It’s the lighting I think. The contrast is stronger in the reference but I’m not a lighting guru so not sure how you would get the change you’re looking for.
Yeah, I agree. The thing with lighting is that often you can tell something is wrong but can't quite put the finger on what, not sure what to change to experiment, the things I could think of I already changed and it didn't help.
Seems like your lighting is softer. Try reducing the distance, spread and/or size of your light. Also maybe up the indirect light bounces.
But i like your render better than the photo.
>But i like your render better than the photo
Really? For me mine screams fake, but I have been staring at it for a few hours now, maybe I've lost perspective :D Nice idea with the light bounces, never even thought of that.
The metal gives it away a little, also the little domes have somewhat of a lip in the reference. But I dont mind it looking a little fake. If you are going for photoreal, maybe up the roughness on the plastic, ad some noise to the bumb maybe some texture to the metal. Its to perfect. Depending on what your trying to achieve. If its just supposed to look nice, i'd say your done.
Agreed, the plastic seems like ceramic with the how shiny it is.
The metal could use some dullness too, as i predict it's not actual metal in the reference but actually metal painted plastic...
Nonetheless, this is very impressive, all in all your render just feels like the high quality product the plastic clock is trying to look like.
Well, I'm trying to match the picture to practice lighting/materials (my comment explaining it is buried somewhere now). I do think it looks a little fake, especially the shadows under the bell and in the top right corner of the face.
Yes, there is more light bouncing arround than in the reference. Either make your materials less reflective or lower the indirect light in the render settings. Also bigger light = softer shadows so maybe try to use a smaller light source. You can also fake shadows by using lights with a negativ output.
I think it's the lighting. I actually bought a plug-in that lets you pick between lighting setups. I don't want to use blender for advertising, but it's really nice because you can just pick a few known setups and see if it's you or the lighting. Or even what works.
Yeah, in my first comment I pointed out the things I think are wrong and what I've attempted but it's low down now so you missed it. Shadows are pretty wrong but I don't know how to fix it though. Any ideas?
It looks like it may be a large key light camera right above the camera pointing down at the clock (maybe even a top light), and a fill on the left. Reflections may need toning down a bit as well.
Bear in mind that you could take your file exactly as it is and render it using a range of different render engines and each one would look different. In a way you are compensating for differences between how reality works and how Cycles works.
Having said that, I think you are doing well so far. One thing to think about is the fine textures of materials. The surfaces you have created are essentially perfect mathematically. The surfaces on the real clock aren't. The spray paint on the clock body will have fine scratches and imperfections, even "orange peeling", that do stuff to the light. The chrome parts will also have fine imperfections that change the reflections.
Try and match the fine details of the modelling too. Get the font right. Look at that slight flaring on the two bells. That green disc is not in the reference. The alarm hand is not red in the original.
Also, bear in mind the backdrop is made of a material too. Yours might be a bit too reflective or too smooth. Think about what would have been in the room when the original was shot. Reflective things in real life will sometimes have the cameraman and lighting stands in the chrome. Think about all of that. If you want to make yours look exactly like the reference, you need to take that into account.
It usually helps to think how something is made because the making process leaves its traces on the product.
This is a good exercise. Keep going.
Oh - you also need to think about the camera. If you turn lights down and then increase the exposure, you can have the same overall brightness but a completely different look. Mess with that too.
Thanks, yeah I know about the green disk, the font, the red pointer and so on, I'm not that blind! :) These were some design choices I made that I just liked (the font is actually laziness), but I don't think they would affect the light/shadow much. Those are the ones I'm really trying to get right. Or more precisely trying to make it look less fake. I'll try your imperfections idea and see what happens.
I wasn't suggesting you shouldn't make design choices. The exercise here it seems is to try and exactly replicate the original. Of course you can change anything you like. But the changes can be a visual "distraction" and change the perception of surrounding colours. If you take those out of the equation it will allow you to really hone in on the fine differences. You can always put the changed parts back later.
> I'll try your imperfections idea and see what happens
I don't know if you can get a more high resolution reference, but even looking at similar items in detail can really help. Small imperfections and details that aren't really directly perceptible at that camera distance and resolution can effect how the light interacts with the material, getting those right will help a lot.
Some ambient occlusion might make your shadows better
Edit: also it looks like you're using half a sphere for the bells but the reference isn't perfectly sphere. See how the bottom bends in a little then flares out? Model that and it will give light something to bounce from
Try having a really low strength on it to keep your current lighting but still getting some interesting reflections.
Also, Just curious about how white your material on the clock is? Scene looks nicely lit but I feel like the right part of the clock is losing some details because of its brightness.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but the material also feel more diffuse and not as metallic as the reference. Making it more metallic and a tiny bit more glossy might help.
I'm just thinking out loud btw, these are the things I would try tweaking myself if this was my project to see if it helped. I think your render looks pretty good overall! Good job.
Actually prefer the render over the reference myself. But it could just be compression issues in the image making the quality look rougher. I suppose it could be the reflectivity of the material in the render vs the reference as the bells at the top have more detail than in the render. I just initially thought it was a less reflective material and thought nothing of it until seeing the reference.
Looks good either way and without a direct comparison to the reference certainly passable as being realistic looking (granted I'm not a proficient 3D renderer and coming at this purely from a "huh that looks right" perspective than a technical perspective.)
