10 Tips for Making More Photorealistic 3D Renders in Blender 

Great tips, thanks for featuring my work!

Avoid large areas of one color or flat texture. Variation makes everything look better and more real

YES thank you for explaining how to properly use the sky texture!!! most people just change the strenth but thats the wrong way to do it. the light levels are physically accurate out of the box and the exposure is the setting to change, not the enviroment strength! Thanks for getting it right, i have been punching air so much seeing youtubers teach the wrong things. This means a lot to industry professionals

Addition to tip 5 is to use the false color to see the overexpose and/or underexpose area of your render, red is over exposed, blue is underexposed, and green is ok. Your render need to have more green to it, thats when you know your exposure is right

As a long time Blender user, you always manage to teach me something new. Thanks a lot :)

I've been using Blender for a few years now and in the beginning I started adding noise by combining the denoised and the noisy image with a mix rgb. It's a good way to control the strength and keep some details without blurring your image too much. If you want to go a step further, you can use Cryptomatts to remove even more noise, for example from a wall but keep some details of more complex objects. All this is nice, but at the end of the day Blender's noise pattern has a CGI look, so I remove all the noise and add it back in with Photoshop or Nuke. I know not everyone has access to these programs, but you can always use free image textures or videos of noise and combine them with your render in Blender's compositor. It looks even more believable and once you get the hang of it, it can be done in a few seconds.

Thanks for all the tips man, even if you've been doing 3d a few years, seeing something in a new way or Deven just supporting other artists in the community, that's how we all grow and become better.

Believe me when I say it but a friend recommended you to me when I was going into 3D and it was the best thing that could have happened! I watch your videos almost every single day now! It has really helped me grow a lot over the short period of time I started learning! Thank you man!

I am a new member to your channel 😊 and i am so glad there is a creator like you that cares about us beginners. Please don't stop sharing this kind of tips videos i have no words to express how glad it make me hopefully to the rest of all beginners.!

Great tips! ...and content in general. Your videos have helped & given so much inspiration to expand and improve - Thank you so much, Ducky !

Some really great tips here. Thank you for this.

This content is GOLD. Thank you man my client was way happier after I applied some of these tips.

Your 5th tip with the bright sky light and bringing exposure down actually has a lot of background to it. Our eyes have a huge dynamic range due to the fact that our eyes can adapt to different light conditions in the same view. So dynamic range is way higher then camera sensors. Which means that images with big difference between lit areas and shadowy areas feel more natural. Areas that are lit by the sun are expected to be bright, and when there is for example an open door with an unlit room behind our eyes/brain expects that to be much darker then the ourside that is lit by the sun. Also our eyes and brains are very good at detecting light sources and light direction. We usually subconciously know where light is coming from when we look at a scene. Adding one super bright light source makes the scene more believable because we automatically connect that to the real world where we naturaly have that one bright light source in the sky. Which also means keep the light source number low. Including tip 1 a bit think about what areas need to be lit and try to achieve that with as little light sources as possible. With too many light sources and intersecting shadows it confuses the brain/eye too much so you loose the realistic feeling.

Just would like to thank you for all your hard work! you've done wonders for me without knowing it!

Ducky, you are Gem! You are amazing bro You inspire a lot of blender guys This really help me a lot

I loved the kindness and thoughtfulness

For photo realism you also need proper scale to your objects and most importantly, don't forget your camera! It's always handy to keep a model of an average height human on your computer so that you can scale things in comparison to that model. Then use this human model to determine what height the camera should be at, if you place the camera above that model things will instantly look off because of how we're used to seeing films in real life.

Great video and amazing tips, thank you, I've subbed, look forward to more videos from you

Great stuff Ducky

I really enjoy your tutorials. I've learned a lot, and most of what you do is quick to complete and renders really quickly. I have been doing CGI work since the mid nineties, but I'm relatively new to Blender and the technology has improved so much over the years. So much more to learn about. In this tutorial, I noticed that your definition of photorealism seems to be closer to "artistic" or pleasing to the eye, while I think of photoreal as strictly being like a photograph, which may not always be so artistic or carefully designed. There's a wide spectrum from snapshot to professional studio photography or a movie scene, which can be designed to depict fantasy subject matter and can be far from realistic. Specifically that waterfall scene. I think the before image is more photorealistic, but the after image is more artistic and designed to be pleasing to look at, but not necessarily more real. I think some of the most impressive photorealism is in renders that are made to imitate snapshots or Polaroid film, with flash lighting. This may not be the goal though.

Ducky you are the greatest. Thank you I truly appreciate your video's specifically & as a new content creator i'm finding even more appreciation for other content creators. I really feel like you make the best blender videos for me extremely easy to understand and follow & I'm constantly learning new things from you & other blender gurus out there

Thanks for this. good, useful tips as always, 👍

You make tutorials usually with noise texture, lighting and funky looking stuff which is pretty basic and THAT IS COMPLETELY FINE. This is what a particular audience want and they appreciate it. Even I love your tutorials. When I started learning blender I enjoyed them a lot. Every individual who owns a channel about blender does something different and this is why blender community is top notch. You channel is great and other people who make stuff are great too. Every one has a different style and feel to their tutorials and people should appreciate it.

thanks a lot!!! so nice reverb

Great tips thank you so much it helped me a lot

You're one of my favorite artists

Thank You I knew i was doing the right thing.....but hearing from you its reassuring. Its been 1 year I started in Blender , and Textures , Lighting and how you place them is Everything! and I STRUGGLE WITH THAT. I struggle with UVs. i use mostly blenderkit textures , coz its drag and drop

great video. Thanks

what a hearty video for all beginners!

