In Need of Rendering Advice (for portfolio)

Fatman

I really focus on my 3D modeling. Sometimes I work on my textures, but I really lack the rendering experience to show them off. I'll update this thread with some of my work to get advice later, but I wanted to start by asking:

Do any users here have some good tutorials for how best to show off 3D models, especially untextured ones? I have tons of models I've done and a lot don't get textures by me. I hand them off to someone else in the project after I UV them.

MrCreator

Hey Fatman, if you dont have any experience in rendering you can learn Marmoset, Keyshot or mentalray.. If not, you can buy this pack here for about 50 bucks and it has many already set up renders, you just have to import your mesh in 3ds max and apply the material on it and then hit the render button.. Here is the link:

http://mikeanashtuts.blogspot.com/p/fake-it-scene-pack.html

That is working only on the untextured models good tho

ZacD

Yeah Marmoset is great for highpoly and game spec work, I'd consider getting it for both, why spend $50 on a set for just highpoly presentation, when you can spend $90 (for the next few days) and get a more flexible solution (and now WebGL).

You can also do the same thing with UE4 for free with the Advanced lighting template, but there's a bit more stuff that gets in the way, and you have to play with the lighting a lot more to get decent results, and less normal map tangent options, etc.

Fatman

I'll probably download the Toolbag 2 trial tonight to see how it is. I've rendered in UE3 before, I don't think it'd take me too long to get a turntable going in UE4. ZacD, do you have any links to some lighting tutorials?

I wonder, are there some people that keep a pre-made render scene in their files that they pull out whenever they need to make a beauty shot?

These are the kind of ideas I've been looking for. Please, keep them coming! I'm going to do some of this tonight after work. Most of my stuff isn't real high polycount. I tend to focus on med-low poly and re-topologizing.

TomGT

Look into three point lighting. It would really help set up your foundations of lighting no matter what program you use.

I do have a scene file in Maya that I keep with three lights just to get something started quickly, but I eventually tweak them much more to achieve a lighting setup appropriate for the subject.

Marmoset Toolbag is really good! Especially since its a real-time renderer with PBR capabilities. I just bought a license myself last night. Like ZacD said, its on discount for a few more days so consider it quick!

Fatman

Yeah, I saw the discount and I'm going to try it over the next day. I've seen it a lot here on Polycount and I'll decide whether or not to get a license.