Blender Photorealism is this EASY

A quick guide to improving bad renders.
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[@matthewhartman7176]

Great tutorial. As a cinematographer my suggestions would be to ramp up the point light behind the glass. You really want to show the transparency of the glass and liquid as is often done in production photography/commercial. With dark liquids you typically have to punch a pretty powerful light source behind them. You did place the light back there, but the level was too low, therefore not as effective in my opinion. Also, some more props with complimentary colors to that of the color of the product and the blue paint would have added a little more color contrast and visual interest. The complimentary of red is green, and the complimentary of blue is orange. Two colors readily available in many citrus fruits. ;) Lastly, the camera angle isn't doing you any favors. Top-down shots typically communicate the subject in a subordinate position, and your chosen angle is nearly orthographic because of how compressed the focal length is coupled with a 45-degree top-down angle. I bet you if you lowered the angle, your subject (the product) would take on a more "hero" position/perspective whilst also gaining from the light and visual interest of your HDR lightmap in the background, blurred out to simulate shallow DOF. All these suggestions would naturally create a great deal of separation and pop and focus the viewer's eye better towards the subject. You gain: Contrast ratio between light and shadow Color contrast ratios between complimentary colors Depth ratio separation from the shallow DOF. All factors a cinematographer would strive to achieve in their frame. Adding the chromatic aberrations and slight chroma grain/noise were a nice touch on your part. Digital sharpness is a "no-no" and all camera image sensors produce some degree of chromatic noise. Nothing wrong with a subtle imperfection.

[@totheknee]

All amazing suggestions from a real cinematographer! I love this in contrast to the fad that has been going around from 3D technical artists/amateur photographers; namely that to gain realism we need to add dirt, fingerprints, and trash to our shots. As you say, the focus should be on the subject, and lighting it properly with strategic camera placement and lens choices. The modern fad of obsessing over fouling up the shot "for realism!" is baffling to me. 🎥📷

[@yeknommonkey]

Also open the can and only fill the glass with the amount of liquid likely to have come out of it. The glass looks to have more than one cans worth liquid in it. It’s awesome though and better than i’ll ever make.

[@the_ericklima]

Awesome feedback

[@Myzelfa]

None of this was entirely new to me, but it was a very good refresher and well summarized.

[@motion_deep]

Give urself a pat on the back.

[@jeffdavies2824]

Agreed, I knew each of these techniques, but seeing them used together along with Decoded's thought process is the real value here. Knowing the techniques is like knowing cooking ingredients (salt, meats, herbs, etc). Using them together successfully is what a real chef can do!

[@denisquarte7177]

When we finally settled on Mars and hover boards will be a common sight in the streets, Adaptive Subdivision will still be in "experimental".

[@rayfighter]

waves from 3ds max / Vray :p

[@evenfunnierguy]

Well done! Next steps: - Refine coke material (more translucent) so more light can enter / pass through - Caustic shadows / refractions will make a massive difference - Make sure the ray transitions of the nested dielectrics render properly (air > glass > liquid > ice > liquid > glass > air) - Change the water droplets to sit on the surface rather than intersect with the surface (again more realistic refractions & caustics)

[@ElQueNoSale]

i know we are playing nit picking here so i will say it, you have coke in the glass but the can in closed. amazing video i think i say even in this channel most of the technics but put in this workflow make it soo good as example, thank pal cool video

[@kj3d812]

I was thinking the same thing lol One thing that's missing are the carbonation bubbles in the glass, especially collected around the top of the liquid.

[@ericfieldman]

Worth noting the light coming straight from the camera vector line should look uncanny because a real life light would block the camera, so we don't see real pictures looking like that

[@liialuuna]

yes it should only be used if you have flash on the (blender) camera

[@ericfieldman]

@@liialuuna but even then, slightly offset. What I mean is the light is never directly in front of the lens

[@graeme.davidson]

What about if you using a flashlight

[@ericfieldman]

@@graeme.davidson it would still be offset a bit

[@7ens3nButt0n]

I think closest you can get would be a ring light around the lens but then again that alone would introduce certain reflections and artifacts that are absent here

[@2ferr]

this is amazing. this tutorial really shows that im just still on the tip of the iceberg learning blender, i really thought i already know half of it lol. thank you for this!

[@generalfishcake]

Amazing result, and so well explained - this should be the new "Donut" tutorial that everyone should do at least once.

[@LolmenTV]

If you use the caustics for the glass, its more than realistic 😊👍 I don't see the refraction of the glass on the shadow.

