and study them carfully you will learn.

[VBSmiles]

Lighting is very important to get the scene 'correct'. If you took the photo yourself, you would know where the light sources are. otherwise you will have to take shots at best guessing.

[3D Joe Wiltshire]

Hah, true but if you can guess (reflections, dark sides) it can turn out pretty well.

I was bored one day  (forgive the self gratifying title ):

[ENSONIQ5]

Popestt:  The ART renderer attributes, although operational, have not been fully integrated into the interface yet.  Anim8or V0.97c & V0.97d have the renderer built in, but they are only preview releases, designed to allow us to test the new features.  As such, the current method of accessing these features is a little awkward, but not so complicated really.

Basically, by adding attributes, what you are doing is inserting new variables into the code of your project, variables that affect the way the ART renderer operates.  Variables must first be defined, and then assigned a value.  For example, one of the ART attributes is a reflection raytracer, perfect for your model above.  It derives its value from the Specular setting in the material editor, so a specular setting of 0 yields no reflection, and a setting of 1 yields a mirror finish.  Before the ART renderer can use this variable, it must be defined.

In the Material Editor for the material you have applied to the tap, click the Attributes button.  The window that appears is a simple interface designed to allow to you add variables into your project.  Any variable can be added, but only those variables recognised by the ART renderer will have any effect.  If you click New, you start to define a new variable.  The names of the recognised variables are included in the documentation (see floyd86's post above for the link) and must be entered exactly as supplied, case sensitive.

In the blank text field that pops up when you click New, type the word "specular" (without the quotation marks) then click Ok.  Next, you must define what sort of variable it is by clicking the correct variable type.  In this case, click String.  In the text box at the bottom of this window that has just turned white, type the word "reflection" (again without the quotation marks).  Finally, click Ok to return to the material editor window.

The value of a variable can vary in type, for example, one variable might have a numeric value, another might have a text value.  So the effect of this operation was to add a new variable to the project, called "specular", it has been defined as representing a text value (string), and has been assigned the value "reflection".  Now, when the ART renderer is running, it will know to calculate ray traced reflections for this surface, and it will use the Specular value to define how reflective the surface appears.

All the ART attributes are defined in this way.  Check out the link mentioned above and have a play with each of the attributes, the best way to get to grips with something is to experiment with it.  Oh, don't forget to change the renderer from Scanline to ART in scene mode.

[headwax]

hello for base of bowl try rolling the edge in bit for a bit of a reverse bevel, will give a more realistic shadow if you are lucky. Motto: bevel all edges

[popestt]

Thanks you guys for all the help.. I cant wait until .97 comes out as an official release with the ray tracer fully integrated.. I will have to try and play with the attributes functions, and then probably have to adjust my lighting quite a bit afterwards. Thanks for all of the information and the links. I will let you guys know how it comes out, or I need more help..
Bless

[popestt]

Wow, I love playing with these attributes! Its amazing how easy doing this is now, when in the past I had to "fake it" to get these effects! Ill post what its done in this project so far as soon as its finished rendering, but im enoying just playing with it on different shapes and seeing how it reacts..