Modelling & Rendering a realistic perfume bottle

In this short tutorial you’ll discover how you can make a Perfum Bottle in Solidworks and Render it in Blender (2.48a). Basic knowledge of Blender and Solidworks is recommended. Solidworks 2008 SP2.1 and Blender 2.48a were used for this tutorial.

Level: Intermediate

The first part describes the modelling. If you don’t have solidworks, you can try to model it using your program of choiche, or take any other random model and go to the second part, which will tell you how to set up the materials. Models are also available as download. This tutorial also explains how to export models from Solidworks to Blender.

You can download the .vrml models right from my site:
- Perfume Bottle .vrml Model
- Perfume Cap .vrml Model
- Perfume Sprayer .vrml Model

Step 1: Modeling in Solidworks:

Solidworks is a powerful 3D cad drawing program, used by engineers and product designers. If you already have your model and want to go the the blender part, skip this part of the tutorial and go here. Start up Solidworks and choose new > part.

Start by making a circle sketch on the top plane, using a diameter of 50mm, as shown in the following picture. Use the Smart Dimension tool for mating the dimensions.

Extrude this sketch using extruded boss/base button or by insert > boss/base > extrude. Extrude 150mm, in blind mode.

To get to the curved shape we are going to make a new sketch, and apply a revolved cut feature to it.

Start by making a new sketch on the front plane. Use for example my dimensions, but make it as high as the pillar we already made.

Go to view > temporary axes, to make the temporary exes visible. We will use this for the cut revolve feature. Insert a cut revolve (insert > cut > revolve), using the axis in the middle. Make it one direction and with and angle 360deg. Now we get somewhere!

Start making a new sketch, on the front plane. Make it as high as the pillar, and use the dimensions shown in the image below:

Extrude (insert > boss/base > extrude) this sketch 20mm, using midplane mode. This will extrude it from the midplane, thereby placing the extruded sketch exactly in the middle of the circle (viewed in the image below).

Make a new sketch on the frontplane. Make it 2.5mm from the borders, and use a 3 point arc with a very large radius, as you can see in the picture below. Cut extrude (insert > cut > extrude) this sketch, using midplane mode and extrude it over 15mm.

We’ll now add the last part of the bottle itself, and then continue to making the sprayer and the cap itself. Selecting the top face (do this from top view) start making a new sketch, a circle with a diameter of 15mm and with it’s midpoint right above the origin. Extrude this (insert > boss/base > extrude), blind, 7.5mm. Select from top view the top face of this just extruded circle, and draw a circle with diameter 10mm and midpoint at the same point as the previous circle. Cut extrude (insert > cut > extrude) this circle with a value of 10mm.

End up by selecting everything and apply a fillet of 0.50mm (insert > feature > fillet). You now should have something that looks like the image below:

Modeling the sprayer and cap:

Start making each object by making it a new part (file > new > part). We will assemble the three parts later in Blender.

The cap itself is very simple: start by making a circle sketch with a diameter of 50mm, on the top plane. Extrude (insert > boss/base > extrude), blind, this circle 12.5mm. Sketch a new circle on the top plane, with its midpoint at the same point as the midpoint of the first circle, and with a diameter of 20mm. Cut Extrude (insert > cut > extrude) it 10mm, blind. Finaly apply a fillet (insert > feature > fillet ) of 0.50mm to the top face of the cap. You’ll end up with the model below:

For the sprayer we have to do more. Start by making the sketch (use the same dimensions) below, using line and three point arc, or circle and power trim:

Extrude blind this sketch 10mm. Start making a new sketch, a circle with the same midpoint, but with a diameter of 15mm. Cut extrude blind this sketch 5mm. Then apply a fillet of 0.50mm to the top of the cylinder.

Now go to back view (or the view that that you look right up at the flat part of the extruded circle), and draw a help line in the middle from up to down. Draw a circle, having a midpoint relation with the helpline, with a diameter of 2mm. Blind extrude it 0.50mm.

Sketch a new circle on top of the one we just made, having the same midpoint, but with a diameter of 1mm. Cut extrude this circle, using ‘up to surface’, and select the face shown in the picture below:

If you have done everything right, you’ll end up with something that looks like below:

Now save all the three parts you made as .vrml. This is pretty easy, just go to file > save as and where you usually save as .sldprt you can choose a lot of other formats, and choose .vrml this time.

Step2: Importing the model in Blender:

It is time to start up blender and import the models we just made in Solidworks. If you are following the tutorial right from this part, make sure you have a suitable model. Use file > import > .vrml 1.0 and import the bottle, cap and sprayer. If there isn’t a .vrml import option or if it doesn’t work, you might need this script. Place it in your default blender scripts folder (which usually is Blender\.blender\scripts). Restart blender to activate the script.

The models appear very small and on their sides, so rotate them 90 degrees on the x-axis (Hit r, x, 90 on your keyboard). Grab the sprayer and cap, and by using side and front views, place them exactly on the top of the perfume bottle. Now you can optionally add a floor (hit space: add > mesh > plane and scale it), and give it a white color, or a texture, or anything else you want. That should be easy enough to do by yourself.

Step 3: Shading and rendering in Blender:

We are now ready to add the materials to the model. Select the perfume bottle, hit f5 or the material button and add a new material. I used the following setup for a slightly blue but very realistic glass.

A little more explanation on some settings:

Ray Mirror:

- RayMir: 0.10

- Freshnel: 0.50

- Fac: 1.50

Ray Transp:

- IOR: 1.50

A little explanation on what IOR exactly means. IOR stands for Index of Refraction, and it is a fysical attribute to describe how much a light ray is refracted ( a light ray enters a transparant volume and it will continue in a different angle). IOR 1.50 is the best setting for glass.

- Freshnel: 3.92

- Fac: 1.50

- Filter: 0.100 (For an understanding of these settings I eagerly forward you to http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-242/transmissivity/)

- Limit: 10

And for the cap and the sprayers I used the following material setup:

- RayMir: 0.72

- Freshnel: 2.25

- Fac: 1.25

I also turned on ambient occlusion. Do this by going to World Buttons (the little earth-globe like icon), go to the tab ambient occlusion and turn it on. I used 6 samples, and add and plain, with and energy of 1.000.

Place your camera on a good spot and finaly hit render (f12). Depending on your camera view and environment (a white floor can be used for example: add plane, scale by 50, grab and move it right under the perfume bottle model and add a default shader, give it a white color) you can end up with pictures like this:

You now finished this tutorial!

Optionally I used a .hdri map for the world shading, which gives a really nice shading that can be found in the previous post. I found a bunch of them over here: http://www.debevec.org/probes/.

In the previous tutorial was described how to change the world color, and how to add textures. Add your chosen hdri map as a world texture. You can load your hdri map using texture type: image. Map it (under the map to tab under the world button) hori. Rendering it again will certainly have influence on the appearance of your object.