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Can anyone help me improve my image?


womble
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Looking for a little help with this image for a community centre, I'm just not happy with it at all at the moment. I think it's definatly lacking something in lighting and composition, and the site definatly doesn't help (the building is actually sunk below the foreground, so you miss a lot of the building, and it makes it look as though you're on a hill).

 

Using Vray and Viz, with a daylight HDRI map and a huge omni set quite far from the scene to simulate the sun.

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The Vray error message coming up for those artifacts is

 

"Warning: Material returned overbright or invalid colour (object "roof", RGB -1.#QNAN -1.#QNAN -1.#QNAN)"

 

Sounds like ive got a dodgy colour in there or something, but im sure i checked my values before and made sure there was no 0's or 255's in any swatch. I also converted scene to Vray so there shouldnt be any architectural or standard materials.

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those artifacts are strange....not sure about them.

 

In my opinion your losing alot of realism by using an omni for the sun instead of a Vray sphere light. The general rule is that you turn on "no decay" on your spherical light (which means it's size doesn't determine it's brightness) and the smaller the sphere the sharper the shadows. I personally have tried to light with normal omni's using vray and wasn't happy with the results as you seem to be experiencing here. I think that once your lighting problems are solved your glass will look much better and I agree with the other comments regarding making it look more liveable.

 

by the way.......many renderings I have done have those kinds of warnings in them (Warning: Material returned overbright or invalid colour). I've never had artifacts like that in them.

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Agree with comments about the sun.

 

If you look at real world sunlight, especially outside shots, you dont often get very soft shadows as you have shown them on the outside of your building. The overhangs etc would be quite hard shadows, in fact most of the shadows, at that sort of distance would be hard edged.

 

That is the main thing that I can see.

 

Try a target direct light, with vray shadows.

 

Andy

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Well i've made a few improvements from before. Not sure if my shadows are any better Alfie as i was just doing some photoshop post-work when i got your suggestions, so they havent been modified any.

 

Think its looking a lot better now, im a lot more pleased with it than before!

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Ok for somebody who did this in last years AVG 2005 critiques here it is:

 

Have you actualluy inspected up close and investigated the kind of materials you are using in the scene? What I mean is did you actually look at how a trash bin looks like in real life and try to see how the painted areas respond to light? How are the shiny areas, how much detail and highlights and even dirt? Also if you do look at concrete, its tonality and shading and surface features changes for every square block. it is never as uniform as you have it there unles its a newly paved roadway. The edges of the curb, they almost do not have the same uniform tone either. They have varying levels of light and dark depending on where the dirt and scuff marks resides. The lamp post's diffuser/glass has a uniform tone and in real life even if it is frosted or has a diffuser, it has some kind of texture and shine to it that is absent in your rendering. The orange facade also needs to have some kind of material adjustment. What is it made of in real life? It looks painted right now and is devoid of a 'masonry look' or even brick. This is probably also due to the 'tiling' whic is also evident in the green structure on the right. You have to be able to give a 'hint' in your render what these materials are in real life and if the person viewing your rendering has to guess on what it is, you have failed in your rendering. You cannot assume 'they would know what it is' in arch-vis there are myriad of materials so you cannot take this for granted, you have to be able to convincingly demonstrate the materials as they are in real life. My suggestion? Do you have a digital camera? You start collection 'real world' texture maps if not buy those form commerical sources. Also try to use 'procedural textures' (like Darktree Simbiont) for surfaces that texture maps do not work so well because procedural tetxures do have a more complex material properties to them than a simple bitmap texture and would make your rendering more natural. The glass on the building are gray, why? What kind of glass are they? thermal glass? regular? etc? The white area on the building although most people think it should be white it shouldn't. There should be some hint of a texture highlights to those areas. The 'glow' does not sell the image too well for me. The roadway marking comment is valid, it does not look at all like the kind of roadway you see in real life because of the uniform looking texture all over. It is also hard to decide of its a light asphalt or concrete although yes it should be concrete. Also where is the gutter? Shouldn't that have a different slope than the rest fo the road? Also if you noticed roadways are partitioned so you should have a hint of that there. Also the greenery should have varying tones of green doesn't it? Leaves dont look uniform like that all over in real life they have their own color and tonal variations. What is the roof material made of? Hard to tell, there are no subtleties or a suggestion of what it is.

 

Finally the lighting, it if hard to tell by looking at the image what time of day it is. This should be something that you should be able to convey. Is it early morning on a Tropical area or afternoon in a northen lattitude area with clear bright skies?

 

Please don't look at my comments as being overtly critical, I am just trying to help you 'see' rather than just 'look' as to the world you are trying to replicate. You really have to see how things are in the real world before you can even try to replicate it. This is why 'Film' succeeds so well because it mirrors the world well even if it is just a replica or a 'simulacra' of the real world. If you observe the real world a little better you can replicate it and 'sell' your image quicker without burdening the view since 'all if given' in the rendering. Good Luck! :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

An updated image, hopefully its a bit further on that the last lot. Unfortunatly the job is on hold for a bit so I'm not able to make any changes for the time being (I know the background is a bit off, I'd like to change that first).

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Hey! See! That's much much better :) Do you see how it draws you in now? it sort of pulls you in when you look at it? It has depth now.

 

You can now tell approximately what kind of material that is there in the building. I would however make the 'asphalt' tiling smaller. They are not that big (those fractal looking shapes on the foreground) in real life. They don't look like concrete now but asphalt. Can you apply a gradient on the edge of the sidewalk to make the lower side to the gutter darker and have random dirt on it? It still looks a bit uniform.

 

Although it is a bit soft in the way it rendered compared to the background. What I mean it is 'looks dreamy' compared to the foliage and trees on the right side.

 

I do like that fact that you have a suggestion of time of day now as well as a direction of light. I do want to see some more contrast in the image. Not much 'detailed shadows' and 'textured highlights' on there to evoke melodrama.

 

Did you try Darktree Simbiont yet? Here's an old image of mine using it (altho no radiosity or global illumination tho in this image, only regular CG lights). There are no tetxure maps on that image only procedural Simbiont shaders.

 

http://www.darksim.com/dgallery/html/south_fifth.html

 

Good luck and congrats I do like where it is headed :)

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