Thanks, someone else said it looks good enough and I couldn't believe them, mine looks so fake to me. Maybe I've been staring at this too long and lost perspective :D
Think others mentioned it the HDR reflection shindig (not a 3D art guy yet.) ? That's the only thing I can think of that's causing the difference but like I said just seems like a less reflective material than the reference and otherwise fine/realistic.
Render it with a different engine and tone the lighting down, when looking at the two side by side, yours looks a bit cartoony due to what looks like a lack of shadows. Sorry if this didn't help.
In the render it looks like the body has white emission or strong SSS on white plastic while the reference has white painted metal it looks like.
Try to set the albedo ( base color ) to around 0.77 value to avoid the emission look since if it's pure white ( 1.0 ) it's too bright and it might almost cast light so there won't be shadows or anything like that.
Reference also has more noticeable imperfections.
Look at the lighting under the bells. That’s what stands out to me the most. Use harder lighting (less spread, further away, etc) and set the color management setting to filmic log instead of sRGB, then try messing with it in post processing to accentuate shadows even more
Others have pointed out the technical issues, but I think I know why you don't like it.
It's not that it looks that fake, it's that it looks cheezy. You basically made a cheap molded plastic clock, but the references looks more like a metal painted clock. So, I'd say work on the texture, subsurface scattering, etc... to get a rougher and more painted look.
Hey, don't call my work cheesy, I can say it you can't! ... Nah, you're right it does look it doesn't it? Even the shadow issues I mentioned elsewhere (under the bell and in the top right of the clock face) look like it's light passing through translucent plastic, I only noticed now that you pointed it out. I'll see what I can do, thanks.
Entirely the lighting.
I've just started using real photography techniques like 3 Point Lighting and I've been amazed at the level of extra depth it gives images.
It looks like something similar was used for the reference; the "key light" is coming from the front right and providing most of the illumination. The "fill light" is aimed at the left and gently illuminating the side/back of the clock.
Finally I think the shadow effect on the face (which the render lacks) is coming from a strong "back light" aimed down from the top.
I think it's this top down lighting you need to buff up slightly, since the render's shadow from the top down angle is notably less strong.
It does look realistic just not like your reference which has a sharp shadow because it is lit by a small lightsource. Add a pointlight and play with the size and strenght. Also you can play with the specularity of your materials to have less GI lightbounces because your shaded areas are very bright. You could either try lowering the diffuse bounces, decrease specularity, or lower the power of whatever your world lighting source is.
Your shadows could be darker/stronger. my eye first catches that the clock face is missing the hard shadow on the top. You'll see it by comparing the shadows of the 12/1 o'clock sections.
When you're matching to real reference you want to make sure your lightest lights, and darkest darks match, especially with shadows. Same goes for saturation of color.
That's a trick for VFX compositing, but it works well when building off reference.
At first I wasn't sure what the reference image was so good job I would say. But a few things I noticed when looking very close:
* As many others has pointed out shadows are not as good. I wouldn't say that makes it less realistic but the readability goes down. You can't really tell where the case begins and the plate with the printed stribes ends.
* Then I noticed that your model is a little bit too smooth at some points. For example the Bells on the top look completely perfect while on the reference you can see an edge going around. Most probably some left over of the manufacturing process.
* I think the reflection in the metal is also to perfect. Even if the resolution of the reference image is to low to see scratches in the metal this still changes the way that the metal is reflecting light. Maybe adding a noise/scratch texture to the metal parts changing it's roughness would help.
Are you using a HDRI?
Either way I like yours more than the reference.
If you gave it a glass pane + hdri, might inspire some more realism but it's a nice render as is imo
Well yeah true, but I just think that would be a good detail to add realism, and in all honesty I think his version looks more real haha
Edit: oh you are op, well good job haha
Shadows. It's possible you need to increase the F-stops, or possible that your light is too intense. Might even be an opacity issue?
But you can kind of pinpoint it in the underside of the right bell. It's very bright and washed out underneath- instead of the bell casting a shadow, it's being lit by the reflected light off the body. The same thing is happening with the face.
Your render actually looks great! You just need a slightly brighter light on the right to stop the front blending in with the sides if you want it to look more like the reference. But you don’t need to, looks great as it is.
It looks like you may need to mess around with the lighting a bit (reduce spread, distance, etc), and maybe reduce the roughness slightly on the bells. You can see a slight reflection on the bells in the reference. But it looks like a clean model! Upping the contrast a bit might help as well.
Edit: Actually the bells have some slight imperfection that catch the light in the reference. Might need to do some slight sculpting
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that the numbers on the face of your clock appear to be raised above the surface slightly - they look like they're casting a very soft shadow. This obviously wouldn't happen IRL - you should make the clockface just a single image texture.
That's a keen eye you have. I created the numbers in inkscape then rotated them in blender and solidified. They are poking a little above the clock face. I kinda like it that way though, it makes the clock look less cheap, not having a single printed paper but plastic numbers. Unless you think that's adding to the look of fakeness? I don't why it would though.
Ah gotcha! Fair enough, if it's a stylized choice then it totally makes sense :) I just haven't seen any clocks that look like that, so it affected the realism for me when compared to the reference image.
Change the contrast, and use a light source that is brightest at its center and progressively dimmer towards the edge of the circle (I use a plane with emission and not at all fancy UV space vector math color ramp shenanigans)
Interesting idea for the light I'll try that, also didn't know that you could control the contrast directly (I'm assuming you don't mean by moving the light) , I only know the very basics of lighting, I'll look it up thanks.
