Presentation Is Important
Made a cool 3D model you wanna share with the world? Great.
It will probably look pretty cool all by itself.
But if you want it to look amazingly cool, you’ll need to focus on how you present it.
If I hadn’t paid attention to presentation in the render above I would have something like this:
Which still looks neat — but not nearly as good. Here’s how to avoid doing that.
When you’re trying to display a model, there’s 3 things you need to pay attention to.
- Composition
- Lighting
- Background
Approach it like a photoshoot. You’re going to carefully place your model on an ideal backdrop, pick the perfect camera angle, tweak the lights, and take a picture.
Composition
The first thing to do is add in a floor. I always use a flat plane because I like the simple, professional look. The floor grounds the scene — make sure your model touches the floor like it’s actually there.
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Focus on the camera angle. Position the camera so that your model looks as cool as possible. You don’t have to nail it right away — you can always tweak it.
Lighting
The lighting needs to be simple, but high-quality — I use a single Area light. It’ll take some adjusting. Start by turning up the power and the size.
Try putting the light above, behind, and off to the side of the camera (that’s what I did in this render.)
When you’re done you’ll have a simple, high-contrast light setup.
Background
The background is important — it’s what makes your render pop. A smooth, plain color or gradient is best.
I set the World Strength to 0 to get a black background. If my model had been black, I probably would have chosen a different color — but who knows?
A clean grid material worked best for the floor. It’s simple with a little bit of detail, and the grid lines give an excellent sense of depth.
Other simple, lightly detailed materials work well on the floor — abstract noise materials look amazing, and so does smooth concrete.
This video will show you how two make both of those.
Try some of these techniques out on your next project and you might be surprised!
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