getting away from the toy model look

[Billabong]

I am having a problem with a building I'm rendering, I can't seem to get away from this toy look of it, and was hoping someone might have a suggestion, I'm using an hdri in the enviroment and a target direct for the sunlight with a standard target camera set to 35 mm

 

using IR for primary bounce and Light Cache for second and set on Linear fro color mapping

 

 

[Aaron2004]

I personally don't use HDRI with exterior shots. I don't think its too common. The first thing that makes it look fake is the background and the sky interacting with the water. If I scroll up so that I only see the top of the building, it doesn't look to bad.

 

Your standing seam roof needs more highlighting and displacement, your windows at the bottom need to reflect the environment and interact with the light more.

 

As far as I can tell, your modeling isn't what's holding you back. It's your textures and your shaders.

[Spooner04]

The last half of this post would be relevant here I think.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/27976-photoreal-advice-2.html#post190696

 

 

You probably don't want to use the hdri for the background. It looks very fake.

[Billabong]

Thanks Aaron, ill try something different than hdri, the windows at the bottom are actually vents for a parking garage, i dont think their showing up to well because I have the AA turned off right now

 

and thanks Sponner

[Aaron2004]

Also...if your using VRAY, I would take advantage of the Vray Sun+Camera. It could really help your scene. You could still make a nice render with your current light+camera setup....but your not taking full advantage of VRAY.

[Eric Sosa]

long way to go for a realistic render m8...but u got the elements to do it

 

colours: vegetation, sea & some of the building textures look realy cartoonish.

 

shadows & ligthning need big changes, as pointed out before....well u need to start somewhere..good luck

 

Eric

[Billabong]

Thanks Eric

[Billabong]

by the way Aaron, I took your advice and switched to the Vray sun and camera which did help it a lot, and right now Im concentrating on the actual grass, will post an update soon. Thanks

[Horhe]

Overall the image is too saturated especially the vegetation.

[Billabong]

Thanks Horhe

 

I need some advice on my alpha trees, Ive read the 2 part series that Brian made, but want i want to know is what is the best way to go about this. the two trees in the front are a single plane and the one on the far left is 4 planes. I tried doing the 4 planes on the the two front trees, but you could actually see the different planes when rendered, is it best to just leave them on one plane or should I add a uv map set to face with 4 planes. Thanks for any help.

 

So far I worked on my grass, which I think came out very well and I also have a good bit of stuff hid in this render just so I could speed up my render times for tests. Thanks again

 

[Ricardo Eloy]

IMHO, the best approach is to use 3D trees. When going all physical like you are (using VRaySun and stuff), alpha trees normally give away they're not real, so you'd be much better off using geometries instead of mapped planes.

[Billabong]

Thanks Rick, I'm just having hard time getting some good trees, I really dont have the cash right to fork out for onyx and I had that Evermotion dvd of trees which is what I used originally, but they looked more plastic than anything, I am thinking about trying the RPC route on the trees and see how that goes. Thanks for your help

[Billabong]

I just posted in the wip section, if you guys have time I would appreciate any help or input you could give

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/27885-beach-front-resort.html?=#post191198