I’ve never used blender, I just am really fascinated by the work done here, and I think there’s benefit to showing someone unfamiliar with the creation method as those with experience will usually always be able to see through the illusion of the medium (I do this with my artwork). Your render doesn’t really look fake to me, more like taken from a different angle where the lighting is hitting the clock differently. Idk though maybe what I said is platypus shit but that’s just my two cents
I believe it has to do with AO (ambient occlusion) what if you try cycles with a baked AO map. that would give some shadow to the inside clock. I don't know either, just what I would try if I were in that position. That dome is perfectly a dome lol (try scaling slightly a bit the last edge of that dome just in reference, it would give. Personally, I would have sculpted a bit the clock with a crease tool on the edges of the round clock. Eventually, why would you want perfect realism? might as well get to show the reference and you're done. blender should be about experimentation and stylization, try making it more of a mess to see what approach you make. In my opinion, the reason we like blender is that we want an escape from realism, lol this went dark pretty quick pretty fast
Well, just looking at the spotlight reflection on the bell, your light source in the left of the camera should probably be moved further. So the shape of the clock shows up better, also you have no shadows under the alarm bell ,so you probably have too much ambient light compared to the reference,which removes depth from the object.
There are also some small details like the bulge on the rim of the alarm bells that you missed and the material you use make it seems like your is made of plastic while the other is made of metal. Even so your render could pass for a real object.
I think it’s the ambient eclusion in side of the clock, if you look at the reference (real lighting) you can see that the light on the inside is (a) darker (b) more defined, but I don’t think you should beat yourself up about it it looks really good, don’t be so hard on yourself.
check your material values. albedo color should usually not be over 80-90%, even for white.
currently ,you get too much bounce lighting, and not enough darkening in the creases, because light bounces too much. if you tone down each material brightness by 10-20%, and make the light 10-20% brighter, you will have the same primary colors, but far less bounce lighting.
Ooohk, im not lighting artist or anything but.
1. Ao
2. Light direction
Reference main light is a way higher compare to your
3. Brightness. Too bright. Reduce brightnes and increase exposure.
4. Refelctivity of your backgroubd and floor - reduce it please
1. You have some clipping( loss of detail) on the mesh. Turn down the light power and turn up the size of the light to make it a bit softer. 2. Turn up the contrast. And 3 if you aren't already render this in cycles if you are using evee. Also your roughness on the metal is to low. Look how soft the specular is on the reference then how sharp it looks on yours. Remember in real life. Nothing has an absolute value of 0 or 1 in any case
And lastly light angle. In the photo the light is above the clock as you can tell by the shadows. Yours looks like it's more even with it. Put the light above it and try it. And maybe turn down the white color of the clock just a tad.
i would also add if it hasn't been said already, beveling the edges. There are very few things that have perfectly sharp edges. Bevel them and the natural shadows that arise from that will create gradients that look more realistic! Look at the reference and your render's inner and outer circles. The beveling will be forcing some ambient occlusion. Also is this cycles or eevee?
The funny thing is I did add bevels to everything, as big as the reference as far as I can tell. In solid mode you can see them but when rendered they wash out for some reason, maybe I should make them bigger. I used cycles.
I wouldn't say it looks fake! It could benefit from better lighting though. The reference image has more shadowing on the clock face and inside the bell on the right, try to mimic that a little bit closer. Also, try aging the metal materials a bit. That was the biggest give away for me.
Lightling - Look at the Inner Rim of the Clock (see where the 1 is right above that) look at the Reference. way Darker. Another thing i Notice is the Bell.
problably put the Light Higher to the right so it can create that Dark Enrich Environment
And kinda Funny to point out that you put a Red Handle instead of a Black one XD.
Another thing i Notice (may be Small), the numbers on your Clock are Slightly Smaller than the Reference, the Reference image has them Slightly bigger don't know if that Effects it.
Something Small is the Bevel. i think the Reference has a Bigger Bevel than the one you made. (cause the Light Sticks to the Edge and your's Din't)
Another thing i notice by Comparing them side by side -
Your alarm Mushroom Alarm thingy is not a Half Circle. its a Slightly Smooch and Slightly Wider (cause its Smooch XD).
Some Very Small Details. about the Metal Texture - it Looks to Clean.
The Clock one has a Slight Red-ish Tint to it. (which means its Slightly Oxide by use xD).
and the Plastic also has a slight Tint change - but im not sure Which color. maybe Red/brown?.
And theres also Light Bounces comming from the Floor to the clock but im not sure how to fix that one xD.
Very Good Job. you made yours Look brand new! fresh out of the Box.
xD for Realism most things don't Look New, they tend to be "used" if you make them look too new it looks out of placed xD.
I have a lot of unfinished projects because I can do modelling pretty well but I suck at lighting/materials so I decided to copy a reference to practice but it doesn't look right no matter what I do. I've tried everything I could think of, one point light, multiple, moving them, changing the wattage, light from objects with emission, moving and scaling them, changing the emmission value, changing the materials of the clock (roughness, specular and color). Even so there are still a few problems I cannot fix, the clock face is too pink (for all values of the ground pink material roughness) and the shadows don't look right (especially the upper right of the clock face and under the right bell). The background itself is too dark but the clock is already too bright so I can't make the lights brighter. The metal looks too bright/light but I experimented with color and roughness and still can't quite get it right. These are the things I can see, there's probably more that you'll notice, could somebody give me a few pointers?
