Challenge#2: Stern - WIP#1

[Guest Stern]

S: 3DMax4 / fR

H: P3.1G / 512mb

T: 02min, 03sec (precalculated GI solution)

L: GI + 1 TargetSpot

 

My first step in the whole rendering tralala was to find the correct camera position and lighting.

Comparison: Render/Photo

 

 

1. To obtain the camera position from where originally the photo was taken, I have drawn some red guidelines in Photoshop to understand better the geometry and to find the horizon/vanishing points so that I can easily set my camera with Max’s Camera Match.

 

 

2. The photo was set as the Viewport Background to correct Matt’s model where needed.

3. Switched on GI, did some tweaking. Environment color set to blue/purple.

4. Created an orange TargetSpot to simulate sunset light and set the shadowmaps to bright blue.

5. Vegetation is alpha taken from the original photo.

6. Pressed QRender. Tada.

 

 

I had some problems getting a fast solution for the water and glass. I guess it’s now time for playing with raytracing.

[nisus]

Hi stern,

 

I like the way you inform people about what you did and especially how you did things. It's a great way for people to learn from this workflow. I think you accomplished one goal of the contest already.

 

rgds

 

nisus

[Charles]

FR rocks, doesn't it?

 

Very good rendering, I love its soft mood. Just some artifacts are still visible.

[Jeff Mottle]

Great post Stern! This is excactly the kind of stuff I like to see. Thank you for sharing. Very nice rendering BTW.

 

[ August 15, 2002, 07:47 AM: Message edited by: Jeff Mottle ]

[Guest Stern]

T: 37min, 05sec (calculating GI solution)

L: GI + 1 TargetSpot + 2 Omnis

 

 

New glass, water and the stones were added to my scene. I also added two new blue Omnis for a better distribution of the light and for a better control of the shadow color.

 

I usually like to keep my materials simple as possible and let the lights and shadows do the coloring.

To materials that do not use texture maps, I usually add Noise bump maps (example, my white walls) to prevent the typical smoothness of computer renderings.

 

 

About the fR artifacts, if you do not want to wait forever, you cannot 100% get rid of them. You might want to make them small as possible so that they are less visible.

One efficient way to get smaller artifacts is to increase the Amb. Roughness in the Advance GI Parameters. I personally got used to the artifacts and now I started liking them. They give a realistic look to the scene as objects in reality are never perfect and corners usually collect dirt.

Below are some fast experimental interiors for testing different settings in fR as I am starting some indoor scenes for our little contest.

 

[Guest Stern]

I realized that some people have the habit to try in a sort of a random way to build their 3d scene by choosing arbitrarily different camera positions then different materials, lights, shadows then again changing the camera position, light position, new materials and so on and on. In other words, what seems to look good you keep, what not you change. The result is usually a sort of a funny looking render and wasted time.

 

So instead of running in circles you must focus on how you want your final render to look like and slowly try to get there. Find the needed camera position and when done do not play with it anymore. You can fine tune it later by moving the camera/target slightly to make visible important pats of the scene and hide the irrelevant ones.

 

Find the correct light position/color. Type of shadows. Materials. Make only small modifications to your setting and colors. This way you will sure find what you are looking for.

Then take a look at the whole scene and see if all the components/ lights/ shadows/ colors/ materials/ reflections, bla… work well together.

 

Also important, do not give up on your scene to fast by starting a new one if the previous looks bad. Instead, try to realize where the problem is and think what setting might fix the problem.