Hi! I'm a photographer learning CGI

[Anonymous]

Hello!  I am a junior in college, getting a BFA in photography at Parsons School of Design in New York.  I am interested in creating photorealistic renders to reproduce my still life pictures.  My professors have said many of my photographs look computer generated and I was challenged to recreate some of my pictures using 3D software.  I use Maya, Photoshop, and Mental Ray for rendering.  

I have some basic experience and knowledge of 3D software from Lynda.com tutorials.  Currently, I have begun modeling, UV mapping and texturing

render differently but have run into many problems I will address in the Maya forums.  My projects involve rendering basic office products (pens, clips, post-it notes, etc) and kitchen items (knives, pots, spoons, etc).  I would love to hear any advice about effective learning pathways for developing my skills to create photorealistic renders.  I currently need to work on hard surface modeling, UV layout, texturing, normal mapping, and rendering.

Thank you!

Cameron

[lynn_zhang]

Hi @Anonymous Welcome to Autodesk Community!

Sorry to hear you have run into many problems. You can post in Maya Forums and our product experts will be there to help you. Hope you find useful tips here in the community!

[dgorsman · Accepted solution]

While the technical fields are important, don't skip over the artistic ones - lighting, color theory, composition, and other "touchy-feely" parts can make the difference.  "CGI-ness" is often noticeable in an image that is just too perfect - clean shadows, perfect colors, and so on whereas real photography is less than perfect.