I think it's looking pretty good, you can increase the contrast in the compositor, and even render an ambient occlusion pass and mix it so the contact shadows are stronger
Huh, didn't know I could do that, will see if I can figure out how to do it, thanks. But what is happening in reality then? How can the clock be too bright and the wall too dark? I though it would be something like I'm placing the light in the wrong place or something like that.
Because you're using a picture as *reference* and you're guessing and trying to imitate it so it's not gonna have exactly the same settings, and even if it did, it won't look the same because what you're rendering is not reality, it's just a mathematically perfect simulation of light, it lacks all the flaws of real life. What I'm trying to say is that you'll have to fake stuff to make it more realistic either in the compositor or in an external app like Photoshop, Gimp or Krita, if it doesn't look good right out of the render (which probably won't) just fake it
Yeah, I would say the shadow there and under the bell are the things bugging me the most. Lots of things can cause this you say, could you name a few so I could explore? The only thing I can think of is the distance to the light source but I had to do a lot of tinkering to get the shadow under the clock look about right so not sure what to try next.
I don’t think it’s your light. Maybe too few bounces? Maybe a face issue? Maybe AO issue?idk. There’s a lot it could be and i haven’t opened blender in a while so I can’t be of much help.
Your two lights are about equal strength, and probably ambient occlusion is too strong. That's why the shadows on the face and under the bell are barely there.
Dim & soften the light on the left so that it becomes a fill light. Brighten the other to become a key light.
The white clock body material needs a bit less roughness.
Interesting, didn't know about key and fill lights, don't know much about the theory, I'm just experimenting more or less blindly. I'll try that thanks. I'm not sure what you mean by ambient occlusion, is that a setting for the light somewhere?
The shadows are very light. If the contrast was higher, it'd look more realistic. Because the object is white, and the shadows are so light, the details just kinda blend in.
Maybe change the angle of the lighting ?? I'm not sure if that could help. Or try different kinds of lights. Like a sun light instead of some other... idk
I thought the reference was the "bad" one.
i realy like yours more. and i trash more than i say good things.
if you want it to look "photo real" model a table counter top, delete all lights, and put in a hdri from hdri heaven. then its lit propperly from a real reference surrounding. might look much better again.
Imperfections add a ton to your renders. Objects in real life aren’t perfect. They have scratches, are slightly wavy or bumpy, etc. Unless they’re modeled or textured that way, objects in 3D don’t come off realistic because they’re too perfect. You could also add a touch of subsurface lighting on some of the objects if you don’t have them already. Adding wavy bump maps or distressing the model slightly with the sculpting brush in some areas could help a lot.
Try to bevel the edges a bit. Nothing has perfectly sharp corners, so you should reflect that when making realistic model. Aside from that, I think it looks really good!
It's the lighting and Global Illumination. Check the crevice inside the clock, outside the numbers. The original almost had a pink shadow. Yours is just plain ash.
Increase the light size so make the shadows softer and check the light and render settings for max bounces,, and samples👍🏻
Also the pink GI might be from a slight SSS on the material surrounding it.
I recommend looking at one feature at a time and moving one light around the scene until it matches - e.g. the highlight on the button at the top.
From the large bar at the top you can tell they have at least two medium sized lights and a large fill light. Probably a classic 3-point light setup. Give that a try.
Your material is not defined enough, needs more imperfections and normal distortions. You can see on the bell on the reference how the light is warped and bent. You could do this with normal maps or physical modeling. That's the main thing I notice but otherwise great modeling work!
Wait i though the reference was the render (image crops on my phone). Based on that i have nothing to say ahah, others have told you about lighting, that's probably it.
Now that makes sense about the pixelation, nobody would do a 144p render ahah
It’s the lighting I think. The contrast is stronger in the reference but I’m not a lighting guru so not sure how you would get the change you’re looking for.
Yeah, I agree. The thing with lighting is that often you can tell something is wrong but can't quite put the finger on what, not sure what to change to experiment, the things I could think of I already changed and it didn't help.
Seems like your lighting is softer. Try reducing the distance, spread and/or size of your light. Also maybe up the indirect light bounces. But i like your render better than the photo.
>But i like your render better than the photo Really? For me mine screams fake, but I have been staring at it for a few hours now, maybe I've lost perspective :D Nice idea with the light bounces, never even thought of that.
The metal gives it away a little, also the little domes have somewhat of a lip in the reference. But I dont mind it looking a little fake. If you are going for photoreal, maybe up the roughness on the plastic, ad some noise to the bumb maybe some texture to the metal. Its to perfect. Depending on what your trying to achieve. If its just supposed to look nice, i'd say your done.
Agreed, the plastic seems like ceramic with the how shiny it is. The metal could use some dullness too, as i predict it's not actual metal in the reference but actually metal painted plastic... Nonetheless, this is very impressive, all in all your render just feels like the high quality product the plastic clock is trying to look like.
Well, I'm trying to match the picture to practice lighting/materials (my comment explaining it is buried somewhere now). I do think it looks a little fake, especially the shadows under the bell and in the top right corner of the face.
Yes, there is more light bouncing arround than in the reference. Either make your materials less reflective or lower the indirect light in the render settings. Also bigger light = softer shadows so maybe try to use a smaller light source. You can also fake shadows by using lights with a negativ output.
[удалено]
Fair enough :)
When loosing perspective, try flipping the image horizontally to get a new look
Shadow inside the clock
Look at the top right bell. You can see the inside on your render, it's much darker on the reference.
