Shooting the plate 

Project started with shooting the backplate and the real object with various shapes including a chrome ball. I used the chrome ball to create an HDR  (LDR) in photoshop. Recorded all the camera settings.

Initial attempt at fake poolball

Set up the scene in Maya and entered the camera settings. Matched the perspective, and created the CG ball.  Found a poolball texture and started modifying it in photoshop.

Added occlusion

Set up multi-layer shader in Maya

Blended 3 different scratch maps here, and tweaked the SSS settings 

Set up particle effect in Houdini

Particle reflection (Houdini)

Particle shadows on ground

Final result 

Better match  

Set up particle occlusion pass 

Particle shadows on ball (Houdini)

Comp