Your are my no. 1 mentor.

Stellar advice as always man!

All these while I've been always reducing my sun elevation till it get a little dark while using sky texture... Thanks alot for the tips, really appreciate them

Thank you vey much.

Greetings from Brasil. Very nice and interesting video. Thank you so much. You said a very interesting thing in it, "help people out" very kind of you. That is the way I see our time here on earth. God bless you.

My tip: Add a bit blur in post. Cameras always have a bit of blurriness to them, while 3D renders are 100% sharp. Adding just the tiniest hint of blur will make a huge difference, for me it did atleast.

Thanks Ducky...those blobs of hot air can take a hike with their noise lol...you are awesome and thank you for the tips...

Within the last few hours I have watched tons of your tutorial material. I have very recently become interested in pursuing digital art. You make me want to learn more. And then learn even more after that.

Great tips my guy. I don't even use blender and I appreciate the knowledge. #Goated

Thanks for the tips! For me.. its perfect! Best regards to the cute cat too!

Thanks

Thank you so much! I’d love to see how you use filmic log, lighting and export settings if you haven’t done that already? 😊

that dodge challenger is beautiful, but the hovering rear wheel drives me crazyyyy 😂🙈 ps: greets to the kitty 😽

I do have a tip, that's more about animation, especially in the context of VFX where you are working with CG and real footage: always think of logical and realistic camera motion! You even see terrible camera motion in big budget movies, that's what happens when things are overdone. Just remember that a camera is a physical object, held by a camera man or some sort of mechanical rig. There are intrinsic limitations to its motion, if the context of your render is photorealistic

this video opens up my eyes

lil tid bit for DOF: if you add a circular cutout just infront of the camera's origin it'll start messing with the bokeh towards the edge of the screen, it happens especially on older and faster lenses

It's the internet lol Most people might have a good take on what you are doing but it is so rare that they interpolate or extrapolate the information intent, nor do they take anything away from the information presented. You can learn something from every single person you meet so working on your own listening and learning skills is way more beneficial than screaming "You're doing it wrong" at people actually trying to impart valuable information. Love you work Ducky keep it up and keep going and ignore the "Experts!"

Excuse me friend, the tutorial is well explained and without skipping any step. Is seriously

Good vid man, I started a month ago and this was realy usefful

Actually setting the exposure instead of just trying to tweak your lights all the time, is a very underrated tip IMO Also, learning about using nodes on lighting rather than just using them straight out of the box right now - from simple things like using a blackbody node to control the light temp, to more advanced things like making a dappled light effect or controlling the power of the bounce

1 year in, ty for this!

You already give the number one tip. Learn photography concepts and fundamentals inside out. Learn natural and artificial lighting concepts. Then post processing concepts like color correction, color grading...

Great video, I've learned a lot from your videos, so no matter what the trolls complain about, keep doing what you're doing!

'Do not do everything in Blender' Voila! You're the first person that I've seen that said that just straight up. The Blenderverse at times to me feels a little Culty...

crazy how these people who want to give you a hard time would rather deligate their time to do that instead of pipe down, learn something, and maybe have less unemployed time to troll online 😂 . People man. Keep up the good work, people like myself apprecitate you.

I really loved the part of volumetrics (idk if i spell it correctly sry my English is not that good) m a beginner and just started 3d like past 1-2 weeks n i was struggling to making a lamp glow naturally this effect will help me thank a lot lol i just learner unwrapped and texture yesterday and today i just stumbled upon this video damn m glade i did M currently working on Maya/ photoshop to make a poll lamp and a M24 gun realistic these tips will be really helpful

I would add that Filmic Log is nice if you do want to manually do color grading and other post effects for a more stylized approach. If you just want your render to look like a simple camera footage, Filmic on its own with exposure and contrast level adjustments should work fine. Just don't forget to help yourself with False Color mode :)

Motion blur can even speed up the rendering of animations because you don't need a high frame rate. The default 24 fps are good enough for most animations if you use motion blur.

Trolls gonna troll (you know the internet sucks when Ducky has to make an disclaimer before a video to fend off some shitty comments LOL). I'm sure you'll get an earfull with this video too...but I guess that's a sign that lots of people are watching. Always a good experience watching your videos, man. Thanks for the great tips!

Blender + Photoshop is my bread and butter

Thanks ducky really helpfull tutorial . Can you make a tut about car headlights lighting

Thank you! Even with photo realism, you gotta start out simple and work from there.

