23/10/2020
Is ProductViz any different than ArchViz? In essence, not really, products are usually presented in both a realistic environment, as well as a simple backdrop or solid color background.
But since all eyes are on the very product you’re promoting, we want that to look as good as possible. Check out the tips we already mentioned for ArchViz (Lighting is the key to everything), and here we’ll mention a few more.
What is the main thing that will make your Product renders look better? Materials. A good material will take you a long way.
When talking about materials, we don’t just mean the single photo texture that you will apply to your model like paintbucket tool in paint. Materials are a bit more complex and consist of layers of maps and settings, and some might get intimidated with all the possibilities.
We can narrow it down to a couple of most important maps that every good material needs.
Diffuse map – to put it simply, this is your main “color” of the material. Doesn’t have to be a solid color, a high quality picture of woodgrain will be the base for your wood material!
Reflection map – this image based lighting technique will approximate the way the surface of your material reflects light, how the surrounding will be reflecting on the object itself.
Reflection glossiness – this is the map that will, depending on the settings, make your object look like chrome, or polished wood, depending on the settings as well as the map itself.
Bump map – This map will make it so that your object appears bumpy and not flat/polished. It achieves it by simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface, but does not change the geometry of your object, only the way light reflects off it.
Displacement map – in contrast to a bump map, a displacement map will actually change the geometry of the model (not every material needs both the bump and displacement map!).
Those are the essential components, and the base that every good material must have. Please how us your materials, visualizations, share your thoughts!
