request to criticise the work

[anindia]

dear friends,

i am an architect of india, recently i ve developed some interior 3d views, please let me know ur valuable coments. actually i want build my 3d s more realistic. i am using 3d max 6, please give me some suggestions how can i make them more photorealistic.-rendering time should not be too long. sorry for my poor english.

-regards

anirban:D

[ant_sutton]

Hi there. welcome

 

Two things that will deffinately help the look of your renders is applying more smoothign to objects like the chairs and turn AA ON!! this will help

 

Also, use higher quality textures. take some photographs or search the internet

 

Ant

[STRAT]

and put in some lighting contrast, like real or fake GI.

 

unfortunately the image quality as it stands is about 6-7 years out of date. if you want realistic hopes of earning money from this you MUST learn advanced lighting techniques.

 

but you've come to the right place

[anindia]

thanks for ur comment, i have used omni light in the scene, i was thinking of using photometric but the rendering time becomes too long. will u suggest what to use perticulurly for interior rendering

[Nibbler]

You might enjoy trying out radiosity more. I`ts really very fast on indirect illumination. I dont know how much you know abouth lightning, so I`ll be arrogant and assume you`re almost as stupid as I usually are when starting something.

Radiosity are as we know very exellent in that you get desent indirect illumination (Lights bounsing off walls, colors beeing reflected from the walls to the floor etc.) But poorer when it comes to raytrayced reflections and refractions.

 

Modelling:

Try to avoid cutting up you`re building unessesary. I call this a good rule for all kinds of indirect illumination render engines, especially for the radiosity render engine. That can really cause long render time.

F.example in a rectangulare rooom, don`t make it with four boxes as wall, and a box for floor and another for ceiling. This will confuse 3dsmax, sending light rays into creeks and corners that should not bee there, causing unessesary long rendering time and with every possibilety of having light and shadows in unwanted places. (But as with all rules, try and break them if you like. Sometimes you get away with it, and saves time.)

And try to modell everything in real life scale (the solution still work if you`re scale is "off the roof", but then you must adjust the lights and shit that will be "off the roof" also.)

 

If everything should be in order, but the solution is suspisiously slow or crashes or something. Then there are two things you can try conserning modells.

 

1. Look trough you`re modifiers list and put an "stl-check" on suspisiouse objects (It checks for open edges, double faces etc.)

 

2. The other thing you can do is to go to utilles (yepp, the hammer thingy) and put a "reset X-form" on a suspiciouse object. You may think nothing happened untill yo ucheck out you`re objects modifi list and see it there. Turn it on ands off, if you`re object changes size, turn it on and collapse the modell (while it is in right size). (very good thing to do when working with phycice and character animation btw!). (If you transform an object (Move, rotate, scale), Max still keeps information on how the object was "originally", this is what is disclosed by "reset X-form".)

 

Lights:

Lights can be really cool, search for "IES" on google. I have found some cool lightning that way. IES files are made by the light manufacter (orsomething), and are supposed to reflect how the light looks in real life (Spotlight on a wall have totally different light than an ordinary lightbulb lamp on a wall). These are easy to use, just set distribuitomn type (on youre photom. light) to "web", go down to web parameters and load the IES file you just found on google or something. Always recomend setting Bias down to 0,01 and use shadow map instead of raytraced. Oh, and for god sake turn up shadow map size if the shadow look jagged or "blotchy". (Dont overdoo it, it uses memory. I seldom passes 2.500-4000 pixels in size. You probably are aware that shadow maps are "fake", a bitmap of a given size, as opposite to raytraced shadows that are entirely calculated, thus, longer to render. Btw, I hate raytraced shadows, but they can shine trough an opacity mapping, something ordinary shadowmaps can not. (Area shadows take very long time to render btw.)

 

Materials:

The materials are also quite easy to use, here is where you want to choose architectural materials. Where there reads "User defined", you probably know there is a drop down list where you can choose betwen glass, metall, and all sorts of things. Just be aware that reflections are controlled by shininess.

Only thing that can be a little confusing is the selfillumination part of materials. Luminance only affects the colore of the material until you turn on "emit energy (based on luminance)", then the material wil cast light as well as beeing "selfiluminating". You want to play with this function.

I recomend you try cutting the reflections when working if this slows down render time. And as a general rule, less is more when it comes to realisme. Especially conserning bump maps. (And remember, if you have to/want, you can adjust the materials behavioure to lights individually! (colore bleed and reflection scale, changing them, on say a floor, might lighten up the whole room. But more often you might find that you want to tone down materials instead)

 

Render settings:

Try avoiding to much fuzzing with the render controlls, and use "subdivide mesh". The cgi lightning in this particulare engine is dependent on faces, meaning, that a wall consiting of one polygon is noo good unless you turn on this option.