During the intro, I'm looking at Ducky and I'm thinking "This guy really has style. He's my kind of dude." Then I realized that his shirt says "forts" and not "farts". Then I'm like "meh... He's okay 🤷" (Thanks for the tips. I think they're really going to help me.)

Adding lens distortion with a little value of dispersion while compositing will also make your renders a lot more realistic!

i did NOT know about about the motion blur thingy, nice one! Also i dnt know if i agree with the animals nd people tip, adding them at a distance instantly elevates/grounds the image imo, i mean look at beeples work for example. obviously u do not want something not so good in close up but adding really does a ton of good imo

I can't lie, the green car looks more real IMO.

Hi Nathan. Thanks for another great video and very useful tips. On another, but related topic. I'm sure you have a wide range of creations/ art work that are worthy of reproducing and selling. Have you every printed any of your art pieces? If so, what have you found to be the best process to print and onto what material? Cheers

I’m learning blender atm so this video great

Thanks for the OG advice, especially the part about not relying on doing everything in the blender... I guess after this I'll have to focus on colour grading in DaVinci Resolve instead of Photoshop cause I'm more focused on videos than still pics.

"Eyes dont have noise..." My floaters would like to have a word

Hlw bro just love your videos dood... Keep going...

Imo - do use denoising. CG-Noise doesn't look like film-noise and is unpredictable (fireflies etc, more noise in certain areas etc.). Add the noise back in post using a good, film-emulating noise filter.

Tip 11, use ACES color space :)

you read my mind 😍 😂

People always talk about procedural vs image textures like it's either this or that. The best texturing is always a combination of both. Image textures for the realistic base, procedural textures for adding variation, mixing etc.

These are all great tips! I'd like to share one of mine. My biggest tip for photorealism - avoid Eevee at all costs. There is absolutely nothing you can do that will make Eevee on par with Cycles when it comes to achieving realism. No amount of tweaking and no amount of SSGI. I see too many people render things in Eevee to get their work out as soon as possible at the expense of materials, lighting, and shadows looking good, by a very large amount, of otherwise well assembled scenes. Eevee is great, but only use it for NPR, and Look Development work. The trade off is not worth it, especially given how much faster Cycles X is now compared to its predecessor.

07:48 the cat 🐈 was rendered super realistic 😂😊

"your eye really don't have noise" me watching this video with my glasses😂

I always add a little bit of chromatic abberation. That is something photographers try to take away but in render it also means closer to reality

I am coming from soft one 4.6 and I am so torn with soft soft. It seems great as it is so in-depth in its' capabilities but, so fiddly to get

Man there sure is alot of condescending persons interested in 3d animations and blender youtube videos. Ya all need to check urselves. Actin like animals. Nice video btw. Was helpful. As usual. Ty again.

That exposure tip made me feel like an idiot. All that time trying to get the lights the perfect amount of bright and my stupid reptile brain never even thought about exposure

My go to step to make renders realistic: BLOOOOOOOM!!!!!

Awwwww the cat 😍

To break up image tiling you can use the ubermapping shader by polygon

@5:17 What would be the equivalent tip here for someone doing animation?? should I also do editing outside of the viewport?

Hey, i just wanted to know do i have to learn soft before i use soft soft? Also i wanna learn premiere and after effects.

Estás muy guapo 😉

I subscribed for the cat.

a little tip for the animation guys: perfect camera moves done by a robot look great. (in some cases they are the only way to go) but: in 95% of all camera moves, there are some little imperfections in the movement. that's something you have to imitate. you can do that by hand (for example: noise modifier in the graph editor) or use some available addons for this.

This is such a great Video! I just wanted to ask how you can leave just "some" Noise, every time I try adding Noise the Image gets too noisy and doesn't look good anymore 🤔🤔

Please can you do a 2.79 tutorial about the bump because my computer can't bear any higher update of blender

Hello ducky sir I have question to ask you. Is there any model inspector for blender?

It's amazing to me how people will get upset at someone trying to help others with learning. They will start demeaning telling them how ignorant they are when they have not made one video to help people. You would think that if they were so versed they would make videos to prove how good they are but they don't. In reality they don't know crap and just want everyone else trying to help to feel the same way.

For tip #4 - if you are rendering out an animation, would you recommend rendering it out as an mp4 or a png image sequence? Would the filmic log work for either of those scenarios?

Noise you get in renders isn't the same as camera noise. It's better to denoise your render and add camera-like noise outside of blender

What do you put your noise on ?

Hi bro. i have question for you how can i draw my Lab render really realistic..... please help me

9:27 hey i am bigginer but can you tell me what is volumatrix and prosidual matirial? dont know english mush but does voumatirx means that fogg? i searched google but not good result i think

How do I bake normals from high poly to a retopo?. Why are the normal maps always garbage when made with blender?. What's the alternative? Any free ones?.

hey, I need help, I use blender and no matter how much I adjust the lighting in the scenes they dont look good at all, but the same exact scene with the same lighting and everything exactly the same looks completely different , is the quality of GPU , I got a gtx 1650. , what could be the possible problem for that and how can I fix it. Its causing me problems, I make whole project and when it comes to render the scene its just not good.