White Plastic with ARX

[bartn]

I'm new to ARX and have read much of the dialog on renderings on the forums over the last week or so, even the one with 91 pages!I am able to get some decent results but am having one problem I can't get past. I'm having trouble getting a good render of a white plastic part. For some reason, even though the real time render looks good, the final render looks dark andgray. I've messed with most all of the settings (lights, etc.)and brought in a floor texture from photoshop. I'm not applying the white as a texture. I'm just using Plastic as the class and setting the color at 250/250/250or there abouts using the basic or photolux tab. Can anyone suggest settings to get a realistic looking white injection molded plastic part?

 

[james.lynch]

I'd say it could bedown to your light colour - also make sure you turn off the default lights.. thay are grey..

 

[bartn]

Thanks James.


The default light color made a big difference. I adjusted the other light colors and got OK results. There just seems to be a very fine line between properly lighting the view and washing out the (white) part.

 

[james.lynch]

yeah, it's quite frustrating! and a lot more trial and error thtan I'd like..

 

[design-engine]

h*ll, there is a lot of trial and error in alias or maya
renderings. The trick is to change only one thing and render part of the
screen so you know how each item changed behaves.

 

[james.lynch]

but in fairness, there's expected trial and error and there's taking the pi$$... ARX seems to be MUCH more unsympathetic to small changes in one area affecting another.. Also, you simply haven't got the control over any of the important aspects such as HDRI, reflection ramps even proper lighting which you have on render packages of similar cost...


All this makes it next to impossible to match or reproduce something! but on the plus side, ARX has it's place and it's easy enough create something! ie, yo can make something look pretty, it just won't match what you'll end up with in production!


as they say.. just my $0.02c

James

 

[mgnt8]

Its too bad there's so little help on this subject available thru the usual tech support channels. Anyway, this tutorialmade a big difference for me. Lights are critical - there's some basic places to start, namely, KEY, FILL, & BACKLIGHT. Once you have those in place you can start to improvise to find the best look for your part.

 

[james.lynch]

yeah, I only saw this recently myself, and it is a great tutorial!