Photography vs Render - some sort of wager Tweet

[Angbor3D]

Intro
Am back into Octane for a week or so. Until the following happened:

I actually had a long conversation with a renowned photographer. On the one hand I asked for advice on photography and especially (studio) lightning. Simply since he is an expert in lightning. The conversation was grand. After like an hour or so (which felt like minutes) it turned out he never really tried 3D, but is heavily interested. He is sure it will play an even more important part in future in regards to professional photography - having a heavy impact on his work.

So it came all down to a studio scene we agreed upon. A studio scene he just shot: about a wine bottle.

Agreement
I create a realistic render of a wine bottle in a lightning he suggested. He sends his work afterwards to me and we compare and discuss the final results.

Status
Well...so I modeled a wine bottle: nothing too difficult until I came to materials... but more about that later on.

Project: wine bottle
scene: the scene is lit from the backside through translucent material diffusing the emitted light
addition: behind the camera is a diffuse light material to provide indirect light to the front of the bottle.

Materials V1
Glass and wine material V1: While the glass and wine material was easy (as well as the modelling after reading this forum and modifying recommendations to my needs for fluids in containers), I came to...
Paper label V1: My first shot was a translucent diffuse material.

Test render v1: This one went heavily wrong. Esspecially the indirect lightning killed the scene and it took forever to clear up. The wine, the glass and the label looked horrible.

Materials Vx
I spare you with my futile attempts...

Materials V16
Glass V16: The glass is a specular material with scattering and absorption with a small structure due to making the glass. The glass color is only due to absorption. Add some scatter and you got a glass material which isnt painted green, but completely tinted green.
Wine V16: Similar to the glass the wine has been setup to include all those particles in win, which provide a slick scatter effect.

Paper label V16: The label with a thickness of 0.12 mm (normal light paper thickness) is set up of three materials derived from one basic paper material.
- basic paper material: a translucent diffuse material with scatter and absorption tested in bright sunlight. Additionally a bump map for the paper surface as well as an absorption map to handle the "crushed stripes" which happen from production of cheap paper (you will see those against the light, where paper has been pressed shortly before being cut). Add a absorption modifier with a slight red tint and you are good for the inside material, as well as a light color for the diffuse surface. Basically I found: the realistic approach is best.
- background and sides: the basic paper material as mentioned before.
- front: this is made of two materials. First the black parts are actually a lacquer made of a glossy material. The rest of the label is tinted paper with the tint as diffuse. Add in another bump map for the glossy parts (the black writing and border) and you are good to go.[/list]

Bottom line on paper: lacque print on paper must be its own material, tinting paper isnt easy either or else it looks either wrong on the diffuse (eg. on table) or it looks wrong against light (absorption and scatter due to the paper and the tint).

Remarks
- To add realism, I also have slight "wrinkles" on the label due to gluing the label to the bottle.
- Indirect lightning is a KILLER, especially with light going through loads of layers of translucent and specular materials. This becomes worse when the main focus (the label) relies only on scattered light from the backside as well as backscattered light
- Render times... dont ask 22K samples minimum until the scene lights up. Probably need 50K samples for a clean render.
- Loads of Postpro to getrid of the noise.
- "A trick" with a diffuse scatter emitter in front with like 5W to "cheat" the long render times. Turns out I dont need it past 30K samples but I know that only since today. Starting at about 15K samples the scene lit up seems it took that long for RR=auto (with increased exploration) to find those.
- The effects especially on the paper are almost invisible. Try something similar and you realize the issues.
- In a good mood I might make a vid with "realistic" paper in bright sun light; maybe even of the bottle. This only to show the paper to light interaction, which looks pretty cool in bright sunlight.

Now I am curious....

I just sent the E-Mail to the photographer and leave it to you to discuss my result for now. Please be frank and open - dont hold back with criticism. Did I overestimate myself? Or the possibilities of rendering/Octane? Maybe both? Materials or anything else went wrong? Be frank and keep in mind its meant to be photorealistic.

[Andreas.visjon]

Hi,
3D visualisation is important part in photography, already these days.
It´s a nice challenge to rebuild the real properties of things and try to render them photorealistic.
But it´s not the way 3D can help a photographer. You should use all the "cheats", in 3D you can, so why not?

For sure you can try to get a result, but this will cost time.
Regarding your scene:
The studio lighting is not realy visible. Use the octane lights (not a diffuse light material to provide indirect light) to save rendertime
and to get control about the lighting.
The materials are looking quite good, as far as i can see cause of the dark lighting.

