Kitchen / Family Room - Max 2009 Design & MR

[SandmanNinja]

Well, finally got a first render of the kitchen done.

Still very early, but wanted to get it out there.

Still need to get a lot more entourage for detailing, a meals table, some chairs, down lights from the ceiling, and furniture for the family area (it's open plan).

 

There will be some modelling outside the windows, too.

One door will lead to an outdoor entertaining area (Spa, 3 or 4 outdoor tables, chairs), while another door will lead to the covered area with a BBQ grill, another table (suitable for breakfasts-for-2, or for a small family).

Laterns, tiki torches, concrete, grass in the back yard, and a fence to hide the horizon.

 

This is the same house as the master bedroom and living room from my earlier WIPs. Notice the view down the corridor, showing the front door and table.

 

self-crit:

not very happy with the marbling on the kitchen island benchtop - it's a stone pro-material, but I must have a setting off.

don't like the stove/oven.

 

comments:

the island and the main bench is exactly 0.9m, as per the interior elevations.

The Stove, fridge and sink/food prep area form the 'Work Triangle', and any one is no more than 1.8m apart from any other triangle part.

spotlight in the range hood is 1500 candelas

back splash covers entire wall of cooking area, as per interior elevations and is a shiny, glassy material.

Same daylight system as in other parts of the same physical house, with 4 skylights pouring light into the area

 

Low AA settings, so there will be noise in these render.

 

Damn, I'd better get started!

 

cam 1

 

 

cam 2

 

c&c welcomed

[shaneis]

Nice start Joel, like your new site too!

 

not very happy with the marbling on the kitchen island benchtop - it's a stone pro-material, but I must have a setting off...

 

Just looks like the pattern is repeated too much - try a nice file texture.

 

...don't like the stove/oven...

 

Either do I, try a freestanding like the one below and perhaps a different rangehood.

 

...back splash covers entire wall of cooking area, as per interior elevations and is a shiny, glassy material....

 

The splashbacks your talking about are usually 6mm glass back-painted with auto enamel. They often pick up the green tint present in normal float glass - something to consider when using yellow and other light/ warm colours. A special colourless glass (Starfire) is used with these colours (if budget permits). At any rate, if it were me, I'd go with a crimson splashback. My preference only though, I think yellow looks sickly in kitchens.

Edited August 10, 2008 by shaneis

[SandmanNinja]

Hi Mate,

 

Thanks for the well-thought-out and helpful reply.

(and the nice words about the website)

 

I've scraped the dark, screwed-up pro-material and used an old-fashioned white marble texture. It's a nice, big texture and looks good for close-ups.

 

I've changed the colour of the back splash, too.

Thanks for the explanation. I automatically think 'tiles' when I hear 'back splash', so this was a bit new for me.

 

To make it look like a different piece of geometry (instead of the 'wall' just being really shiny there), I've placed a box primitive that covers that section of the wall.

I didn't measure it, but it seems about right.

 

The 'float glass' that you mention, is that like automobile flake paint? Would just a shiny colour simulate it properly?

 

Can't fix the stove until I get off work tomorrow, but I'm cranking out a render to see how the other changes look.

 

Good pic of a stove.

 

Thanks again, mate.

[Fran]

I'd get in touch with a paranormal expert about your "visitor".

 

About the stone, try to find a larger sample image you can take into Imagesynth or PixPlant to make seamless. A 15cm^2 sample is too small. Try to find an image that encompasses a larger area. If you can't, then try creating your own by using Paint bucket in Photoshop with your bitmap as the pattern. Make sure your image size is large enough so that the pattern repeats. Then use the clone tool to make the pattern less noticeable. But stay away from the edges or you could mess up the seams.

[shaneis]

To make it look like a different piece of geometry (instead of the 'wall' just being really shiny there), I've placed a box primitive that covers that section of the wall.

I didn't measure it, but it seems about right.

 

The 'float glass' that you mention, is that like automobile flake paint? Would just a shiny colour simulate it properly?

 

The box primitive is the best way to go. You could get away with the coloured glossy material, just make sure to give it fresnel reflection's and an IoR of about 1.52- 1.55. If you're doing extreme close-ups, you could even go as far as glass material to the front/side faces and a glossy colour to the back face (flip the normal) and include inside reflections. Probably very unessecary though.

