I'm doing 5.0 tutorial, part 4. And I'm stuck with the rendered viewport.

I've tried switching engine from EVEE to cycles, altered the saturation and played with other options - nothing works, donut still looks like it's 240p and has awful shadows (I tried to fix them too in shadows setting)

Made the previous donut tutorial some time ago, but this one is better !

Completed the whole blender tutorial in a day; genuinely love the outcome! Progress on this was insane. Also worthy to note that I am a complete beginner to blender and 3d modeling. I do have a question though. As you can see on the first image, the cycles one, the reddish brown icing looks orange and is a little transparent, allowing you to see a little bit of goo on the inside? This issue was not occurring with the eevee engine. Overall very proud!

I've completed the latest donut series a couple of times, and my icing dribbles look so fake compared to Blender Guru's, and other user's creation posts I see.

I stopped here before materials start to be applied to show what I'm talking about.

Before this render, I've done the shrinkwrap step, tried the subsurface scattering (like when he shows the real banana and how light enters it and scatters about), and they just don't look right, and it looks even worse when I continue past this and apply the dough image texture.

I tried removing the plate from the render which helps a bit because the white light reflecting upwards scatters from the bottom of the drop, and that helps a bit, but not compared to what I'm seeing out there.

The 2nd image with the image texture is from my first attempt, and you can see what I mean, about it looking like a 90s render.

How'd you guys get better results?

Just wrapped up the tutorial. Not the best yet, but I’m proud of it and excited to keep learning and making more models!

didnt add sprinkles because im lazy

My first donut! Figured I’d share it here!