Presentation Techniques

jonnydjango

Hello, i am a Character Designer/Modeller and i struggle a bit with presentation.
What is the best way to present a model in your opinion?
Do i need a ground to catch a shadow, or is a color background with vignette in Marmoset ok?
To model a stand, everytime i want to show a model is a bit to time consuming in my opinion.
What do you think about this?

Cheers
Helmut

Daew

I absolutely suck at presentation, but its something im trying to improve.

So these are just some of my thoughts.

The model is the main focus so make sure the post processing and crazy backgrounds are used to enhance and not take it away. They shouldn't overpower the model, i.e check your contrast.

everytime i want to show a model is a bit to time consuming in my opinion

:< you put all that hard work into making a model and you don't want to show it to its highest potential? It might look good in your view-port but if you don't present it well in your beauty shots, what's the point?

look at photographers/good photographs and how they light stuff. their job is all about presentation, (though I have no idea how to find good photographers ><.)

lastly keep things simple

Joost

Daew wrote: »

look at photographers/good photographs and how they light stuff. their job is all about presentation, (though I have no idea how to find good photographers ><.)

This is great advice imo! Actively doing photography also helps a lot with lighting and composition. I'd even recommend reading books like this one [ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Light-Science-Magic-Introduction-Photographic/dp/0240812255"]Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting: Amazon.co.uk: Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, Paul Fuqua: 9780240812250: Books[/ame] though it might be a bit boring for some people?

Also just browse through https://500px.com/popular?categories=People to see some good examples.

jonnydjango

I learned a lot about lighting. Thats not exactly what makes me struggle. It´s the decission, if it´s necessary to build a whole scene to present my characters or is there a good and practical way to do this, whitout spending so much time and to a environment for the character?

Shrike

We had a good thread last time where I also spammed a lot of pictures, ill see if I can find it

Edit: hmm very hard to find ..

Its definitly worth spending a fair share in presentation, it can bring your piece from average to fantastic

Its best if you look at how other industries do this, the graphic design and mostly photography guys. Most game artists don't spend a lot of time and imagination, here are some of which I posted last time, can be extrapolated to characters



Here with a simple floor and nice soft lighting resulting in a very nice gradient
Knowing offline rendering and proper techniques certainly pays off



I choose this to demonstrate usage of custom made HDRIs and spending time on lighting, he used a strong rim light and very nice contrasts, the tasteful logo is a nice touch (although the background is just black,) -this is a photograph.



Probably not the best graphic design, but its completely different approach, showing that you put time and thought into the subject and making it a lot more authentic and reasonable and works very well.

This works for characters too:



Same concept



Not so much a fan of the model, but the presentation is bold and people are generally too afraid of using color. You won't forget this one.



Still no environment has been modeled around, plain floor and a little nice effects + nice colors and lighting. For cars and such the custom HDRIs are very important.




Here a assortment of assets that fit the theme of the main asset. Sure that would be a bunch more time to model, but as you see the result is very harmonic and truly exceptional.

Remember any artwork can be translated to 3d


This is now painted but this background could as well exist in 3D or photoshop for your character or X, the sky is the limit. This is maybe double the effort over doing the character in T-Pose, but its worth a multiple more.

If you go for characters, poses and dynamics are important, you want to convey theyre real personalities.






All this is is a bit of rain, blue and a strong impression



You want to evoke a feeling by viewing, something the cars and weapons can hardly do, you can do a lot with just a simple background. You also don't have to show it all, head to foot. But we are talking world class here, don't know what
your level is. A tasteful background gradient and good lighting will do for the start,
(3 point+ setup) and starting with poses and skin shaders would be a nice thing that will pay off in the future when it is mastered

jonnydjango

Hey Shrike!
Thank you. This is a lot to think about. And it is definitely what i was after.

This was the image i was talking about. I´ve modeled it and i´ve had some feedback, that i got to work on my presentation... The people liked the model and the lighting but not the overall presentation.
I try to get some inspiration from your provided examples!

Eric Chadwick

The biggest problem I see with your presentation is there's no shadow on the ground. It's lit and posed as if standing on a ground, but it's floating. Just put a grey floor there and let it cast a shadow.

clinington

Daew wrote: »

look at photographers/good photographs and how they light stuff. their job is all about presentation

Agree with this, sketching and taking photographs in your down time is a great way to improve your understanding of lighting and will help with presentation

Kevin Albers

I think something similar to the race car's presentation would look great for that robot. Floor, background fx, shadows, AO and nice custom HDRI reflections.

imyj

The biggest thing for me in your robot render is the overpowering bloom where the light is hitting the model. It's distracting. Best setup is to recreate a lightbox effect, used for showcasing products generally as the background isn't distracting and doesn't have any unnecessary details. Just well lit, with soft shadows.

Best reference I could find would be to look up 'ThreeA' on Google Images. Their product shots are always simple and clean and follows on from what Eric and Kevin are saying.

Notice how your vignette is on the whole frame, whereas most lightbox shots will have an area of interest to create focus on the object.

kanga

The pose you are using shows no visual perspective cues. Like everyone says you could provide a shadow but also you could align the feet and take a shot from human eye height. Good perspective also has to do with clever composition. Right now the image shows floating stuff instead of a heavy mech.

Jonas Ronnegard

As others have said the pose looks quite awkward also I would try to get in some floor shadows without any visible walls just as imyj's picture shows.

And you should probably play around with the lighting a bit more, maybe try a 3 point setup with a cold warm color contrast

jonnydjango

Ok... first of all: This feedback and your help are just amazing. I´m a fool, not to try out this forum sooner.

I try to recapitulate:
Use a Background
More Contrast in the lighting colors
Another perspective
if i want to show the whole model, i need a shadow (no floating mechs)
no overpowering in the lighting

This is my try on that. I like the style of the presentation of the "bertie"-Robot. Maybe i go that 3-images in one presentation. This was just to change some stuff as you suggested.

Edit: for some reason my image would not be displayed in the post... if you click on it, you´ll see it. (if you got some adivice in this case for me, it is very welcome )

jonnydjango

Here is another shot with a Studiobackground, rendered in Marmoset:


And here is another, the mech together with a worker, wich i also created:


What do you think?

chronic

Already looking so much better. I think you might want to get those dark shadow areas a bit lighter, the contrast is pretty harsh right now. Thats just my taste, but if you look at some of the ref posted earlier they don't have such harsh lighting.