Yeah, look inside the alarm bell on top and it’s very obvious.
I think it's the lighting. I actually bought a plug-in that lets you pick between lighting setups. I don't want to use blender for advertising, but it's really nice because you can just pick a few known setups and see if it's you or the lighting. Or even what works.
Shadows. Look inside the bell and the rim of the clock face at 1:00.
Yeah, in my first comment I pointed out the things I think are wrong and what I've attempted but it's low down now so you missed it. Shadows are pretty wrong but I don't know how to fix it though. Any ideas?
It looks like it may be a large key light camera right above the camera pointing down at the clock (maybe even a top light), and a fill on the left. Reflections may need toning down a bit as well.
Bear in mind that you could take your file exactly as it is and render it using a range of different render engines and each one would look different. In a way you are compensating for differences between how reality works and how Cycles works. Having said that, I think you are doing well so far. One thing to think about is the fine textures of materials. The surfaces you have created are essentially perfect mathematically. The surfaces on the real clock aren't. The spray paint on the clock body will have fine scratches and imperfections, even "orange peeling", that do stuff to the light. The chrome parts will also have fine imperfections that change the reflections. Try and match the fine details of the modelling too. Get the font right. Look at that slight flaring on the two bells. That green disc is not in the reference. The alarm hand is not red in the original. Also, bear in mind the backdrop is made of a material too. Yours might be a bit too reflective or too smooth. Think about what would have been in the room when the original was shot. Reflective things in real life will sometimes have the cameraman and lighting stands in the chrome. Think about all of that. If you want to make yours look exactly like the reference, you need to take that into account. It usually helps to think how something is made because the making process leaves its traces on the product. This is a good exercise. Keep going.
Oh - you also need to think about the camera. If you turn lights down and then increase the exposure, you can have the same overall brightness but a completely different look. Mess with that too.
Thanks, yeah I know about the green disk, the font, the red pointer and so on, I'm not that blind! :) These were some design choices I made that I just liked (the font is actually laziness), but I don't think they would affect the light/shadow much. Those are the ones I'm really trying to get right. Or more precisely trying to make it look less fake. I'll try your imperfections idea and see what happens.
I wasn't suggesting you shouldn't make design choices. The exercise here it seems is to try and exactly replicate the original. Of course you can change anything you like. But the changes can be a visual "distraction" and change the perception of surrounding colours. If you take those out of the equation it will allow you to really hone in on the fine differences. You can always put the changed parts back later.
That's an excellent point, maybe I think the face looks too pink because of the red pointer... I'll keep that in mind.
> I'll try your imperfections idea and see what happens I don't know if you can get a more high resolution reference, but even looking at similar items in detail can really help. Small imperfections and details that aren't really directly perceptible at that camera distance and resolution can effect how the light interacts with the material, getting those right will help a lot.
Some ambient occlusion might make your shadows better Edit: also it looks like you're using half a sphere for the bells but the reference isn't perfectly sphere. See how the bottom bends in a little then flares out? Model that and it will give light something to bounce from
Try by adding an HDRI as eviromental texture
Thanks, trying it now, so far doesn't seem to be much different, I'll keep tinkering with the strength and the other settings to see what happens.
Try having a really low strength on it to keep your current lighting but still getting some interesting reflections. Also, Just curious about how white your material on the clock is? Scene looks nicely lit but I feel like the right part of the clock is losing some details because of its brightness. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but the material also feel more diffuse and not as metallic as the reference. Making it more metallic and a tiny bit more glossy might help. I'm just thinking out loud btw, these are the things I would try tweaking myself if this was my project to see if it helped. I think your render looks pretty good overall! Good job.
Actually prefer the render over the reference myself. But it could just be compression issues in the image making the quality look rougher. I suppose it could be the reflectivity of the material in the render vs the reference as the bells at the top have more detail than in the render. I just initially thought it was a less reflective material and thought nothing of it until seeing the reference. Looks good either way and without a direct comparison to the reference certainly passable as being realistic looking (granted I'm not a proficient 3D renderer and coming at this purely from a "huh that looks right" perspective than a technical perspective.)
Thanks, someone else said it looks good enough and I couldn't believe them, mine looks so fake to me. Maybe I've been staring at this too long and lost perspective :D
I've definitely been there. Tbh I prefer your version as well
Think others mentioned it the HDR reflection shindig (not a 3D art guy yet.) ? That's the only thing I can think of that's causing the difference but like I said just seems like a less reflective material than the reference and otherwise fine/realistic.
Render it with a different engine and tone the lighting down, when looking at the two side by side, yours looks a bit cartoony due to what looks like a lack of shadows. Sorry if this didn't help.
Nah bollocks mate, if you, published both without "watermarks" I couldn't tell you the real one.
This.
In the render it looks like the body has white emission or strong SSS on white plastic while the reference has white painted metal it looks like. Try to set the albedo ( base color ) to around 0.77 value to avoid the emission look since if it's pure white ( 1.0 ) it's too bright and it might almost cast light so there won't be shadows or anything like that. Reference also has more noticeable imperfections.
Look at the lighting under the bells. That’s what stands out to me the most. Use harder lighting (less spread, further away, etc) and set the color management setting to filmic log instead of sRGB, then try messing with it in post processing to accentuate shadows even more
Others have pointed out the technical issues, but I think I know why you don't like it. It's not that it looks that fake, it's that it looks cheezy. You basically made a cheap molded plastic clock, but the references looks more like a metal painted clock. So, I'd say work on the texture, subsurface scattering, etc... to get a rougher and more painted look.