[@DECODEDVFX]

I tried adding caustics and it was hardly visible.

[@rayfighter]

@@DECODEDVFX adding strength of caustics wouldn't work?

[@totheknee]

Notice it's all perfect geometry, and yet it looks _amaaaaaaazing_ and realistic due to the lighting and Cycles path tracing. Let this sink in to anyone who is considering being fooled by the "you need to add dust, scratches, fingerprints, and dirt to EVERYTHING or it will look faaaaake!!!" fad that has been going around the past year or two. Proper lighting and proper camera realism _ARE ALL YOU NEED._ Look around at any real, professional photography shots. They don't FOUL up their shot with dirt, grime, and fingerprints! Nobody does that! They would lose their job!

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@totheknee yeah I've talked about this subject in videos before. Most professional photography doesn't have loads of visible fingerprints and grime.

[@marcobucci]

Great vid. This stuff is magic to me.

[@DECODEDVFX]

Thanks dude.

[@fullyleaded]

I love the heat effect above the bbq! ❤

[@zana3d]

Thank you so much for this. Alot of valuable information here for me to put into practice.

[@MuzzaNZ]

Brilliant work!

[@DerekElliott]

great video!

[@DECODEDVFX]

Thanks Derek!

[@esphilee]

Photographers jump through hoops to reduce lens distortion, 3D modellers introduce lens distortion. Both are trying to make a picture looks better.

[@franktothemax]

3:53 this is money in the bank. Thank you for that!

[@michaelfilippi5986]

My very first blender project was also a coke can!!! After the donut of course.

[@ABOUDIBRAHIM-h4j]

Learned lots of advanced concepts from this video, keep it up !

[@DECODEDVFX]

Glad to hear that!

[@Dipster101]

Unpopular opinion: photo realism is much easier than creating a distinct and consistent art style.

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@Dipster101 easier? No. Better? Also no.

[@mikego2611]

Today there are many tools that help create photorealism, even in gaming like Unreal. The drawback is that the style is "predefined" by the tools, and many people don't bother learning shaders and other techniques for other styles. Even stylized is getting "standardized" into the PBR graphic pipeline resulting in a fairly similar aesthetic.

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

photorealism is an art style : the style of realism. Imo I agree that photorealism is easy when one understands how the real world behaves.

[@MrBrax]

Agreed. Stylised is super hard to do.

[@vuxanov]

It is easie because you can use real word and photos as reference and you can download realistic textures and shaders and models. You did some of this in your video.

[@Adrian-wd4rn]

The easiest way to do photo realistic renders in blender is to close blender, pick up a camera, a glass, two cans of coke, and a spray bottle for condensation. Set up your scene (3 minutes), set up your lights (5 minutes), take the photo (1/500th of a second).

[@DECODEDVFX]

Doesn't really work if you are doing product renders before a prototype exists. Which is often the case.

[@Adrian-wd4rn]

​@@DECODEDVFX By the point you need photo realism, the manufacturer sent samples, or you have a super high quality 3d print. This is also where keyshot reigns supreme. It just works. One day someone will release a blender mod that makes it function like keyshot with ease and speed. We have someone in the office who uses blender for product vizualization. I already fired off 20 renders in keyshot in the time it takes to diddle daddle with material nodes, UV unwrapping CAD models etc. And if a company can't swing a keyshot license, its time for a new company, lol. If you want photo realism...Take a photo...Or use keyshot. Blender is great for animations, atrocious for stills renders.

[@RealGaryGibson]

Great tips!

[@s3ij4s]

Excelente, uff como me ilumino

[@davidbell6101]

thank you.

[@siklalkis]

This was nice! Thankyou. If one wanted to add some bubbles inside the coke / on its surface, do you have any advice?

[@DECODEDVFX]

I covered it in this video. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hnTYh4F8areEfsksi=pDpVJ1duBVF21hfY

[@siklalkis]

@DECODEDVFX I wish I had discovered your channel earlier!

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@siklalkis thank you. Plenty of videos to catch up on.

[@patnor7354]

good stuff

[@OdiljonBotirov-di4tj]

wow thank yo uso much

[@Powdah]

No sky reflection on top of coke liquid in the glass?

[@DECODEDVFX]

Not from that angle.

[@j_fx]

Sweet! 👍

[@Jenemi_productions]

Great video, dude! When you added the PBR setup to the floor, shouldn't you delete either the normal map or the displacement? Having both would just duplicate that information, right?

