Grainy Render

[pwharton]

Attached is a file I am working on and trying to learn Mental render on. It’s not a finished scene just setting it up and doing some testing renderings. The problem is I can’t get rid of the grainy look of the walls and columns. I am using final gather set to Basic. Please let me know if you need any other of my settings.

[manta]

its your bump map...

[pwharton]

There is no bump setup for the paint finish. It' rendered fine at first, but as i was fine tuning the settings something changed along the way. I've been retracing my steps looking for an answer.

[manta]

really ???

can you render a closeup of the wall ?

it really looks like you have a bump map, noise to be specific...

[pwharton]

Here is the close up. I uncheckek the jitter box under render hoping that would do it. it does not.

[manta]

Sorry too small to tell anything...

[pwharton]

Sorry about that, here is a larger size and the rending setting if that will help.

[SandmanNinja]

My eye was drawn to the feature wall above the fireplace. Maybe that's what Manta was doing as well? That definately looks like something in the bump slot.

 

But the closeup is a different wall.

 

What saved my life, mind and sanity was Brian's Mental Bout Max Mental Ray tutorials. I have them all. He starts off walking you from converting a scene from scanline to mental ray and then the subject gets deeper and deeper and is thoroughly explained.

 

http://www.mentalboutmax.com

 

3DS itself ships with some pretty good tutorials on mental ray, too.

 

I use the preset values in DRAFT and a resolution of 640x480 when I'm starting out (draft for speed, and no smaller than 640x480 so I can see some details). When the overall solution looks close, I switch to low.

 

For a WIP here, I switch to 800x600, MEDIUM preset, and tweak the settings a bit. I figure that the final render to the client is going to be HIGH or VERY HIGH and a lot bigger, so to get a fair amount of feedback, make a WIP render that's big enough to see detail and high enough in quality to get rid of noise, etc.

[shaneis]

Looks like a shadow map artifact, possibly an AO artifact or even FG settings too low. Check the samples for the lights and material AO, also test the FG by increasing the FG and rendering a region on the offending wall. See if that helps.

[pwharton]

Ok First, yes in the detail above the fire place is a bump map, it still needs to be tweaked.

 

As for the original problem after looking at everything of course it the last thing I looked at, the MR Omni. I had set the radius of the light in the “area light parameter” panel to between 10’ to 100’ for some of the lights in the model assuming it would set the range of influence for the lights before it falls off (sort of like a standard Omni light??) The Max help does not explain what this does very well. If you know how this is supposed to be used please let me know.

 

I will look into the training Video’s as soon as I can. Right now I have the “Realistic Architectural Visualization with 3ds max and mental ray” book. I have done the first few chapters so far, so I still have a ways to go with this book.

Thanks for all your help, I’ll post the Final once I get the textures and backgrounds worked out.

[pwharton]

Here is an updates view of the space so far (different angle).Comments welcomed.

[shaneis]

Let there be MORE light.

[pwharton]

I Just moved this image to Max Design 2009 from Viz, I'll reajust the lights in max and rerender.

 

Thanks for the comment.

[SandmanNinja]

Maybe turn on the bar lights in the back?

 

I think it's a very nice scene.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I think the exposure needs adjusted, and whatever the fill light is in the scene either needs turned down, or the color changed. basically, the sun is not bright enough compared to the general room lighting, or the general room lighting is to bright for the sun. i think you need to turn down the whitish fill light, and adjust the exposure o that the sun i more vivid. the bar lights would be a nice touch. they would let your eye work its way niccely towards the back of the scene.

 

any reason for the odd angle that is high off the ground?

[pwharton]

This is the best I have gotten out of MR to date, I don’t know enough about MR to know what to adjust/tweak it to get the effect I want out of it. The chair is to dark and it looks washed out. If I adjust the brightness of the map on the sofa/chair the sofa starts to get washed out. I had tried the new MR Sky Portal in Max Design at one point, and it looked… ok (Following the tutorial from max Help). But in the new “Photographic Exposure Control” set up I don’t know enough to tweak the lighting to the correct conditions and was getting over exposed parts of the scene and burn outs…Will have to learn this one a little later, but it looks like it has possibilities.

So I switched the lights and settings back to what I know (so far with MR), the MR omni lights With MR Physical sky and FG set to basic. I am using a MR area spot for the sun and MR Omni’s in each window set at a lower setting then my sun. So far there are no interior lights in the space itself. I don’t know where to put a light in the kitchen/bar area and have it not look like an artificially light instead of natural sun light bouncing around. I’ll keep reading, adjusting the lights and exposure controls and doing the tutorials I have and see what I can come up with.

Let me know what you think of this angle, I don’t want to see more of the upper floor since there is not anything up there to see.

[Justin Hunt]

Dont use an mr area spot for the sun, use the mr sun and mrsky.

Put portal lights in the windows

As to the mrphotographic, start with the EV settings, they are much easier to use if you dont understand the f-stop etc. Dont be afraid to play with the highlight, mid-tone and contrast settings ,they act just like curves in photoshop.

 

As for the materails, you could use some AO. Be sure to use the arch and design shader. There is something strange going on with the leather couch.

 

Its getting there, keep playing

jhv

[pwharton]

K, took your advice and switched back to the MR Sky Portal set up and adjusted it after reading a little more about the set up.

Yea the leather map had a bad repeating pattern, I found some better maps online and replaces them. Is there any they thing that I can do to make this more photo real?

[Justin Hunt]

Is there a light just behind the camera? if so delete it as it is caseing a horrid shadow into the fireplace and flattening the image.

 

Add a bit more contrast and lower the mid tone a little.

 

Other than that it's a nice image.

 

jhv