Here are my 3 renders. I like the lighting on the first one, but it doesn’t work very well for the other two. I think instead of using 3 different cameras, I would use his advice from the beginning of the course to child the lights to the camera, and move the camera around. I think that would help the other two renders look much better. I’ll probably try that in an upcoming lesson.
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Okay, not to sound full of myself, but I do have an honest question.
Is it my own bias, or did I do something different? Many chess sets, they look like 90’s graphics redux, as in, you can tell they’re CG. Mine I need to take a 2nd look to tell it’s CG, unless I look at the bishops, in which case, I can tell very quickly. What am I doing differently to make mine look more realistic, where others are more evidently CG? Is it the subdivision and smooth shading? Is it the lighting? I am a little confused. Or am I just seeing it that way because “it’s mine, so it’s obviously superior.” (said with an aristocratic English accent, of course) lol
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it all depends on your objectives. A great deal if not most doing these courses are doing so for game related ‘assets’ things that are in games. That requires ‘low poly’ to let the live rendering keep up. A great deal has to be faked. Now I also prefer the idea of making images that are as near as possible realistic. The path you appear to prefer too. Both are perfectly ok. I can spend days on a thing others knock up in five mins low poly and are happy with cartoony styles. I don’t have a hope to earn a penny from it though! lol.
Keep going you will get even better at your preferred destination as more techniques get covered.
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I understand the basics. I’ve made models for an indie game company before, so I understand the low poly stuff. It’s the realistic high poly stuff that I’m forcing myself to use here, and where my understanding is limited.
My question is mainly because I see other folks using subdivision and smooth shading, but their pieces still look VERY CG. So how is my scene different than theirs, that it looks more realistic? Is it the board maybe? I have no idea. I don’t want to link, because I don’t want to discourage anybody from continuing their Blender journey.
Hmm… I’ll render and post my low poly models tonight after work, and see if I still get the same feeling. If I catch myself playing with a setting to make it “look better” (subjective!) then maybe I’ll be answering my own question.
Okay, did my low poly renders this morning instead of last night. I think it’s the subdivision that’s making it more real. There’s definitely more of an air of CG for the low poly, as the edges get more jagged, and shadows distort. I would need to play with the shadows to make this look more real.
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I also set all my z rotations to something random, but kept the kings and knights facing 90% forward.
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Yes adding ‘human’ inaccuracies of placement and rotations will help ‘reality’.