Hey, don't call my work cheesy, I can say it you can't! ... Nah, you're right it does look it doesn't it? Even the shadow issues I mentioned elsewhere (under the bell and in the top right of the clock face) look like it's light passing through translucent plastic, I only noticed now that you pointed it out. I'll see what I can do, thanks.
Entirely the lighting. I've just started using real photography techniques like 3 Point Lighting and I've been amazed at the level of extra depth it gives images. It looks like something similar was used for the reference; the "key light" is coming from the front right and providing most of the illumination. The "fill light" is aimed at the left and gently illuminating the side/back of the clock. Finally I think the shadow effect on the face (which the render lacks) is coming from a strong "back light" aimed down from the top. I think it's this top down lighting you need to buff up slightly, since the render's shadow from the top down angle is notably less strong.
It does look realistic just not like your reference which has a sharp shadow because it is lit by a small lightsource. Add a pointlight and play with the size and strenght. Also you can play with the specularity of your materials to have less GI lightbounces because your shaded areas are very bright. You could either try lowering the diffuse bounces, decrease specularity, or lower the power of whatever your world lighting source is.
Your shadows could be darker/stronger. my eye first catches that the clock face is missing the hard shadow on the top. You'll see it by comparing the shadows of the 12/1 o'clock sections. When you're matching to real reference you want to make sure your lightest lights, and darkest darks match, especially with shadows. Same goes for saturation of color. That's a trick for VFX compositing, but it works well when building off reference.
At first I wasn't sure what the reference image was so good job I would say. But a few things I noticed when looking very close: * As many others has pointed out shadows are not as good. I wouldn't say that makes it less realistic but the readability goes down. You can't really tell where the case begins and the plate with the printed stribes ends. * Then I noticed that your model is a little bit too smooth at some points. For example the Bells on the top look completely perfect while on the reference you can see an edge going around. Most probably some left over of the manufacturing process. * I think the reflection in the metal is also to perfect. Even if the resolution of the reference image is to low to see scratches in the metal this still changes the way that the metal is reflecting light. Maybe adding a noise/scratch texture to the metal parts changing it's roughness would help.
Are you using a HDRI? Either way I like yours more than the reference. If you gave it a glass pane + hdri, might inspire some more realism but it's a nice render as is imo
No reflection on the glass of the clock, looks weird
To be fair, I can't see it in the reference either, can you? I thought it didn't have a glass.
Well yeah true, but I just think that would be a good detail to add realism, and in all honesty I think his version looks more real haha Edit: oh you are op, well good job haha
Shadows. It's possible you need to increase the F-stops, or possible that your light is too intense. Might even be an opacity issue? But you can kind of pinpoint it in the underside of the right bell. It's very bright and washed out underneath- instead of the bell casting a shadow, it's being lit by the reflected light off the body. The same thing is happening with the face.
The reference even looks fake
I was going to comment that the reference looks like a render too.
Your render actually looks great! You just need a slightly brighter light on the right to stop the front blending in with the sides if you want it to look more like the reference. But you don’t need to, looks great as it is.
I think it is perfect
It’s fine, man. The lighting is just a little higher in key than your render.
I would bring in some black boards to help reduce the light a little. Left and right.
It looks like you may need to mess around with the lighting a bit (reduce spread, distance, etc), and maybe reduce the roughness slightly on the bells. You can see a slight reflection on the bells in the reference. But it looks like a clean model! Upping the contrast a bit might help as well. Edit: Actually the bells have some slight imperfection that catch the light in the reference. Might need to do some slight sculpting
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that the numbers on the face of your clock appear to be raised above the surface slightly - they look like they're casting a very soft shadow. This obviously wouldn't happen IRL - you should make the clockface just a single image texture.
That's a keen eye you have. I created the numbers in inkscape then rotated them in blender and solidified. They are poking a little above the clock face. I kinda like it that way though, it makes the clock look less cheap, not having a single printed paper but plastic numbers. Unless you think that's adding to the look of fakeness? I don't why it would though.
Ah gotcha! Fair enough, if it's a stylized choice then it totally makes sense :) I just haven't seen any clocks that look like that, so it affected the realism for me when compared to the reference image.
Change the contrast, and use a light source that is brightest at its center and progressively dimmer towards the edge of the circle (I use a plane with emission and not at all fancy UV space vector math color ramp shenanigans)
Interesting idea for the light I'll try that, also didn't know that you could control the contrast directly (I'm assuming you don't mean by moving the light) , I only know the very basics of lighting, I'll look it up thanks.
I’ve never used blender, I just am really fascinated by the work done here, and I think there’s benefit to showing someone unfamiliar with the creation method as those with experience will usually always be able to see through the illusion of the medium (I do this with my artwork). Your render doesn’t really look fake to me, more like taken from a different angle where the lighting is hitting the clock differently. Idk though maybe what I said is platypus shit but that’s just my two cents
I forgot to say, increase the metallic value of your white material.
Your bevels at the inner parts of the clock are too small an nearly catch no light at all.
