The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

ADVANCED MATERIALS AND TEXTURES

When trying to achieve photorealistic renders,

explore advanced materials and textures in

Blender. This is a complicated part of 3D modelling,

and needs a lot of time, but the results are worth it.

In Cycles render, there is a Node system. By using

this you can acquire many types of realistic looking

materials like wood, plastic, metal, or even skin

and organic materials. The more photorealistic

your renders are, the less time you will spend

trying to combine 3D renders and 2D photos. You

can get a lot of information and tutorials about this

system on http://www.blenderguru.com.

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ADD LIGHT AND A BACKGROUND BORDER

To adjust the colour and light of the scene,

create two new layers under all the others. Switch

the blend mode of the first layer to Hard Light, and

using the Gradient tool, paint an orange gradient

from the top of the scene. Then switch the blend

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HAND PAINTED SKIN TEXTURE

The last thing you should do is make the

creature look more realistic, rather than just a 3D

render. To achieve this goal, paint the texture of the

skin on top of the render. Create a new layer, switch

blend mode to Soft Light, grab a white brush at 15%

Opacity, and paint small patches of reflected light on

the bright parts of the creature. Then create one

more layer, switch it to Multiply, and paint shadows

on the dark parts of the creature. After that you can

add a few very bright spots of reflected light.

mode of the second layer to Screen, and paint a

light blue gradient from the top. After this, open

border.jpg from FileSilo and insert a stone border

to hide the gap beside the creature – don’t forget

to blur it!

Combine 3D and photos

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