 

Float glass is just another name for "normal" glass (apologies for the jargon, I used to work in the glazing industry). The glass splashbacks are usually painted with flat auto paint and baked under lights just like a car would be. From memory, you can have any type of car paint you want though I've never heard of metallic paint being used. I suppose if you could find a great airbrush artist, you could even have a warrior queen riding a sabre-toothed tiger

 

Leave it with me, I'll phone my old workplace and find out for you, about the metallic paint that is.

[Stan Zaslavsky]

Hey Joel,

 

the start is looking great - you've really got MR lights coming out well!

 

something is going on with your right hand side floor and wall connection - the board that connects the two looks pretty narrow and also it seems that there is some light seeping through - maybe you need to extend the floor texture further out?

 

the effect of the wooden boards you've got down pat - they look fantastic.

 

good luck

[SandmanNinja]

thanks for the good feedback, everyone!

 

I'm at work now, but have the finished render from the first set of feedback - namely changed the marble and the backsplash. I didnt full understand the glass/IOR/flipping the normal face until I left for work. D'oh! But I get it now and will implement it in the next round.

 

I'll implement other suggestions when I get off work

 

Thanks everyone - it's all appreciated (and listened too!)

[SandmanNinja]

Hey Stan,

 

The light is a reflection. It's a glossy white material on the lower cornice, and there are 3 huge windows facing that wall. The sun is a bit low, so I'm guessing that's the light source. I'll have a double-check when i get to the house, though.

[SandmanNinja]

Hi All...

 

 

The box primitive is the best way to go. You could get away with the coloured glossy material, just make sure to give it fresnel reflection's and an IoR of about 1.52- 1.55. If you're doing extreme close-ups, you could even go as far as glass material to the front/side faces and a glossy colour to the back face (flip the normal) and include inside reflections. Probably very unessecary though.

I picked an A&D solid glass which had an IoR of 1.5, but I bumped it up to 1.54.

I fliped the back face and made it glossy red.

It looks a bit funny in the viewport, as the flipped face looks like it's being co-planar with the rest of the box polys, but I'm doing a test render now.

I wasn't quite sure which slot I should put the frensel fall on - that glass has about 253 reflection slots once you start digging around in the material.

 

 

I rendered it and it came out white. I must have done something wrong.

 

 

Float glass is just another name for "normal" glass (apologies for the jargon, I used to work in the glazing industry). The glass splashbacks are usually painted with flat auto paint and baked under lights just like a car would be. From memory, you can have any type of car paint you want though I've never heard of metallic paint being used. I suppose if you could find a great airbrush artist, you could even have a warrior queen riding a sabre-toothed tiger

I'd like to see that! I think the phrase 'car paint' has me thinking of the shader Car Paint'.

 

 

Leave it with me, I'll phone my old workplace and find out for you, about the metallic paint that is.

 

 

I'd get in touch with a paranormal expert about your "visitor".

hehe I like using a biped that's my height in the early stages of a room, so I get a sense of scale.

I know the plans call for the counter to be 0.9 meters high, but I wanted to see how that was in relation to the biped's hips.

 

About the stone, try to find a larger sample image you can take into Imagesynth or PixPlant to make seamless. A 15cm^2 sample is too small. Try to find an image that encompasses a larger area. If you can't, then try creating your own by using Paint bucket in Photoshop with your bitmap as the pattern. Make sure your image size is large enough so that the pattern repeats. Then use the clone tool to make the pattern less noticeable. But stay away from the edges or you could mess up the seams.

Yeah - good idea. I dug through and found a .jpg of some marble that was 2560x2560! I slapped that on there and I think it looks much better.

 

the start is looking great - you've really got MR lights coming out well!

Thanks mate! I like to try to get my room modelled, basic textured, then work on the lights. When the lighting looks pretty solid, then I'll fine tune the entourage and what-not.

 

the effect of the wooden boards you've got down pat - they look fantastic.

Thanks mate - think it's pro-material, but not 100% right now.

[Stan Zaslavsky]

the lighter marble looks much better - also better reflections on the spout because of less grains

 

i liked the red splashback better IMO - maybe try light green - the blue makes the room very cold - its a kitchen after all

 

also the builders are unlikely to use marble below the kitchen cabinets - most likely it will be a stainless steel strip. unless that was the specification - its pretty pricey

[SandmanNinja]

I cheated - I made 2 box primitives and gave the back-most one the bright red shiny colour, and the front-most the thick glass with IoR 1.54

Sort of gives me the best of both worlds.

 

I'd still like to know how to do the frensel fall-off for the glass.

 

Putting more furniture in now...

[SandmanNinja]

Here are the latest renders from today.

I removed the biped and added a weak AO layer (not everywere - just to re-inforce the contact shadows).