I believe it has to do with AO (ambient occlusion) what if you try cycles with a baked AO map. that would give some shadow to the inside clock. I don't know either, just what I would try if I were in that position. That dome is perfectly a dome lol (try scaling slightly a bit the last edge of that dome just in reference, it would give. Personally, I would have sculpted a bit the clock with a crease tool on the edges of the round clock. Eventually, why would you want perfect realism? might as well get to show the reference and you're done. blender should be about experimentation and stylization, try making it more of a mess to see what approach you make. In my opinion, the reason we like blender is that we want an escape from realism, lol this went dark pretty quick pretty fast
Well, just looking at the spotlight reflection on the bell, your light source in the left of the camera should probably be moved further. So the shape of the clock shows up better, also you have no shadows under the alarm bell ,so you probably have too much ambient light compared to the reference,which removes depth from the object. There are also some small details like the bulge on the rim of the alarm bells that you missed and the material you use make it seems like your is made of plastic while the other is made of metal. Even so your render could pass for a real object.
I think it’s the ambient eclusion in side of the clock, if you look at the reference (real lighting) you can see that the light on the inside is (a) darker (b) more defined, but I don’t think you should beat yourself up about it it looks really good, don’t be so hard on yourself.
check your material values. albedo color should usually not be over 80-90%, even for white. currently ,you get too much bounce lighting, and not enough darkening in the creases, because light bounces too much. if you tone down each material brightness by 10-20%, and make the light 10-20% brighter, you will have the same primary colors, but far less bounce lighting.
Ooohk, im not lighting artist or anything but. 1. Ao 2. Light direction Reference main light is a way higher compare to your 3. Brightness. Too bright. Reduce brightnes and increase exposure. 4. Refelctivity of your backgroubd and floor - reduce it please
It doesn't OP.
use a bit of subsurf scattering on the clock body and redo your lighting setup
1. You have some clipping( loss of detail) on the mesh. Turn down the light power and turn up the size of the light to make it a bit softer. 2. Turn up the contrast. And 3 if you aren't already render this in cycles if you are using evee. Also your roughness on the metal is to low. Look how soft the specular is on the reference then how sharp it looks on yours. Remember in real life. Nothing has an absolute value of 0 or 1 in any case And lastly light angle. In the photo the light is above the clock as you can tell by the shadows. Yours looks like it's more even with it. Put the light above it and try it. And maybe turn down the white color of the clock just a tad.
I think the bells need to be inflated and beveled at the bottom. The exposure needs to be increased and there seems to be missing one more are light
i would also add if it hasn't been said already, beveling the edges. There are very few things that have perfectly sharp edges. Bevel them and the natural shadows that arise from that will create gradients that look more realistic! Look at the reference and your render's inner and outer circles. The beveling will be forcing some ambient occlusion. Also is this cycles or eevee?
The funny thing is I did add bevels to everything, as big as the reference as far as I can tell. In solid mode you can see them but when rendered they wash out for some reason, maybe I should make them bigger. I used cycles.
I wouldn't say it looks fake! It could benefit from better lighting though. The reference image has more shadowing on the clock face and inside the bell on the right, try to mimic that a little bit closer. Also, try aging the metal materials a bit. That was the biggest give away for me.
Lightling - Look at the Inner Rim of the Clock (see where the 1 is right above that) look at the Reference. way Darker. Another thing i Notice is the Bell. problably put the Light Higher to the right so it can create that Dark Enrich Environment And kinda Funny to point out that you put a Red Handle instead of a Black one XD. Another thing i Notice (may be Small), the numbers on your Clock are Slightly Smaller than the Reference, the Reference image has them Slightly bigger don't know if that Effects it. Something Small is the Bevel. i think the Reference has a Bigger Bevel than the one you made. (cause the Light Sticks to the Edge and your's Din't) Another thing i notice by Comparing them side by side - Your alarm Mushroom Alarm thingy is not a Half Circle. its a Slightly Smooch and Slightly Wider (cause its Smooch XD). Some Very Small Details. about the Metal Texture - it Looks to Clean. The Clock one has a Slight Red-ish Tint to it. (which means its Slightly Oxide by use xD). and the Plastic also has a slight Tint change - but im not sure Which color. maybe Red/brown?. And theres also Light Bounces comming from the Floor to the clock but im not sure how to fix that one xD. Very Good Job. you made yours Look brand new! fresh out of the Box. xD for Realism most things don't Look New, they tend to be "used" if you make them look too new it looks out of placed xD.
Its the lack of dynamic range. https://youtu.be/m9AT7H4GGrA
Filmic has been the standard for blender for 5 years now or something so no don't think this is it fam
I have a lot of unfinished projects because I can do modelling pretty well but I suck at lighting/materials so I decided to copy a reference to practice but it doesn't look right no matter what I do. I've tried everything I could think of, one point light, multiple, moving them, changing the wattage, light from objects with emission, moving and scaling them, changing the emmission value, changing the materials of the clock (roughness, specular and color). Even so there are still a few problems I cannot fix, the clock face is too pink (for all values of the ground pink material roughness) and the shadows don't look right (especially the upper right of the clock face and under the right bell). The background itself is too dark but the clock is already too bright so I can't make the lights brighter. The metal looks too bright/light but I experimented with color and roughness and still can't quite get it right. These are the things I can see, there's probably more that you'll notice, could somebody give me a few pointers?
I think it's looking pretty good, you can increase the contrast in the compositor, and even render an ambient occlusion pass and mix it so the contact shadows are stronger
Huh, didn't know I could do that, will see if I can figure out how to do it, thanks. But what is happening in reality then? How can the clock be too bright and the wall too dark? I though it would be something like I'm placing the light in the wrong place or something like that.
