Why does my render look unrealistic (too CG) ?
For a long time I had this question in mind, thinking it had a simple answer. I was totally wrong.
What I mean by “too CG”?
I know this is a widely discussed subject and there are many articles and videos about realism and although I spent a lot of time on those, I couldn’t get the answer I need.
Most of the time, as artists if we are not making something that is super abstract and out of this worldly we aim at realism. I mean that is actually our job especially in the VFX part of things. Even in movies like Incredibles or Zootopia and many more, even though the viewer knows what he/she sees is not real and the movies have stylized looks, nearly all the clouds, smoke/explosions, destruction and water effects are still realistic.
What makes your render realistic?
All over the internet you can find detailed tips, tricks and reasons about realism, people talk about how much dirt there is needed or depth of field, how randomization, using HDRIs or materials help give realism. Of course they do, but the answer is not that simple and it is not related to a few of those aspects. It is related to much much more, which range from using references to lighting, from camera techniques and lenses to color, observation, scale and even patience.
At the beginning, I always thought getting proficient with the tools and softwares I use will get me the realism I am looking for, therefore didn’t really try achieve it. I did my simulation and rendered it after one or two iterations and was satisfied with the results because even though I know there were amazing works out there, I thought that I was not good enough -yet- to make as good renders as the experienced guys. Later on I presumed that it is not about the tool but about experience. That was a little bit correct since when you get experienced you automatically get better at anything not just VFX or realistic renders. However, still that was not the answer, the real answer is hidden inside you. You need to find why your render is not realistic.
Getting to the Point
I am not trying to write a long post mumbling about realism and such not giving any answers. And as you might have guessed by now, there is not a simple answer to this subject. I also still can’t always make things look realistic, it is not like a switch and it changes from scene to scene. But I saw a lot of improvement when I started slowly finding out what made my renders unrealistic and am still discovering more.
What I did is, I took feedbacks from people who do not know what VFX stands for to people who spent ten-twenty years in the business. All the feedbacks were different because they didn’t know the answer, only you can find out the reason why your render is too CG. For me it was a bit lighting, a lot of camera positioning and lens parameters, lack of color theory and being impatient and easily content with my work. I always liked spending time on the computer so I was fast and my mind really grasped the softwares and tools fast so maybe your shortcoming is that and you need to learn your tools better to get the realism. Maybe your ideas and references are not good enough so you end up making amazing stuff but because your main idea is lousy, you end up with an unrealistic CG stuff. Or maybe you have the same flaws as I have.
For me, my lighting was extremely simple and didn’t give detailed results because I mostly used just an HDRI and didn’t spend more than 5 minutes on it. As I said I thought that was it and because I didn’t have much experience I always had the idea in my mind that this thing will improve by itself in time. Using only an HDRI does not mean that it is just plain wrong but most cases you might need more lights to get better details and attract the viewers attention.
Then, in one of the studios that I worked I had to work on some scene layouts where at first I didn’t even know what a Layout Artist does so had to Google search it. (Wait isn’t this guy an FX Artist? Yes but the job and the lead forced me to become a layout artist for a while against my wish) There I learned that I couldn’t be worse at camera positioning and basic keyframing. Imagine you have a wavy ocean and a boat that the camera is following, if you do not shake the camera a bit (to give it the feeling that the person that is filming is on another ship or boat) you will not get any realism from that shot. Or if the camera is shaking too fast the overall scene might feel like a tiny pond instead of an ocean.
After that, I heard about implementing color theory into my renders. Those days I was trying to understand how those abstract one colored (actually different tones of the same color) renders looked amazing. I always thought that people chose the colors randomly, that they chose the color that they liked. Man was I wrong! Especially in very colorful and saturated renders, color theory is extremely important. I even tested this on some people that are not artists, I showed the same people, at different times, the same renders with different colors, one with random non-color theory suitable colors, and one that is properly colored. They somehow all liked the proper colored ones because the theory just simply worked. The reason it worked is because the theory also refers to real life; so humans liked what they mostly see in the nature so they felt closer and fancied that thing hence liked the proper colored render. (If you are interested to learn and dig deeper I suggest this book: Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter)
Conclusion
Therefore improving my skills on the above examples evolved my work and the realism I still try to achieve. Also let me remind you that when you find out your shortcomings it takes a long time to fix them which I am still working on. I hope you didn’t think (especially beginners) as an FX Artist you wouldn’t worry about the model, the materials, colors, camera positions or the lights since other people will handle it, because being an FX Artist means you have to have at least basic knowledge on all the other fields as well which will be another important blog post.
In the end you are going to have to search the answer for yourselves. I gave my examples for the readers to show them how they should approach the matter, my situation might be the total opposite of yours and that is why there is not a straightforward response on how to achieve realism.
