Bad Waffle
September 18th, 2007, 10:06 PM
First, start out by creating three omni's, and a spotlight. Aim the spotlight at the object you are rendering. Place the three omnis around the object, in an evenly spaced arrangement. Tick the "shadows" box in every lights menu (spot01, omni01, omni02, omni03). As you are in the omni menu, give every light a slight tinge of color. Choose complementary colors, such as red, blue, and green. Feel free to test with colors here.
It should look like this:
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3598/lightssn1.png
The next step would be to place a skylight into the scene. Place it anywhere you want.
Settings should look like this:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1039/skylightzb5.png
Now, its time to set up your environment and render settings. Press 8 to bring up environment, and set the background color to a slightly-less-than-black color. In the dropdown menu under that, select automatic exposure. Do not mess with these presets unless you know what you're doing. Press f9 to bring up the render dialogue, and click the 'renderer' tab. Select the 'catmull-rom' filter. This will pronounce the edges and make it a much more crisp render.
It should look like this:
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/9403/sceneenvsp1.png
Now, materials are something that vary for every model. You will have to custom tweak these for your own model to create the best effect (as well as tweaking the lighting, and angles). Something that will no doubt make your material look better is the Falloff modifier for specular. This is illustrated below, and is straightforward enough that i wont explain how to use this.
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/4730/matski4.png
Here are some examples. On a highres mesh with many triangles and edges to create different lighting, it can appear as such:
http://img488.imageshack.us/img488/7960/highres1yc5.jpg
If you're using a lowres mesh, it should appear like so:
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/2314/render1ia2.jpg
Note that the amount of highlighting and shading is different on each model, but each use a very similar material. This means that you will have to custom tweak the materials to look good on your object. Try playing around with renders like Vray, or Brazil. Keep trying, its a large game of hit and miss--but with skill you can greatly lower the times you miss. Good luck!
It should look like this:
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3598/lightssn1.png
The next step would be to place a skylight into the scene. Place it anywhere you want.
Settings should look like this:
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1039/skylightzb5.png
Now, its time to set up your environment and render settings. Press 8 to bring up environment, and set the background color to a slightly-less-than-black color. In the dropdown menu under that, select automatic exposure. Do not mess with these presets unless you know what you're doing. Press f9 to bring up the render dialogue, and click the 'renderer' tab. Select the 'catmull-rom' filter. This will pronounce the edges and make it a much more crisp render.
It should look like this:
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/9403/sceneenvsp1.png
Now, materials are something that vary for every model. You will have to custom tweak these for your own model to create the best effect (as well as tweaking the lighting, and angles). Something that will no doubt make your material look better is the Falloff modifier for specular. This is illustrated below, and is straightforward enough that i wont explain how to use this.
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/4730/matski4.png
Here are some examples. On a highres mesh with many triangles and edges to create different lighting, it can appear as such:
http://img488.imageshack.us/img488/7960/highres1yc5.jpg
If you're using a lowres mesh, it should appear like so:
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/2314/render1ia2.jpg
Note that the amount of highlighting and shading is different on each model, but each use a very similar material. This means that you will have to custom tweak the materials to look good on your object. Try playing around with renders like Vray, or Brazil. Keep trying, its a large game of hit and miss--but with skill you can greatly lower the times you miss. Good luck!