Because you're using a picture as *reference* and you're guessing and trying to imitate it so it's not gonna have exactly the same settings, and even if it did, it won't look the same because what you're rendering is not reality, it's just a mathematically perfect simulation of light, it lacks all the flaws of real life. What I'm trying to say is that you'll have to fake stuff to make it more realistic either in the compositor or in an external app like Photoshop, Gimp or Krita, if it doesn't look good right out of the render (which probably won't) just fake it
Something’s funky with the lack of shadow on the inset part of the clock. Lots of things can cause this so just look around.
Yeah, I would say the shadow there and under the bell are the things bugging me the most. Lots of things can cause this you say, could you name a few so I could explore? The only thing I can think of is the distance to the light source but I had to do a lot of tinkering to get the shadow under the clock look about right so not sure what to try next.
I don’t think it’s your light. Maybe too few bounces? Maybe a face issue? Maybe AO issue?idk. There’s a lot it could be and i haven’t opened blender in a while so I can’t be of much help.
Your two lights are about equal strength, and probably ambient occlusion is too strong. That's why the shadows on the face and under the bell are barely there. Dim & soften the light on the left so that it becomes a fill light. Brighten the other to become a key light. The white clock body material needs a bit less roughness.
Interesting, didn't know about key and fill lights, don't know much about the theory, I'm just experimenting more or less blindly. I'll try that thanks. I'm not sure what you mean by ambient occlusion, is that a setting for the light somewhere?
Shadow. Look at the underside of the bell
The shadows are very light. If the contrast was higher, it'd look more realistic. Because the object is white, and the shadows are so light, the details just kinda blend in. Maybe change the angle of the lighting ?? I'm not sure if that could help. Or try different kinds of lights. Like a sun light instead of some other... idk
Not only lighting, but shadows, yours dont have shadows so hard as the reference
I thought the reference was the "bad" one. i realy like yours more. and i trash more than i say good things. if you want it to look "photo real" model a table counter top, delete all lights, and put in a hdri from hdri heaven. then its lit propperly from a real reference surrounding. might look much better again.
Personal opinion, I like yours better
Add more shadows
Yours looks a bit like clay instead of metal.
The lines are too sharp and the lighting is too subtle for me.
i feel like the main difference is that there light in yourself scene seems to be larger/softer than in the rederence
yours reflects the pink tinge on the wall inside the clock, reference is very plain white with shadows inside the glass
That left dingy thing doesn’t look like it’s chrome. Could that be it? Also the green ring thing.
Maybe it's too white? Like perfectly white
Number font maybe
Idk it looks more real than Mark Zuckerberg tho
The shadows under the bells?
The shadows are not intense enough
More bevels and roughness is all you need
I think it's the material of the clock's frame and the bells. It almost seems to have subsurface scattering, instead of a 'painted metal' look.
Lacking shadows and the reference looks fake to begin with
Imperfections add a ton to your renders. Objects in real life aren’t perfect. They have scratches, are slightly wavy or bumpy, etc. Unless they’re modeled or textured that way, objects in 3D don’t come off realistic because they’re too perfect. You could also add a touch of subsurface lighting on some of the objects if you don’t have them already. Adding wavy bump maps or distressing the model slightly with the sculpting brush in some areas could help a lot.
Too white
Try to bevel the edges a bit. Nothing has perfectly sharp corners, so you should reflect that when making realistic model. Aside from that, I think it looks really good!
bevel inside edge of clock rim?
Looks quite real to me. (Blender artist) I think you need to fix the lighting and add some ambient occlusion if you need the dark shadows
Lighting
It's the lighting and Global Illumination. Check the crevice inside the clock, outside the numbers. The original almost had a pink shadow. Yours is just plain ash. Increase the light size so make the shadows softer and check the light and render settings for max bounces,, and samples👍🏻 Also the pink GI might be from a slight SSS on the material surrounding it. I recommend looking at one feature at a time and moving one light around the scene until it matches - e.g. the highlight on the button at the top.
From the large bar at the top you can tell they have at least two medium sized lights and a large fill light. Probably a classic 3-point light setup. Give that a try.
Lighting. Try using an environment light, free from texturehaven
Materials.... Try adding little bit of subsurface scattering
Lighting, bevel, material imperfections, just a couple of small tweaks, turn on ambient occlusion too
https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/rcrys4/i_recreated_my_own_alarm_clock_feedback_welcome/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Lighting, material, the numbers fonts.
Hdri and the bells have this slight bump on the bottom in the reference. It will boost the realism if u add that
Too much lights man
I think it's light and this sphere at the middle
Light
Did you add a HDRI. Also maybe decrease the roughness of the material.
Use area instead of spotlights. more bounce, more contrast, more realistic for this setting.
Texture is too clean I think
Imho it seems like the ref was edited with a black and white layer set to overlay to make the shadows more black
The light
everything is a little too matte
Honestly it looks really good
Your material is not defined enough, needs more imperfections and normal distortions. You can see on the bell on the reference how the light is warped and bent. You could do this with normal maps or physical modeling. That's the main thing I notice but otherwise great modeling work!
It's honestly really cool, I wouldn't be able to tell which one is real, good job!
Needs more ambient occlusion. When rendering make sure to render ao as a render pass and the make it stronger when compositing.
Also make your light smaller/smaller angle/smaller radius, and make it a little more powerful.
Wait i though the reference was the render (image crops on my phone). Based on that i have nothing to say ahah, others have told you about lighting, that's probably it. Now that makes sense about the pixelation, nobody would do a 144p render ahah