Set filter on 1-3 (you can adjust this to remove "blotches" after calculations are done). Remember to press filter "settings" and adjust light/dark! (Also something you can do after calculations).

You can stick to "automatic" or something on still frames, but make sure you use "logaritmic" on animations.

 

The nice thing with radiosity is that it is easy to work with after the solution is finished calculating. If you`re making an arcitectural walk trough, it will render really really fast, since all advanced light calculation allready is done. But you cant move any objects that cast shadow or light unless you want max to calculate every frame.. (I often bake light and shadows into the texture, and use simple lightning where nessesary afterwards. Then you`re computer renders fast!)

 

 

Now that I`m sure you`re skilled in radiosity;) , some general tip.

 

Some like to finish all materials and mappings before swithcing over from default lightning and starting to tweak. May sound reasonable (I have no idea what I usually do..)

Then start with ONE light. Preferably a photometric spot/direct lightning, whatever you use as outdoor lightning. When you`re pleased with how you`re room look with no indoor lightning, then proceed to the next lightsource, preferably a dominant one. Like, put an bulb into the big ceeling light before you start off with the small lamp on the table.

Do not fill the room with lights, like, if you have a ceeling covered with 50 light fixtures, you might be happy faking it with one or two cleverly plased photometric lights.

 

Do not fill the room with stuff while you`re tweaking the lights. When you`re pretty sure you`re on the right track. Then you unhide all objects, (maybe turn on and tweek reflections) set it on calculation and take lunch. Afterwards you can tweak materials and mappings withouth having to wait for long render time.

The crucial thing for you to understand is, always be economical! Not speaking of the obviouse as to having unessesary many polygones, unessesary hig detailed maps, reflections etc. But also be aware of not calculating stuff you don`t have to during work prosess.

If you`re adjusting lights it is totally waste of time having the machine to calculate some reflections that you know are just fine.

I often sit and tweeks lightning with an empty room, maybe a temporary box just to get some reflection/shadow to look at. (Use layers if you`re not allready acustomed to using them)

Oh, and really recomend you to learn photoshop well. (I`m tempted to take you`re pictures and give em`facelift in photoshop, you`d be amazed, trust me.)

 

If you want to try out external render engines, my tip to you is Vray. I`ve heard Maxwell is very good also, but have not checked it out and therefore will not talk abouth it. The third of the three "big render engines for Max", as I personal call it, is Final render. Final render is most excellent as an "allround" render engine and better suited for animation purposes and better integrated with Max than Vray IMO. But for architectural work I would go for V-ray. I`ts realativly cheap, and has excellent render time. You can set the settings on "low", tweak lights and have it render a grainy non aliased picture that renders FAST. Then you cab turn up th quality, take lunch, come back and amaze mom with a photo realistic picture. IMO Vray has better photorealism than Final render (and radiosity), and quick too. Vrayt may scare you off with many, many parameters you can play with. But luckily there are some decent presets you can choose between, and many of the controlls are really not meant to be touched by mortals:) There is excellent documaentation and tutorials to be found on this engine.

 

But don`t be put off by "standard max", I often use ordinary scanline render and is pleased with that. And I`ll bet someone will give you some hints on mental ray and what it can do (do not recomend yo u throw you`re self into mental ray as a first thing. I`ts a little weird on the MANY controlls Imo.)

Anyway, you have talent. Just remember to be clever and economical when working. And never forget that everything 3dsmax does is "fake". So dont be afraid to fake lightning, it still is "what you see is what you get". Nobody will ever know abouth mistakes you`ve done if they do not know it`s a mistake. And only you know how this or that "really should look."

 

Oh, always study stuff in real life if you have the oppertunity, and reflect on how much of what you see looks "Wrong" from cgi eyes. Espesially shadows and reflections. If I must choose between 100% realisme or something "fake" thats looks better, I go for "fake". (Last time I got amazed was looking at how snow looks like in a pintree valley, i`d never been satisifed if I had made it in 3dsmax).

 

And do try different stock lences on you`re camera (but for god sake don`t overdo perspective unless you know what you`re doing!

So go now child, out into the world, prove these pessimists wrong! You REALLY can be on "top of things" in a coulple of months, IF, you are as disiplined as you`re creative.

 

Never looks for praise, but critic sinse it`s much more valuable. That attitude is why I responded to this post, (you owe me a fortune for the time I`ve spent writing instead of working