First time modeling a water drop. It's hard to mimic nature because of the randomness of everything in it. (2 years and 132 days ago)
Cool idea but still needs a little work just to Increase the realism. The render is not bad but could be improved im guessing this is a HDR environment do you have any lights as well? If not then add one directional light not to strong to help reduce the noise with no shadow type and 250 samples to start with. The water drop is good but looks un-natural due to there are no ripples in the waters surface adding these will improve the realism.
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(2 years and 132 days ago)
@Warlock - Yes, I've been aware of the shadow noise, although it be ever so minimal. If you look at the high res, there is one ripple in the water right next to the drop, and perhaps a few more wouldn't hurt maybe added with some noise displacement.
*Edit - I went ahead and upped the samples and added a few ripples with a noise displacement on the top (to try and simulate the randomness of it all) Reply »
(2 years and 131 days ago)
This has the potential to be outstanding. My problem is the caustics are wrong. This is the reason you are getting Black blocks on your glass and water. The easy way to rectify this is to change the environment to white. The caustics need extending, as all of the subject matter is transparent. and water bends light quite strongly. As for the shadows being noisy, I struggled with this for a long time. This is a combination of render settings and light settings. There is no easy fix for this. I know they're not as noisy as they were. What anti aliasing engine are you using. I would suggest Adaptive DMC. This is by far the better filter. Great job overall though. A bit more work on the caustics and shadows and this would be awesome! 
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(2 years and 120 days ago)
@r1k3r - I disagree with you. The white and black were purposely put in there to give the object a dynamic look, otherwise everything would be a pale white. It's got nothing to do with caustics (look the word up). Reply »
(2 years and 113 days ago)
love the clarity! Reply »
(2 years and 132 days ago)