Lots of glass

[Brian Cassil]

First off, this is not intended to be presented as a finished rendered image, but more as a design study. The intent is to study the multiple layers of glass on the curved area as well as the different types of glazing in the rest of the building. This is not the building in it's intirety, only the portion that faces the street.

 

I didn't do most of the work on this, but more oversaw it and made some tweaks before rendering the last image posted here. I'm hoping to get a lot of feedback on this because I've never been really happy with the look of the glass that I've done in the past. I know that one thing I could do to improve this is to model a little more on the interior, but that is simply more work than I can afford to go to right now. I'm trying to use HDRI for the reflections but not sure if I'm really getting it yet. Also, this is rendered in FR stage-1.

 

I've posted the original and PS enhanced versions.

[mbr]

Looks very nice. Do you use fR?

 

The glass looks a little too opaque to me. If it's bright out, you won't see the greenish tint as much, and if it's evening it'd probably be less green and either highly reflective or transparent with a glow from inside.

But just guesses. Depends on the glass used, too.

[Brian Cassil]

Do you use fR?

Yes, since the early days of stage-0, but I still wonder if I'm doing things right with it.

 

As far as the green tint goes I agree, it wouldn't be THAT green normally, however, this is exactly what the architect wants. I have no idea if he's done the proper research to see if there is such a glass but he wants something that is really, really green. In fact, he probably would prefer it was even stronger than what I'm showing here.

[mbr]

Good to know. I love your work and I am sure I'll be hitting you up for a fR tip or two ;-) !

 

At least green glass will be cheaper than not green. I was just working on a project where they wanted no green tint at all and it was at least a 25-50% increase in the cost of the glass. Big difference.

[CHE]

Brian,

 

I would do the reflections in Photoshop. You can either render a reflection/mask pass for the glass or draw a mask in PS. Then bring in an image as a new layer (you can always use 2 or more that's up to you) fix the perspective and distort it (spherize horizontal in this case). Then, colorize the layer using the saturation/hue tool (green). Finally, change the layer mode to multiply (In this case I have two layer the sky layer is set to multiply and the land layer to overlay). Play with the opacity. See attached image. I really don't like the lens flare too much but since this is a conceptual rendering why not use it?. Great rendering by the way. My two cents.

 

Ernesto

[Victor Erthal]

Hi Brian,

Something that can add a more realistic feel is to render some flourescent lights inside the building (without the glass) and compose it in photoshop. You can copy that layer and add blur... The effect is easy to achieve and has highly controlable. Also, render the glass in a separate pass so that you can fine tune the level of transparency in photoshop.

 

Btw, i was also a user of fr since stage one and i really love it. Right now i use v-ray because of its speed, but no doubt the quality of fr is great.

[Brian Cassil]

Thanks for the tips guys. I think both are very valid. I don't remember off hand how to render just the reflections in max or with fR but I'll try and figure it out. I see how having the flexiblity with what is seen in the reflections and with what is seen through the glass in post would be really nice.

[Brian Cassil]

!!!HOW HAVE I MISSED THE POWER OF RENDER ELEMENTS ALL THIS TIME!!!

 

I feel like I've stepped into a whole new world of possibilities! Like I said, I've never been real happy with the glass effects I've achieved before and now I know why. I'm sure that a lot of you are saying "Duh Brian". The flexibility this allows by compositing different effects in PS is awesome! Reflections, refractions, shadows, atmosphere are things I've always struggled with and spent countless hours rendering and re-rendering to get just right. Now I can do most of that tweaking in PS!

 

In case there are any other idiots like me out there, I've posted the different element passes here. The "base" image with no reflections or refractions, the reflection image, the refraction image, and the PS composite with other enhancements.

 

I first learned 3D using 3D studio r4 in 95, I took the only classes that were available then which were pretty basic and have been self taught for the most part since then. I guess this is one of those things that just slipped through the cracks for me.

[Tim Saunders]

okay brian,

you mentioned something about this the other day to me. and i hope there are other idiots like me out there who also have never tried something like this. i hear about multiple passes all the time in ht eforums. when you say "base image with no reflections or refractions, the reflection image, the refraction image, and the PS composite with other enhancements," do you just turn off the reflection or refraction settings in the glass materials and render the scene or what? or maybe this is something that needs to be discussed in person at a computer?

i'm for sure lots more impressed with the results of your last posted image. My concern is, what if you have an actual image as a background, or trees and other buildings that are in the reflections? does the same preccess apply?

[Tim Nelson]

So what format do you save out as and how do you composite that back in PS?

[Brian Cassil]

Hi Tim(s)

 

when you say "base image with no reflections or refractions, the reflection image, the refraction image, and the PS composite with other enhancements," do you just turn off the reflection or refraction settings in the glass materials and render the scene or what?

 

In FR, you can turn off reflections and/or refractions globally through the rendering dialogue. I'm pretty sure you can do that with other plugins as well. I can't remember if you can do that with scanline/radiosity or not, but I think so, I just can't find it right now.

 

My concern is, what if you have an actual image as a background, or trees and other buildings that are in the reflections? does the same preccess apply?

 

Yes, the exact same process.

 

So what format do you save out as

 

I save them tiffs, but it could be anything really. In fact, unless your doing a shadow pass (I'm still figuring that one out a little) it doesn't even need to be a format with an alpha channel because you can render the background as a seperate image too. How it works is you set the file and output path as usual, (lets say "image.tiff")then in render elements, add the elements you want. Only a few of them have any settings of their own (ie. z-depth, diffuse, etc.), so tweak them as necessary. Then render. The additional images will be saved as "image_reflection.tiff", "image_refraction.tiff", etc.

 

how do you composite that back in PS

 

Depends on what effect your compositing. I'm a newbie at this so I don't have it all figured out like the shadows as I mentioned. But, the reflections, and refractions are easy. Just paste those images over the "base" image, and set the reflection or refraction layer to "screen" blend mode. If you want the reflections stronger, copy that layer once or twice, and it's done. Or if you want them to be less strong, set the opacity of that layer down some. That's the beauty of it, flexiblity. Tim (the Nelson one), If I'm not mistaken you use PSD manager which offers some of the same benifits.

[vertexART]

Nice one Brian, I really like it!

 

Don't forget to check Z-depth pass, great for DOF or distance blurring simulation, cause it renders out a grayscale image based on objects distance from the view. That image can be then used as blur mask in PS.

As for shadows, all I tried and know about them is that they should be composited on top, but not sure about the blending method, possibly multiply, or overlay.

 

I don't know much about the elements myself also, so keep us all posted.

Cheers