Paul Griger Posted January 20, 2003 Share Posted January 20, 2003 Hi Gang, Well, this is my first 3D job that I’m getting ready to submit for final approval. First time ever modeling, and I am just learning C4D XL 7, and rendering w/GI in C4D XL 7. I have spent entirely too much time on this project, but I guess there’s an inherent learning curve whenever you are learning new software. Needless to say, my brain is fried and I feel that I can’t really give an unbiased judgment if this is ok or not for a final approval. I’m rendering the finals pics tonight, so the AA and the artifacts will be corrected with the new renders tonight. 1. Is there anything painfully obvious that I should address before I submit these to the client? 2. What mistakes should I watch out for that were made here but should be avoided in the future? No GI on this pic only, and amazingly, my favorite of the bunch. I will probably end up submitting the similar I pic below: The rest have GI, but I feel everything looks woefully flat Be cruel and tear it up because I want to improve. I am rather disappointed in the way these turned out, so I really need some advice to get these looking more photo-real. If no one can find something to crit here, I’ll be saddened because I know there’s a large margin for improvement here. Thx for any and all insights, Paul Griger. P.S. the client has already been more than happy with the preliminary renderings, so they will be satisfied. I’m just shooting to push myself to the ranks of the rest of the pros here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jcs Posted January 20, 2003 Share Posted January 20, 2003 Hello. I don't know how to work with your software (cinema 4d) but if this was made with finalrender, for example, I would say that you have a lack of rhrays. Also i feel like that only some objects are emiting GI. This is something that occurs frequently in finalRender, when you forget to use a fr material with GI checked. Perhaps in your image it has something to do with the light distribution? The renderings look too "flat", for me - I would like them to have more contrast between light/shadow areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 21, 2003 Author Share Posted January 21, 2003 Originally posted by Jcs: … you have a lack of rhrays. Also i feel like that only some objects are emiting GI. ... Perhaps in your image it has something to do with the light distribution? The renderings look too "flat", for me - I would like them to have more contrast between light/shadow areas. Hi José, I agree w/your feelings on the renderings. C4D does have similar settings that can be tweaked as in FR it sounds like. I’m going to have to mess with these because as you stated, it is woefully flat . It needs a greater contrast between the light and shadows. I’ll play with it more and post updates. Thx, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingo Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Hi Paul, now you know that buying the software is the cheapest part First thing i see is the depth of field, never use it for interior shots in such small houses since you have to use a wide angle lens. Additional to jcs comment, try to take care of all your light settings. If you have time just render with one light, than with the next...so you get a good feeling which lights produces to much intensity. Otherwise nice pictures, and if the client likes them the check is in the mail Happy try and error Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 This is a test I did with C4D. I had the same flatness problem with interiors using GI that you seem to be having. I did get things to look better, like getting the furniture look attached to the floor I have the file on a CD somewhere. If I find it I'll post the radiosity settings I used for the final image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHaidar Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 "Be cruel and tear it up" Spoken like a survivor of many crits from frustrated architecture professors. Kitchen02 The materials are off to a good start but it looks like you've got one small scale granite map stretched across the counters and backsplash. The map on the bar stools looks stretched as well. Fire02 The drapes are casting an odd shadow on the walls and ceiling. Do you have an omni light in the window? Along the lines of what Jcs and ingo have said it looks like a combination of a few too many lights combined with a low number of GI bounces. What does your lighting setup look like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 21, 2003 Author Share Posted January 21, 2003 Originally posted by ingo: now you know that buying the software is the cheapest part , Oh man, am I ever finding that to be the case. I’d spend any amount of money [almost] to get my hands on the software that has that magic “perfect GI settings” button. Uggghh! Originally posted by ingo: [QBFirst thing i see is the depth of field, never use it for interior shots in such small houses since you have to use a wide angle lens. [/QB]Consider it gone. Plus the interior designer didn’t like it Originally posted by ingo: If you have time just render with one light, than with the next...so you get a good feeling which lights produces to much intensity. I’ve done this, and the problem I had is that I could never get a good GI lighting look without any of the interior lights on. I started with just my exterior HDRI skydome and my one sunlight, and it didn’t even light my interior. I don’t know why, I had the GI bounces at 2 or 3, the recommended amounts. I tried higher bounces, but no luck. I then removed the glass in the windows to see if that was the problem, but no. Then I added some area lights by the windows on the interior one at a time and it lit the interior, but it didn’t look right to me. I tried omni lights instead of the area lights, but nothing changed. I then tried them with or without shadows, and the shadows looked better. Still the light was dim on the interior, so I added two more omni’s but without shadows in the kitchen. A little better. But I still didn’t like the lighting, so I turned off all of the interior lights and tried turning of the roof to cast shadows and let my skydome light the interior. It looked fantastic, but the light was unrealistic of course. Well, I thought if I used some interior globes with a HDRI on it, it may work, but that looked too