This is an image for a sample CD cover I did as an exercise. I challenged myself to go for photorealism, since it was such a simple composition. It's for a band that might be called "The Red Pill" (name is undecided, hence the "sample" part). The resolution is only 360x360, but it took almost 12 hours to render... Print size (1500x1500 for a 5" sq., 300dpi print) would take over 2 days! Going for the photo look, I used everything: a volumetric spotlight, soft shadows, blurred reflections and transparancies, and depth of field. So how did I do? Feel free to comment on the overall look as well as details like composition. I did everything in the scene by hand except the marble texture for the ground; that's a preset. If I ever do this for a final version, I'll probably switch that to a fine wood grain, like a polished tabletop. (more blurred reflections and longer renders, yay!) sigh... oh for a faster machine.

It's a nice image. A couple of observations: The glass looks a little bit like it's floating in the image. I think one partial reason for this is that the ground does not have a distant boundary. There is no point where one can differentiate between the ground and whatever else surrounds the glass. It also seems like the glass is a little bit too opaque. Just out of curiosity, what kind of system are you running to do this work? - Chas

My system specs are: Dual Celeron 466, overclocked to dual 525 468 MB ram Windows XP Pro Elsa geForce 2, 32MB I get right around a 9.0 on the Cinebench dual render benchmark, version 6. (by comparison, a dual Athlon MP 1900+ scored a 35.46 in a recent test by Tom's Hardware, and my other machine, a K6/2-350 running Win98, scored a 2.49, with a single CPU) As to the first point: it's difficult to get a horizon line with the darkness in the background, and I wasn't sure that it would go well with the closeup feel of the image. This is one of the reasons I was considering a wood finish for the ground, but I didn't have time to pursue that further. Would a fine-grain wood finish help add some visual perspective? Perahps I simply need to reposiiton the spotlight, so the shadow becomes more pronounced...

I can see the base of the glass, and to me it does appear to be resting on the surface, but I do have to admit it's maybe just slightly not. Maybe an optical illusion. I would suggest maybe not using blurred transparency. I like the surface, but I think a nice wood grain with a slight blurred reflestion might be cool, but I think I'd make it a glass tabletop with blurred reflections. But otherwise, it's got a dreamlike appearance to it, and if this were to be for a CD cover, I see no reason to drop that idea. As for photorealism, I think you got it pretty good, but again, the glass is sort of unusual, being so blurry.

I like the way the light hits the glass and pill. It is very attracting to the eye. Sharen

Nice image. Maybe depth of field effect is too large (pill and glass seem to be affected by it). Perhaps you could try to add a pill in the background (to improve depth of field feeling). I agree with chas2093 that ground seems to have too much bluring. Anyway, nice image, Tiggerbear ! Yves

heyas; the ground-to-wall deal doesn't bother me, because i'm used to seeing such things in photo shoots and advertisements and such. it looks like an illustration for some science/medical magazine. an airbrushed, one i mean. they do kinda neutral background on those. i think a hard table edge would necessitate a room background, and i think that would clutter up the image. you might try moving the camera up a tad and angling it down a bit more, so you wouldn't see much of a horizon anyway. not too much, though. i think the problem with the glass is the actual base of it is very transparent (under the blue bit) and hard to see. i would expect to see a harder shadow line where the base meets the table, a stronger differentiation. the composition is good. i like the pill's reflection and is that a real blurred red reflection on the other side of the glass? very nice touch.

Yes, bloodsong, the pic is an unretouched render, and I believe that is a secondary reflection behind the water inside the glass. I was pleasantly surprised to see it myself. =) I'm considering lowering the transparency level of the glass itself just a bit; that might show a bit "harder" of an edge at the table. Alternatively, I could do a little fancy Boolean work to create a "rounded" bottom, rather than the straight right angle of the cylinder. I think I'm also going to dim the light just a bit, or maybe just add more falloff. I'm not sure I like the stark contrast of the shadow edge running diagonally down from the lip of the glass. I don't think that the opacity of the glass is the issue (an earlier render with a different light showed much more transparency in the glass), rather I think that there's too much light "filling" the interior of the glass. I don't think I'll touch the camera angle or object placement, for fear of losing that very cool secondary reflection. I am, however, going to back off the DoF a bit, to pull more of the floor into focus. Any other thoughts, or reactions to my ideas here, let me know! Thanks for all the input so far.

I would agree the glass is placed correctly on the table, I think what is being see is lack of shadow under the glass due to the transparency. The DoF is far to excessive, that's what is causing the top of the glass to look opaque and foggy, that and a little too much light. A couple of suggestions, may or may not work, just haven't had enough time with view, yet. Change the table top to a semi-dark wood grain with light reflection capabilities. This will help with the glass to table top thing. Depending on the material used on the table top, a small plane, out of camera view, of course, reflecting on the table well behind the glass will give an edge to the table and allow a quick fade of the background, or a transparent plane angled and set into the table to give the same effects, have not tried this one in Vue and may not work at all. Good luck you've started great.