My renders look flat..

[Cesar R]

Hi guys,

 

I am having some trouble making my renders look a bit sharper or having some contrast without really making the shaded areas black (which I do not want). To me the render even after being tweaked in PS just looks flat compared to others I see around the web. I am wondering if any of the real pros in here can give me some pointers.

 

I am rendering in 3dsmax and mentalray.

The image below is rendered with a diffuse layer, AO, and then a reflection. I could be doing it all wrong is terms of "overlaying" the images in PS. etc.

 

If anyone i willing to look at a PS. file I can send it via e-mail.

 

Here is the "raw" render, versus the ps.

 

Raw

 

PS

 

[John Dollus]

Looks like your sun is set to a high noon position and the camera is pretty close to being in line with the sun angle. Both of those tend to make images very flat. If you move the sun over to the right side, the shifts in the facade should be more obvious. As far as the camera angle, I'd look at exploring some alternate views. Looking dead on into a flat facade is a no-win situation.

Random thoughts - it's early and I haven't had my coffee yet.

What I'm trying to say is that the overall 'flatness' has little to do with the way you are layering the photoshop file or the render engine.

[Stephen Thomas]

I think camera position is ok, though I'd be tempted to try lighting from the right hand side. Using a blue-ish sky with a warmer sun would give you some colour contrast rather than the all white lighting you seem to have at the moment.

 

Also you really need to use some texture instead of just flat colours. Perhaps some subtle reflection to your stucco and road would also add variation.

[Cesar R]

There is a knockout bump map to the stucco, maybe not seen from this distance. I will tweak a little more. But I am intrigued by you mentioning a reflection to you the stucco and road..

[Tommy L]

I dont think it looks flat, it just looks unfinished. Floating around there with no background, no foreground, no story.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Cesar, IMO I would recommend you to for now just forget about layer passes to comp your rendering, you have a lot of other stuff to be concentrated and dedicate time to master before you even find useful to create your image with render passes. These scenes are not complicated and render passes in this case is more a problem than a practical solution. Render passes will not make your image looks better, it is technique to give maximum flexibility in post production.

 

To make a nice believable image, there is many factors that are involved not only render engine values to start, in real life your building never is in a empty white environment. Using ground planes under your building or site, really help to get light bounce from the sun and add some color variance. Setting up some 3D landscaping also will add color bounce and variance to your image. As mentioned by other the sun location is a key factor, you have two approach basically, just use your intuition and artistic eye to find a nice spot, or use a physical/geographical values to see where the sun will actually be for that development. length of the shadows and how they fade also will give you very different results.

 

Detail, the devil is in the details, when more details you put in your model better shadows and articulation will create, that also will give you more depth and a more "realistic" image.

reflections are important, again surrounding your building with colorful boxes or large trees will give you that extra colors in your scene that will enrich your over all color, sometimes using planes with textures of building will help a lot.

finally Photoshop magic will give you the extra 50% of the image, entourage, color grading, color correction can make a big difference too. search for Architectural photography, study the way the photographer set the camera, what time of the day he is taking the photo and how he compensate with photoshop to get a nice image.

regarding your image, it also looks like you have few bounces in your GI. If you are using Mental ray FG only , give at least 3 or 4 bounces, reduce the sun intensity a little or the burn value in your exposure control, this can get fixed later in photoshop, but this way Mental Ray will distribute better the lighting in your scene.

 

good luck and keep us update

cheers!

[heni30]

The raw looks better that the PS. It's warmer and has more contrast.

 

The color palette of the PS is dreary - just all these greenish-grays. Roof and canopies are good places to have color accents. Reflections in windows would help.

[wda]

........

[Cesar R]

^ I didn't realize you had attached an image when I looked at the post yesterday. Look pretty close lol.

Well there are a few things I realized from your post and by trying a few things on my own.

 

The image below is the final product so far after some slight color correction in PS.

 

Aside from the trees and paver texture which were done by a coworked, I adjusted the sun angle, exposure controls in MR by most importantly I recolored the material with more saturated shades than the real "shewin williams" color code. You guys are right , post work is only a small percentage.

 

By the way he uses Onixtree. I am looking into Speedtree. Are there any other products I should look at?

 

This is the first "pro" render I have done in years, I am open to constructive crits.

 

Some of the things I would like to improve here are adding "real" geometry bases grass (but my plugin does not on the version of max in the office so it is what it is). I would like to re-map the road and pavers with a better texture and of-course add some RCPs.

 

By the way, I built the model in Revit and linked in a FBX into max.

 

[heni30]

Big difference from the original post. The things I see now are:

 

Date palms should be pretty much vertical - they don't lean much.

Big tree? at stair tower is kind of distracting because you can't tell what it is exactly and it's so big and saturated.

I would keep vertical lines true vertical - the right side of the building especially looks unnatural.

The street gray is very empty and flat. It needs some tonal gradation and maybe some cars.

[Cesar R]

Thank you, yeah I don't particularly like the "bamboo" in the front of the stair tower, but that is what GC / Developer want to put there.

This image is going before the city. The right side (condo) is new, while everything to the left of the stair tower is existing.

 

I would keep vertical lines true vertical - the right side of the building especially looks unnatural.

I remember years ago reading about correcting parallax inside max. Isn't there an utility for this? I have not been able to find it.

[Scott Dombrowski]

It's the camera correction modifier. With the camera selected, right click in the viewport and choose "apply camera correction modifier" from the top left quad menu (at least on 2015, I think it's the same a few versions back). You can also choose it from the modifiers menu at the top of the screen, not the drop down modifier list in the command panel (it's not there).

[Cesar R]

Got it, thank you very much !

[jackpedleham]

Maybe try some HDRI Lighting with GI. It will give you really nice soft shadows. Couple that with a spotlight positioned in the direction of the sun to add in some hard shadows. If you dont want to do that maybe add an Ambient occlusion pass over the top of the render to give some nice detail shadows. With the HDRI too it will give some nice variations in your reflections making it much more believable!

[Cesar R]

Jack,

 

I was reading about the AO pass. Essentially I am mapping the ambient/reflective occlusion map to the diffuse of an A&D material.

Then render the image and multiply it in photoshop?

[jackpedleham]

What i ususally do is create a mental ray material then assign the surface slot as an AO material and use that material as an override. The default settings of the AO material need tweaking most of the time. I usually set the distance to about 3' (36.0) as it gives a nice falloff but it depends on your units setup. Take it into photoshop and set it to multiply and change the opacity until youre happy with it. It helps alot to define the edges and corners. Good luck!

[Cesar R]

Thank you for your help guys. your comments and specially adding foliage has added to the quality of the render.

Regarding people, we have tried to use RPC's but they don't look good.

 

I see many rendering with great people added. Are they best added in the rendering or in Photoshop? Can someone recommend a library that I can look into ? I am going to cancel my RCP subscription.

[Scott Dombrowski]

You have more flexibility adding people in Photoshop. Here are a few sources:

 

http://xoio-air.de/

http://www.easy3dsource.com/

http://mrcutout.com/

http://skalgubbar.se/

https://www.vishopper.com/

http://www.epictor.com/

http://www.3drender.co.uk/

http://www.immediateentourage.com/

[Cesar R]

thank you

[jaripakarinen]

I think it is starting to look good. Of course, as Scott Dombrowski mentioned, add camera correction modifier to your camera and maybe some reflection of sky to the windows. Either with HDRI in max or just in PS. I also would add also some people/life to the image and maybe some cars if possible(???)

 

But anyway, little bit of work and you´ll have really good visualization.

[Krisztian Gulyas]

You could lower the camera to eye level, it would make it more real. (to about 150cm)