[@Prathamesh-wn3nd]

Re-watch the texture Tut my guy

[@Jenemi_productions]

Or just answer the question? Does it just not use the normal map when you set it to displacement only? In which case, you could just delete it.

[@Enderblade18]

The Normal map will visibly make the material look like it has deformations, whereas the Displacement ctually, well, displaces it. Displacement is useful for closeups, but Normal maps for everything else. Technically, yes, they do similar things, and at long enough distances it doesn't matter which one you use. It's usually just easier to have both enabled unless you're optimizing though because it's one less thing you have to do. With a lot of textures in a scene those few reduced button clicks can definitely speed things up. Of course it's still preference though.

[@Jenemi_productions]

@@Enderblade18 So you're saying that "Displacement only" makes it so that the normal map isn't used? If so, that makes sense to me. Then having it in the project would only be a concern if you're worried about optimizing your scene.

[@Enderblade18]

@@Jenemi_productions Oh yeah I read that wrong my bad. Displacement only enables only displacement, which yes, would hurt optimization. Normal only only does normal. Pretty self explanatory. Sorry for the mix up.

[@CHNO-kk4rl]

Shout-out to everyone who's here straitht after the doughnut and has their brain totally blue screen when the nodes come in. I'll get there some day just need to read up on how thints actually work.

[@djdailydisco]

Sooooo easy

[@brandosbucket]

Realism: check! now.. making something valuable out of it all. (a lifetime of self doubt and struggle ahead)

[@Albert_Riseal]

Interesting, thank you

[@jbdh6510]

This ISN'T PHOTOREALISM. It's very stylized. But it's a nice style.

[@ClusterFunk99]

How, exactly?

[@pAULEE_wORLi]

that glass is huge. filled with coke certainly not from one of those cans

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@pAULEE_wORLi it's based on a glass which sits on my desk right now, holding exactly one can of Dr Pepper with ice. I always model to real-world scale.

[@pAULEE_wORLi]

@DECODEDVFX hi again. Sorry to come over as some kind of troll lol - this is truly not my intention 😅 It just seemed like a lot of cola in the glass compared to the size of the glass - but of course you reminded me of the ice in the glass which indeed is a plausible point 😊

[@DECODEDVFX]

Thank you to everyone who picked up the Exterior Masterclass in the first two days! If you haven't got it yet, you can still save 20% with the code LAUNCH at gumroad - decoded.gumroad.com/l/exteriormasterclass

[@MrBrax]

Some good advice, but it does look very artificial

[@redfalcon2383]

It has to do with the values he used. If you want something to be realistic you should stick to real world values. In the real world materials are either metallic or they aren't. There's no "in between" materials, also the IOR value for ice is 1.3 instead of above 2

[@razern420]

the classic of promoting ur gumroad piss me off

[@DECODEDVFX]

The paid content keeps videos like this free.

[@sven_1997]

Sorry to be blunt, but the final render looks absolutely horrendous. No disrespect, you have fantastic content on your channel, and you’re very knowledgeable. This particular render is just too bad :D Maybe you were drunk idk.

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@sven_1997 lol ok

[@MrBrax]

Doesn't look very realistic to me yep

[@StephenBoyd21]

“This easy” followed but 20 minutes of showing that it’s not that easy.

[@DECODEDVFX]

ha. Subjective I suppose.

[@aplus1gaming940]

Bro please bro stop making this videos you have two rtx 3090 and this is what you create. I have gt 710 in my pc, i create better render than you i feel like this not fair you have no skills at all. Me with Intel i3 3rd Gen cpu, gt 710 gpu atleast know how to make a proper realistic render.

[@DECODEDVFX]

I have a 4090. Get with the times.

[@aplus1gaming940]

@@DECODEDVFX 🥱

[@aplus1gaming940]

@@DECODEDVFX 🥱

[@aplus1gaming940]

@@DECODEDVFXWait for some days and I'll show you

[@DECODEDVFX]

@@aplus1gaming940 can't wait.

[@adriangabrielgramada1016]

That's a anything but easy. Nor intuitive. But for sure a lot of wasted time Instead of living into the real life and enjoying a true coke with unrivaled shading from ... reality 😂

[@zbruch66]

amazing!

[@TheNei]

[@narne3330]

This is not even close to photorealism. Real time games graphics looks 100 times better than this. It's looks like from cutscenes from early 2000.

[@DECODEDVFX]

lol OK.

[@ModdedProp]

It's not the software fault

[@SFtheWolf]

go watch some cutscenes from serious sam then come back and look at this render