Phalaenopsis flowers

Artwork Focused Critiques
1

Hi everybody!

Phalaenopsis.jpg1279×719 80.9 KB

Here is my first Cycles render (500 samples): a forest scene with orchid flowers. It looks not sufficiently realistic for me, so any suggestions are highly appreciated.
And then, I will send the .blend file to blendswap to share it with everyone!

edit

phalaenopsis.jpg1279×719 48 KB

Hope you’ll like it!:eyebrowlift:

2

Not bad for a first render with Cycles, much better than mine at least :wink: I think some translucency on the petals would really improve the realism here. Also, at the moment it’s very difficult to tell what type of lighting this is. It looks to be overcast looking at the background image, but I’m not sure if that was what you were going for or not. Increasing the emission of the forest image in the background would overall light the scene better.

One last thing(if you dont mind another suggestion:)). The flowers look very stiff and 2D. What would really help the realism even further would be to add some variation to the petals. All of your flowers look identical at the moment, so try rotating the petals on each flower a little and maybe bending a few as well. Good luck and ill be following your progress! :slight_smile:

3

Hi !

I tried to get the petal more thick, and it works! I also tried to adding some variations to the colours of the petals with an RGB curve node. For the lighting, I used an hdr image and added a lamp. But for the translucency, I need some help!:spin:
Here is the material for the petals:


What can I do? Using SSS materials?

You can now download the .blend file!

The hdr image is free but is not in the .blend file.

(Snake River Beach)

If you can improve the work I did, tell me.

Thank you a lot! (we say in French: merci infiniment):wink:

4

Hi all!

Here is the latest Cycles render I did (350 samples). Have you any other suggestions?
I need also some help for the materials, so who knows how to improve that? Thank you!:slight_smile:

phalaenopsis.jpg1279×719 48 KB

5

I have done some tweaks in your file. This is the result with no compositing.

phalaenopsis_edu4_pub.jpg800×450 72.5 KB

Here is the render and here is the blend.

I have changed the background, materials and camera dof. If you are interesting I will explain it in the next post.

6

Basically this is what I have done:

  1. I have used this method for the world settings. It consists of two images, one JPG file for camera rays and one HDR file for the rest, light, reflection and transmission rays.

node_world_hdri.png800×368 85.4 KB

This lets me to increase strength for lighting without touching the background image. I mean, if I increase the strength of the JPG file, the background would be very clear.

  1. I have modified the materials to add glossy reflections to the flowers. You can check the file referenced in my previous post.

  2. Once I modified materials and world settings, I tried to increase de DOF effect. If you see some flowers pictures (example 1, example 2). So I have placed both group together, set the dof point in the foreground and took the camera far from the orchids group:

dof_position.png598×598 12.7 KB

and modified the camera settings to get a greater defocus on the background:

dof_settings.png296×521 30.1 KB

7

Hi elbrujodelatribu!

Thanks to the work you did, I learn many things. The method for the world settings is very practical and the new dof effect is also better than mine. So I’ll add your improvements in my next render (and in the .blend file). But why are you using glossy reflections? I think that SSS materials or some translucency could get better results.

Thank you!:slight_smile:

8

You can see the model from sketchfab:
It looks nice, huh?

And of course, the model can be downloaded on blendswap (on CC-BY-SA)
Happy swapping!:eyebrowlift:

9

Well,the lighting’s too brighter,your first background is much better for me.