unrealistic also. So then I copied my floor, put a render tag on it so it wasn’t seen by the camera or cast shadows and put a HDRI on it, raised it to the window height, and lit the interior. It looked pretty good actually, but there were some spots that were too bright and I thought that since no one else is lighting GI like this that I shouldn’t try reinventing the GI lighting wheel at this point. So then I fell back to the omni/area lights, but I was never really happy with the lighting still. I just added the lights one by one until I finished. Originally posted by kid: This is a test I did with C4D. I had the same flatness problem with interiors using GI that you seem to be having. … If I find it I'll post the radiosity settings I used for the final image. interesting, post the settings if you can find them, thx kid. Originally posted by AHaidar: "Be cruel and tear it up" Spoken like a survivor of many crits from frustrated architecture professors. Kitchen02 The materials are off to a good start but it looks like you've got one small scale granite map stretched across the counters and backsplash. The map on the bar stools looks stretched as well. Good eye on the granite and bar stool fabric. I have one small sample for the granite and when I tiled it at the proper size, it was a glaringly obvious tile problem, so I made it larger than it should be. Maybe I’ll PS the sample to make it more diverse at a larger size and reapply it. The fabric, well, I am still learning how to do UV mapping texture in C4D. I am not too adapt at UV mapping yet, if I have time I’ll tinker with it. Originally posted by AHaidar: Fire02; The drapes are casting an odd shadow on the walls and ceiling. Do you have an omni light in the window? Yes, well actually I have an area light casting a soft shadow in the Living room rear window and in the Dinng room large window. When I had it cast an area shadow it did looked better, but had higher render times. I will probably go back to the area shadow to correct that. Originally posted by AHaidar: What does your lighting setup look like? you can see above in my reply to ingo what it is. I may post in the C4D forum at CG Talk to see if they can help. I am obviously doing something wrong here. Thx all for your help, I’ll keep you posted. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingo Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Hi Paul, how about programming your own GI renderer, seems faster to me Or hire a good 3D visualizer Well i looked at C4D and saw there a "raydiosity intensity" setting field, in LightWave you put that above 100 % to get a good light inside from the sunlight, otherwise its to dark (i had the same annoying problems a few month before, and solved it with the help of Newteks forums). Maybe it helps here too. And for the granite material procedural textures are the way to go. But C4D's texturing engine, even with BhodiNut, was my decision to buy LightWave instead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 29, 2003 Author Share Posted January 29, 2003 This is pretty much done. There have been some items brought up like the tex of the counter, stools and such, but I wasn't able to have the time to address these. Just get things optimized as much as I could and get rid of the flatness, & struggle w/the GI settings in C4D I have been experiencing problems with optimizing my settings in C4D which I'm sure is all user error and nothing to do w/C4D. Anyways I'm, posting the final pic and then the C4D raw pic before postwork. I have two more to post, but since each render is taking 4 days to render , I'm posting these as they come. A.P [after postwork ] B.P. [before postwork ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 29, 2003 Author Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by ingo: Hi Paul, how about programming your own GI renderer, seems faster to me LOL, you don't know how many times I have said something similar for my CAD programs. Guess I'm just difficult or a whiner Originally posted by ingo: Or hire a good 3D visualizer [sarcasm] Well if you know of any plz let me know [/sarcasm] Originally posted by ingo: ...you put that above 100 % to get a good light inside from the sunlight, otherwise its to dark ...Yes, that did end up doing part of the trick Originally posted by ingo: But C4D's texturing engine, even with BhodiNut, was my decision to buy LightWave instead w/BhodiNut DOA, now it has more than a few worried because SLA was the reason many chose C4D. Lightwave was always appealing to me, but the interface, I just couldn't come to grips w/it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Hey Paul, The one thing I noticed that seemed a bit off was the DOF on the las image of your first post. It seems to be too exagerated. Pretty damn good though for a guy who has never modelled or done any rendering in C4D! How many hours has it taken to get you to this point? Just curious on the leanring curve for C4D. IS the very first time you have ever done Rendering and Modelling or just in C4D? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingo Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Hi Paul, >>...which I'm sure is all user error and nothing to do w/C4D... Thats what i tried to tell all my clients in my years of CAD support, glad someone realized it now The kitchen looks great, but four days to render (what size ?), man youre able to kill even the fastest renderers (software, not people). Is it just me, or is the rendering a bit grainy ? And it looks like a lot of post work on the ceiling and the top part of the walls. For future work i think your metalls need a little improvement, means better reflection maps or so. Otherwise great picture for your jumpstart into C4D. We hear from you in four days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 29, 2003 Author Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by Jeff Mottle: Hey Paul, The one thing I noticed that seemed a bit off was the DOF on the las image of your first post.He, he; ya, that was my weak attempt at doing DOF in the post. C4D's DOF is one of it's weak points, so most C4D users do it in the post. How many hours has it taken to get you to this point? I’m really sorry you asked this, ughhhh… Well, I keep track of all hours I do for all of my jobs since I started architecture. Here’s how this job breaks down: 46.25 hours = time spent in ArchiCAD doing the interior modeling