Some time ago I also tried to do something similar.
In this rendering i tried to light the scene like it will be in real. (I didnt put much afford on the materials)
I build 2 LEDs inside each cube with correct lume-value and in the bulb there is only the wire emitting light.

Also here, i guess with all "cheating" i could produce a more photorealistic image.

Anyway, if you have fun doing this challenge, keep going.

[Angbor3D]

The studio lighting is not realy visible. Use the octane lights (not a diffuse light material to provide indirect light) to save rendertime
and to get control about the lighting.

You mean IES lights? Not sure whatyou mean with Octane lights? Please tell.

Some time ago I also tried to do something similar.
In this rendering i tried to light the scene like it will be in real. (I didnt put much afford on the materials)
I build 2 LEDs inside each cube with correct lume-value and in the bulb there is only the wire emitting light.

Seems we have a similar attitude there. Actually I have a similar scene to that about two light bulbs....

[Angbor3D]

The studio lighting is not realy visible.

Err the light in the background actually is the studio lightning

[Andreas.visjon]

I mean just a simple octane area light.

Err the light in the background actually is the studio lightning

But in the photostudio you will have some reflectors to put some light to the front of the bottle, no?
You can use an area light with low value to create the same effekt, instead of placing a diffuse white plane there, so you will save the expensive indirect illumination.

[Angbor3D]

But in the photostudio you will have some reflectors to put some light to the front of the bottle, no?
You can use an area light with low value to create the same effekt, instead of placing a diffuse white plane there, so you will save the expensive indirect illumination.

But in the photostudio you will have some reflectors to put some light to the front of the bottle, no?
You can use an area light with low value to create the same effekt, instead of placing a diffuse white plane there, so you will save the expensive indirect illumination.

Yes and no.

In this scene there actually is a low-watt light in front.
- letting it hit the bottle directly was "intense". A lot of reflections, which killed the effect.
- in the end I also added a translucent material in front of the second low-wattage lamp, which only provides a very soft light.
- turned out that I dont need the front lamp when having long render times, because past 10,000 - 20,000 samples the scene starts to light up due to the front diffuse material. Adding the lamp brought "too much light" even while being very low power. The plane alone was sufficient like in real world photography yet leading to heavyily increased render times.

One exemplary raw render:

[ChrisVis]

Hi Angbor3D,

very interesting topic and project.
I tried something "similar" some time ago with a can-product shot somebody was asking advice for the lighting and ended up with this after playing around with it for 1 or 2 hours:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=33504&p=145717&hilit=coca+cola#p145717

It was meant as greenscreen-shot.

Your rendering looks really nice, but I think some slight light reflection from the side and/or some highlight spotting on the label would make it even better and a more shining product shot.
I like the backlight very much, but there is something missing in my opinion.

You also can try just to place simple white colored thin planes besides the bottle, just left and right from the camera out of the frame, for some slight reflections. Or place it just behind the camera and try to rotate it to get some interesting light gradient on the label.. similar for what you already did.
This is often done in studio photography with white or black paper or cardboard stripes to be seen as reflections (white) in the glass or to kill reflections (black). How sharp it is seen depends on the glass material settings, not on the plane material setting.
When it is to subtle, you can experiment with mixing material and add some light emission to the planes, if a area light is too much.
You can also experiment with the visibility of a area light emitter by adjusting the opacity... so the light is emitted, but you do not see the light emitter in the relfections.

Hope that gives some inspiration, looking forward to your project and the comparision to the real photo.
Greets,
ChrisVis

[abreukers]

hi folks. this would be more apt in the Resources and Sharing, a reference shadow of this topic is left at forum gallery though. cheers...

[Angbor3D]

Ok so my thread got moved and killed - no not really...

Hi Angbor3D,

very interesting topic and project.
(snip)
Your rendering looks really nice, but I think some slight light reflection from the side and/or some highlight spotting on the label would make it even better and a more shining product shot.
I like the backlight very much, but there is something missing in my opinion.
(snip)

Thx for the input. Yet it was about getting it done with one (1!) light source only. Also it turns out that we misunderstood each other (photographer and me - read next post).

[Angbor3D]

Status
======
So I sent the pic to my wager partner and also to another professional photographer (actually my brother in law - since we are no fans of each other, I can be sure he criticizes me, when he got a point).

wager partner: "Wow, I am impressed - still look at my still shots..."
photographer #2: "...looks dead, me not likes"

Turns out my wager partner had his light all tuned up, so basically the scene around the bottle is almost white on his shots. Basically we misunderstood each other and I will see to get into his work - again.

So here is his work and my new "target":