Newbie searching for critique
Hi there, I'm pretty new to your forum 
I've been invited here by friendly artist (creator of Crysis 3 game environment). He told me that I can always search for any kind of help in here! So here I come. It's my hobby to model things in 3D (I'm using Cinema 4D because Blender seems a little... complicated to me), but I'm learning a little to slow (Video tutorials are boring me... I love to explore and discover things by myself. 95% of what I can now is self-learned.). Best source to learn for me is just watching other jobs and trying to achieve similar effect OR just reading critiques!
But no more about me, it's just a raw render of 3D object (old ceramic vase) in Cinema 4D (R15). I'd love to see some tips or challenges or... you know what I mean (I'm really open to criticism). I'll attach project file as well.
Project file: http://www.speedyshare.com/eHfKY/Ceramic.c4d
Image size: 1280x1024
What I'd love to see:
- how can I improve my render quality?
- how can I hasten render time without penalties in quality of image?
- overall critique focused on MATERIAL
P.s. I didn't set camera, it's just a random view.
Thank you so much for your attention and answers!
ALSO SORRY IF THE FORUM CATEGORY IS WRONG. I'VE BEEN ALWAYS BAD AT CHOOSING IT.
I've been invited here by friendly artist (creator of Crysis 3 game environment). He told me that I can always search for any kind of help in here! So here I come. It's my hobby to model things in 3D (I'm using Cinema 4D because Blender seems a little... complicated to me), but I'm learning a little to slow (Video tutorials are boring me... I love to explore and discover things by myself. 95% of what I can now is self-learned.). Best source to learn for me is just watching other jobs and trying to achieve similar effect OR just reading critiques!
But no more about me, it's just a raw render of 3D object (old ceramic vase) in Cinema 4D (R15). I'd love to see some tips or challenges or... you know what I mean (I'm really open to criticism). I'll attach project file as well.
Project file: http://www.speedyshare.com/eHfKY/Ceramic.c4d
Image size: 1280x1024
What I'd love to see:
- how can I improve my render quality?
- how can I hasten render time without penalties in quality of image?
- overall critique focused on MATERIAL
P.s. I didn't set camera, it's just a random view.
Thank you so much for your attention and answers!
ALSO SORRY IF THE FORUM CATEGORY IS WRONG. I'VE BEEN ALWAYS BAD AT CHOOSING IT.
Replies
Are you looking to make game art, or just 3d art for fun? If you're looking to make game art I would render in something like Marmoset, Unreal, or Unity and learn the process of baking the necessary texture maps and making low-res geometry. If you're just looking to make some nice objects you can render, I think your quality is fairly nice. For a simple prop like this I wouldn't render it alone, and I'd probably add some kind of environment map for reflections if you don't have one. As for increasing render time, if you want to stick with a non-real-time renderer I'd say getting a faster machine would do it. So would reducing texture resolution. I'd also look into Keyshot, it works wonders for me when rendering high poly assets. As far as the object/material, I'm not sure what it's supposed to be so it's hard to critique it. So what is it? A clay pot? If this was a real object, who made it and how? Without answering those questions, all I can tell you is that it looks a little too uniform. Having some areas of high and low detail for contrast would help. This is a fairly simple object though, so it's hard to really get much out of it. I'd recommend modeling something a little more complicated. Or try doing some sculpting on it, and try to get something ancient looking, like the image below:
Anyway, I hope this helps!
Dear Jfitch
So once again thank you for reply! And now, hmm... What was there... I'm doing 3D stuff for myself to enjoy looking at my improving skills (Hobby - also putting some stuff on deviantArt [Link] but only from time to time and most of these works are made with no more than hour) but I also would love to make some 3D models for some kind of mods for games etc. (I always wanted to see my stuff in game!). I've been working with Unreal engine - also made fan game for friends which unfortunately was never finished... . Now I'm trying to make some basic objects for the Trine 2 game (Engine Frozenbyte [Link] ).
Example of my longer works (filled with more love) which I'm really proud of:
Also thank you for recommending me a Keyshot - it looks really nice and simple! I will surely try it out.
About the pot... it was supposed to be a clay pot kind of older but still not to highly damaged... but now I think you are right - It's not a good example to critique (here comes the lamp!).
As I earlier mentioned in this post (this one which disappeared) I will (and done yesterday) post Lamp which will be made with more complicated tricks and procedures than this clay pot before.
Link to the project file of the lamp (Cinema 4D R15): http://speedy.sh/bhnuE/LAMPA.c4d
The best way we can help you is if you pick a piece of concept art and try to recreate it that way we can see your end goal and steer you in the right direction.