of the walls, floors, ceilings, windows/doors, casing, base & shoe, stair rail, cabinets, some fireplace details, outside deck. 81.00 hours = time spent modeling in C4D [for the first time ]. These items were: all drapes, all furniture, all lights fixtures, all bookshelf items [marionettes are already modeled in C4D, just had to pose them], plates and utensils, refrigerator and some appliance work, rugs, fireplace screen, wall pictures, some other clean up work about 20 hours texturing in C4D about 12 hours spent on playing with lighting levels and GI/ambient lighting levels and testing resolution outputs. I’ve spent about 100 hours on the GI problems that I’m having, this is killing me! I know next time I’ll be a lot faster w/everything in C4D. I feel confident enough to try modeling and animating a human figure or a car if I get some free time in the future [which = probably never ] Just curious on the leanring curve for C4D. The modeling was overwhelming to me at first because I have never done it before. I have done all modeling in ArchiCAD previous to this. So this time I went through all of the tutorials on modeling in C4D before I took this on. Once I got out of the mindset of trying to make my modeling like it was a set of construction documents to build off of, it was pretty easy to model I thought. I learned that I could eyeball a lot of things without worry about being exact; I just make it look pretty. Also, once I got through the modeling tutorials and then set shortcut keys to my liking and got familiar with what tool has what result, things flowed pretty easily. I just have to learn the get the lighting and texturing down now IS the very first time you have ever done Rendering and Modelling or just in C4D? The only other program I have worked with even close to this is ArtLantis, but you cannot model in that program. Plus the lighting, while user friendly, is still limited in it’s results. So my first exposure to modeling was the tutorials in C4D. Plus the obligatory first chrome sphere ball or lighting effects Bring out your chrome ball tests Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 29, 2003 Author Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by ingo: Hi Paul, >>...which I'm sure is all user error and nothing to do w/C4D... Thats what i tried to tell all my clients in my years of CAD support, glad someone realized it now LOL, that must have been a patience testing job Originally posted by ingo: The kitchen looks great, but four days to render (what size ?), man youre able to kill even the fastest renderers (software, not people). Is it just me, or is the rendering a bit grainy ? And it looks like a lot of post work on the ceiling and the top part of the walls. For future work i think your metalls need a little improvement, means better reflection maps or so. Otherwise great picture for your jumpstart into C4D. We hear from you in four days Yes, the speed [or lack of it] is a killer. it's only a 800 x 600 res too, I don't get it? I submitted the file to Maxon because I'm stumped. Yes, its got some post noise in it to hide some of my post booggers Hummm, the metals are weak, yes. I was trying to use SLA metals, but they are time sucking, and that's the last thing I need at this point. Thx for the kind words from both you and jeff [and the rest above ] as I venture away from the world of heavy code restrictions and into a virtual world, where there are no budgets, gravity, or building inspectors Originally posted by ingo: We hear from you in four days LOL, you're killing me At least I have my sense of humor, my CG Architect buddies, and a well stocked fridge of dark beer from my office mate here in the office Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingo Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Hi Paul, FOUR days for a 800x600 rendering, i think its time to upgrade your 286 PC. There is definitly something going wrong, or its to much dark beer (which would explain the nisus-long post too). Well i can offer you to send one of your kirchen scene to me if you want and i'll take a look at it, if its not too big or has too large textures. Just tell me how large your file is in MB, or maybe you have a ftp server ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 29, 2003 Author Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by ingo: ...which would explain the nisus-long post too. Yes, I'm going to take over his title soon Originally posted by ingo: i'll take a look at it, if its not too big or has too large textures. Just tell me how large your file is in MB, or maybe you have a ftp server ? Wow, that's very gracious. Well I have never setup my FTP server, now I wish I had. I zipped the file into two seperate files at about 5 MB each, would that work in two seperate emails? Yes, I should upgrade my Vic 20 to do the Archi renderings . Actually I have a dual AMD MP 2000+ w/a Gig of DDR RAM and a GeForce 4 Ti. Having this nice hardware only intensifies my anger with these render times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingo Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Hi Paul, >>I zipped the file into two seperate files at about 5 MB each, would that work in two seperate emails? That should work, send it direct to ingo@im-graphics.de . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 29, 2003 Author Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by ingo: That should work, send it direct to ingo@im-graphics.de . Hi ingo, I'm sending the two emails out right now. They should be loaded up to my email host in less than five minutes. thx, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mzagorski Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Hey - Nice work... for your first attemp!... Just to give you a comparrison for the time you spent on that image. This one of mine: Example of my work. Modelling in AutoCAD (24 hours) Texturing in Photoshop (16 hours) Rendering in Lightscape (Various) Keep up the good work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Griger Posted January 29, 2003 Author Share Posted January 29, 2003 Originally posted by mzagorski: Just to give you a comparrison for the time you spent on that image... ..Keep up the good work. mzagorski, Hey, thanks for the kind words. And thx for posting those hours. That helps me gauge where I am and where I could be in comparisson. ~ Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now