Rendering Workshop - Wood Cabinets

[Al Hart]

Recently, in another forum, I was discussing ways to improve a rendering of a wooden cabinet. I realized that all of us might appreciate some practice and advice on rendering wood.

I "borrowed" a 3D Warehouse cabinet from Dilbert, and placed it in a simple room with some ceiling tiles. See how you can improve this model and create a nice rendering.

Here is the model with cabinets and a room:

cabinet1.skp

Tips:

1. Some lights might help.
2. Real Wood cabinets of show highlights from reflections and lighting.

(Sample photo of real cabinets)

3. You may want to improve the model with softer or smoother edges and surfaces. If you do, tell us what you did and give us some tips on how to do it.

(Detail of SketchUp model)

Take a shot and see what you can do, and be sure to offer tips for those of us who are not familiar with some of the things which help make better renderings.

Guidelines

These Workshops are not a contest. People new to rendering can use them to experiment and get feedback and advice from other SCF readers. People with more experience can show us what they can do and demonstrate interesting techniques.

This Workshop is about rendering, not modeling. You can modify the model, add other geometry, add other 3D warehouse items, etc. But keep in mind that we want to see what you can do to make these existing models more presentable.

This is about all aspects of rendering - SketchUp, external add-ons, post processing, PhotoRealistic, and Non-Photorealistic. Feel free to try anything.

Upload you images, your questions, your ideas. Lets see what we can do.