Something that has helped my renders go from bad to amazing is utilizing lighting tips from professional cinematographers. Lighting is everything in art, especially 3D. And it doesn't have to be that complex either, but knowing how to stage your lighting for each scene, even if its just one light, can make or break your render. Oh and volumetrics. Always add volumetrics
Max, what is your opinion of placing HDRs in the environment for better lighting, adding more photorealism? Additional volumetrics around the focal point to obscure aliasing?
What if 'photo realistic' is not the goal? What if some form of cartoon-ish or digital artwork-ish style is the goal? Then how do you make it look good?
A lot of these tips still apply. The fun part about non-photorealistic art is you can subvert the viewer’s expectations (IMO). But good composition, using accent colors well, a clear focus on a single subject, etc., all important! Sorry if this comes off too lecture-y I don’t know your skill level. 😊
Good point, but I would argue that even if you go for a completely abstract style, there are still elements of photorealism just by nature of the fact that you must capture this through a virtual, simulated camera, which mimics a real life camera. I would say realism skills still apply here if you want to capture abstract creations in the best light. Even past that, the textures, reflections, lights, and other elements in very abstract styles often include elements of photorealism, and having some knowledge of that could certainly help. I think the main thing is just not having obvious areas of really rendery/ bad graphics types of areas that break the illusion of the render, as I mentioned in the video. Depending on your style I could be wrong here, but I think this still would apply.
