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I am working on an illustration for a client who needs it to be very photorealistic. I used illustrator to get as close to his expectation as possible but its not quite there yet. Can anyone help me with any notes or recommendations on software and/or tools to use to achieve this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
This is what I came up with:
This is what the client needs it to be like:
The example result is probably done using cad or 3d software, but the primary difference is lighting effects. The quickest way to modify the original to mimic some of this might be:
This looks easier to do in Solid Works, 3dsmax or Blender rather than Illustrator.
If you are skilled, you can pull this off even with Sketchup and render the final image with Maxwell Render or Vray.
Better said, if you never had contact with 3D modelling programs and render engines and you have to learn one fast, go for the Sketchup + Vray alternative. Sketchup is very easy to learn with straight forward tools and Vray has a lot of tutorials on youtube on 'how to' and a lot of photorealistic materials.
You are on the right track, but I am not sure if you can go all the way on Ilustrator alone. To be more specific, how the textures wrap arround the curved objects and the bumps on some of this textures.
The second image could be a 3D render, probably using an ambient occlussion render. But also in 3D you have tools to make the bumps on the textures.
A quick test using only ambient oclussion on the Blender Internal renderer.
If you want to keep on the Ilustrator path, add some shadows.
If you want to go on the 3D render path, use Blender. The shapes are pretty easy to make. It is not Photorealistic. I would use the Blender internal Render and ambient oclussion, not Cycles render. A very difusse light is also needed.
To simulate the isometric look use a veeeeeeery long lens and put your camera far away.
Another option is to use Sketchup+Kerkythea, both free, but I like more the blender option because it is all integrated in one. But also you have more freedom to trace the shadows separately.
First off, great job so far! To start with since you say Photorealistic let's be clear, yours isn't photorealistic yet but neither is the bottom example, so don't be too hard on yourself.
As far as improvements go:
Currently something like this:
You want to rotate this imaginary light source to match the drop shadow. Which would put it somewhere sorta like this. And by doing so indicates that more of the surface should be in shadow:
if you got guts you can achieve something very close to it in AI, but isn't worth such effort. The below example was clearly made using some 3D Tool, lights, fine reliefs, textures, etc.
But you may try either working with AI + PS together to achieve this level of quality with much less effort than PS alone, if you know how materials work and got the skills to work it on, you can do the below picture from either a vector pseudo-3d or an actual 3d model but with no details or textures whatsoever.
