Will vray rendered images ever replace the digital Camera?

tomot

I took it upon myself to get a new client on-board:

He is in the ornamental glass tile manufacturing business. He would like to reduce his brochure costs by using computer generated renderings of his products versus photographing his products in scenes using real props and real glass tile installations.

And he correctly identifies one issue, when I offer a computer generated image:
"can you make it look less computer generated" ....to which I have no easy answer, apart from add more Photoshopping features.

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=39954

Even if I were a Vray Rendering Genius, which I'm not, I could not possibly charge him for all the hours of rendering failures, I encounter daily.

The proper rendering of the cabinets, which are props, should by now, be a no brainer.
I should only be concentrating on the proper glass reflection properties. Which I'm happy to say may be getting there if I get more reflections on the glass which should naturally predominate in the scene, considering the nature of my clients product.

brodie

I'm not deep into Vray so I can't speak specifically to that program but rendering in general has replaced the camera in many cases. What you seem to be talking about is product-viz where renderings are quite common. Lighting of things like cars, jewelery, bottles of liquor, etc. can require very expensive setups and hours of manipulation involving a number of different shots which will eventually be put back into photoshop for manipulation.

In those sorts of situations it makes sense to look towards a rendered alternative - but realism is certainly key. If people see what's obviously a cg image, they won't immediately run away or anything but they'll still be looking for what the thing ACTUALLY looks like (so the rendering becomes a waste of time/money because they still want to see a photo). But if you can make a convincing image it can be attractive and people will buy into it.

Vray can produce photorealistic images but there's a big learning curve because of all of the settings which can inadvertently produce inaccurate results. Truly, as a biased engine Vray's settings are mostly there for you to tell Vray just HOW inaccurate it's allowed to be. If you're concerned about photorealism, in the short-term, you might consider a secondary unbiased solution. I use Maxwell render primarily but there are a number of them out there which are quite good.

-Brodie

andybot

@tomot

The reflection is the easy part - what you are reflecting in the glass/ mirrors is the hard part.

solo

Tomot.

Prodvis, especially glass, jewellery, water based caustics etc are better served with an unbiased engine IMO.

I swear by Thea render for all my prodvis works as the lighting, materials, caustics, dispersion, refraction are all spot on, without too much fiddling and manipulating.

valerostudio

I agree. Thea or Maxwell for renderings that need to look 'real'. That and you really need to master the program and material settings. You can get very realistic results from Vray, but you need correct materials and lighting as well as high render settings. I just think that a rendering that is setup and rendered HQ would cost about the same as a photog taking a picture in a studio. Maybe we dont charge enough!