hey dudes, someone wanna tell me how to make this look a little prettier ?
http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofilepic.asp?pic=20_coffee.jpg&news=483&id=20
You need to experiment with different lighting techniques, also you should add as much detail into your model as possible, (bevel the egges on everything atleast). the material needs a slight reflection. mayeb just put a blurred picture into the reflection channel to give it more depth. experiment with light tracer, or radiosity. Area shadows would look nice too ..... good luck
a lot of the material properties and surface characteristics come from the actual environment around the object - being in a presentation white void, this looks kind of strange when you try and simulate realism in this way. Try some standard 3 point light setups, pull up the tonal range to incorporate higher specular, put in some variation in the surface quality (slight and very subtle if it's supposed to represent idealism like product advertising), and simulate it in an environment with subtle reflections and ligthing.
im no artist, so take the following with a grain of salt...
but to me the finish looks too matte