exterior materials and foliage

[SgWRX]

have been working on this to try out foliage, material, overall look. i don't like the dark shadows on the trees but ironically i darkened the shadows in the bushes. trees and flower bed are onyx, bushes are a scattered line shape. EDIT: mental ray and max 9.

[Claudio Branch]

 

i don't like the dark shadows on the trees...

 

 

Your materials and lighting are looking really good in this image.

 

If you want to add some light to those trees, without having to adjust the existing lighting, there are a couple of options:

 

Surround your scene with 4 instanced direct lights and include only the foliage you want illuminated (no shadow casting)

 

Strategically place some planes around the scene to reflect your GI lighting and make them invisible to your cameras

 

Both of these ideas I learned about through Brian Smiths' "Visualization Insider" and Christopher Nichols' GI Lighting DVD's. Both are excellent resources

 

My two cents...

[Dave Buchhofer]

the problem with the trees is that leaves out in the wild aren't really solid, there is some light transmitted through them, and also you get some 'backlighting' or translucence. I'd be more inclined to treat that as a material issue rather than a lighting, and would adjust my leaf textures to make them slightly brighter, or, if time isn't much of an issue in terms of rendering, actually add in some of that fun double sided-ness with some of the newer texture types

[Dave Buchhofer]

As for the rest, the one that sticks out to me the most oddly enough is the grey brick, both the hue tiling and the depth, the tiling on the foreground doesn't bother me for some reason probably just the angle

 

bushes and flowers look good, maybe could use a little dirt under them?

[SgWRX]

thanks. yeah the tiling on the brick is a little much, i'm using the standard arch&design template no excuse, just didn't worry about that for now. i agree with the foreground brick tiling, i caught that a couple days ago but figured that the brick itself draws your eyes in a vertical direction it's not as objectionable, but some post would improve it.

 

funny you mention the material approach. after trying some lighting this morning, i thought uh, screw that. and since the other materials in the scene are where i want them, and since lighting has a huge affect on all materials in the scene, i took that approach. i am using UV on the leaves on the tree, i applied a noise map to the diffuse and set the color via that noise map. it occurred to me that since it's tonality i'm worried about i should first the noise map in shades of black and white, then add color. it only took 3 renders of one tree to get a result i was happy with. (see attached).

 

good reminder about leaves being translucent. that'd have helped too

 

EDIT: something's wrong with the attached image... removing and will reattach

[SgWRX]

ok. the problem with the image was that i lost the reflections on the glass door! it was completely black. i realized i turned of photons in GI. hm, i didn't think that would make a difference but i guess that's what the mr glass physical needs. anyway, here's a larger view, strait out of the renderer.

[NgoJennifer]

yeahh that' is looking much better! tho the bush leaves look kinda huge. also, it would look really complete with something in the foreground, it seems bare.

 

keep it up!

[SgWRX]

ha! yes. i did reduce them 75% of base size when scattering, but yes they look more like grape vine leaves or some type of vine.

[sudark]

good job! nice improvement, the lighting on the leaves looks really sweet

[SgWRX]

ugh, should have lightened up the trees again - hard to follow my own advice! i think i'm going to call this one done, despite the trees yet, the open space on the right and the tiling in the foreground brick which can be fixed in post. the lamps could have been modeled a little better too and not sure about how the stage-coach lights fit in with the modern feel. there's really no end. but i think i'm getting a hang of decent materials and lighting.

 

ps thanks for the feedback!

 

EDIT: damn, lost the nice reflection in the door again. i've got to be missing something in building up my FG calculation or something. i'm using GI too. geez.

[Claudio Branch]

 

there's really no end.

 

 

...welcome to the club.