Achieving Photo Realism - Part 2

This is part 2 of an entire series of video's which will show you all the tricks you can use to achieve photo-realism using Blender, but the techniques we'll cover will apply to all 3d software.
Part 2 will extend what we learnt in part 1by adding even more freedom.
Scene file available to download in the members download area at 3d-illusions.co.uk
Enjoy!

[@Fafmagic]

Outstanding

[@moskae]

I've spend whole day trying to find solution and finally found this video at 23:49, so the day were saved)) Very usefull video. Thank you!

[@3d-illusions]

No problem 👍

[@badbunny_uk]

This is a great tutorial (along with Part 1). Really looking forward to the teased more advanced methods tutorials in this series ! Thanks.

[@3d-illusions]

Thanks. Next tuts won’t be long, just got to finish a bit of programming first 👍

[@eobet]

This is a good method which worked very well... all up until the point where fireflies show up in the Cycles render!

[@3d-illusions]

That's the HDRI most likely. You'll need to tweak the indirect clamping in the render settings, or try the Turbo Render which comes with the Turbo Tools addon (that I develop)

[@ObscureHedgehog]

You're a wizard Harry!

[@dpgsince85]

love your videos. informative

[@3d-illusions]

Thanks dude 👍

[@gauthierruberti8065]

Very clear tutorial thank you!

[@toyxyz3917]

This is a very helpful tutorial! Thank you!

[@AA-hg7xq]

So helpful and clear. Thanks.

[@3d-illusions]

Cool, thanks 👍

[@ikestrom]

This is very useful trick. Thank you for putting together this series! In Part 1 you used a Curves node to adjust the ground shader to match the HDRI color. In this one you mostly dealt with the noise issue, but not so much the color. I'm assuming that's because of the snow/white making it less noticeable. Makes me wonder if there's a way to set up the shaders (maybe with different View Layers) to combine the Emission shader for accurate color and the Principled BSDF for the reflections and shadows, to get the best of both worlds with minimum fuss.

[@3d-illusions]

Thanks. Yes the white environment made it unnecessary to remove the colour cast which is caused by the hdri lighting itself. I’d generally stick with the rgb curve to remove the colour cast as it doesn’t require rendering 2 view layers. Having it gradually transition to emission often makes the colour cast unnoticeable though.

[@MirceaKitsune]

Very useful and awesome once more, thanks for sharing! I tend to map the HDRI to the sky but indeed that makes it impossible to move the camera around as the distance of the background is infinite. I thought this technique would have more issues but it should and does work so I'll likely give it a try at some point.

[@stefanguiton]

Excellent video

[@activemotionpictures]

Marvelous setup! Great video!

[@3d-illusions]

thanks 👍

[@sotal6009]

Awesome 👌
Thanks

[@3d-illusions]

No worries, thanks 👍

[@arjungowda6452]

Thank you very much Br❤️

[@3d-illusions]

No worries, thanks 👍

[@houssemben7169]

thank you ♥

[@3d-illusions]

You're welcome 😊

[@RomboutVersluijs]

The lily addon has a node group for this. Everything is done by nodes and it can also catch shadows. Why not use a simple plain with shadowreceiver mode on?

[@3d-illusions]

Hi, check out part one where I explain the benefits of this approach 👍

[@RomboutVersluijs]

@@3d-illusions Yes saw that later. This is also a very nice approach

[@agentdave]

is there a reason you use a cylinder instead of a dome, or does that make no difference?

[@3d-illusions]

Done should also be fine. Make sure you bevel the bottom corners a bit still 👍

[@Anze33443]

May I ask how to adjust the shadow is not dark enough?

[@3d-illusions]

Move the transparent area further from the object, or use a ramp node to make the transition between the two shaders happen over a smaller area