 

I added some bricks to the external wall - you can just glimpse them in the window in cam 1.

 

Gonna eat and try to work on it some more tonight.

 

Wonder if I should try to 'squeeze' another drawer instead of having such a high ..er.. foot thing on the cabinets/bench.

 

cam 1

 

cam 2

[shaneis]

An update on the Splashback- you can have any colour you want, and metallic paint is fine too. Sorry to confuse you about the "auto-paint", it's just what they use in the real world so it can be baked onto the glass.

 

Your splashback's looking good, though I'd extend it across the entire width. Sort of looks funny just stopping 3/4 of the way across. Attached a diagram showing how it would be cut around the cupboards (can't fix cupboards over the glass as it will eventually crack). 1 = first panel, 2 = second panel. If the length is over 3600mm, the 3rd panel would be behind the fridge to hide the join line.

 

The "foot thing", do you mean kick-board? Agree with Stan, maybe a brushed stainless material (brushed horizontal - along the length). Instead of adding another drawer, maybe make the bottom drawers deeper - for pots, pans and appliances.

Edited August 12, 2008 by shaneis

[mattclinch]

joel, i think you have definately got your illumination pretty much licked. GI is looking really nice and smooth - although i think your midtones are possibly a stop or two underexposed (perhaps try an extra stop of exposure and drop your burn value slightly?)

 

my main crit is just the general design - it looks CG because it seems to be a confused and jumbled design. these are the things that immediately jump out at me.

 

- island stools - if i sit in them, i'm above the height of the island! stools should have a cutaway into which you put your legs and/or the stool itself for storage.

- kitchen islands IMO very rarely have a sink in them, its far more usual to have the hob/cook plates in the island and the sink somewhere against the core with the splashback and other plumbed appliances (not always true of course)

- stove is strange, and not in line with cupboards.

- cupboards kickplate looks far too large and deep. and marble?

- cornicing and skirting are strange traditional details in an otherwise clean new-build feel room. IMO a nice shadow gap joint would look excellent.

- if someone were buying Stefano Giovannoni stools, i doubt they would stick those sofas next to them. keep your level and style of design consistant, otherwise the juxtaposition looks awkward and unrealistic.

 

i'd give the design some serious thought before you model. at the moment, its looking very much like you are modelling 'on the fly' which is creating this confused appearance. grab some poliform catalogs and think about floor plan layout, how people would use this area, size of cupboards, position of appliances etc.

 

keep it up. looking really good.

Edited August 12, 2008 by mattclinch

[SandmanNinja]

Thanks Shane and Matt!

 

Shane,

I appreciate the diagram and the info on the bac splash.

I'll make those changes when I dive back into it tomorrow after work.

 

Very good idea about making the bottom drawer deep. I use to have some drawers like that.

With them very deep, I'll change the kickboard to stainless/brushed metal.

 

==

 

Matt,

Thanks for the kind words about the lighting! 6 months of lighting tutorials and no television must have paid off...

 

I admit I rushed myself last night to 'throw' furniture in there.

I'll have to re-think the stools and what-not.

 

re: stove - yeah, I hate it. I'll re-do it completely.

 

re: island with sink - I've actually been inside this house and took photos of it.

Not sure if it's an Aussie thing, but almost every Display Home I photograph has a sink in the island. Must drive plumbers nuts...

 

re: cornice - I double-checked the ref photos, but that's almost exactly what their cornice looks like.

 

==

 

Thanks to everyone for being so honest and helpful.

[SandmanNinja]

Hi All...

 

3 new renders of my kitchen/family room WIP.

Rendered at medium quality & minimum # of samples in textures, so there may be some noise.

 

It's a touch dark in the kitchen area itself, and I actually remember the kitchen being a little dark when I photographed the house. There will be some secondary lighting that will go in, especially in that area. But I still think I need to lighten it a touch more - like Matt said, an f/stop or two brighter.

 

I've taken everything everyone has said onboard.

Hopefully it's better.

 

Changed:

* made bottom drawers longer

* changed kick board to brushed stainless steel

* fixed island to be more like the one in the photo (geometrically)

* that fix includes more elbow room when someone sits there to eat

* added texture to drawers in kitchen island (I forgot to texture them originally)

* fixed up oven somewhat

* added texture to the fridge

* replaced those bar stool chairs with something more like what's in the photo

* made the back splash board go all the way across

* removed the draining dishes and dish rack (looked tacky)

* added dining room table and chairs

* added concrete area outside windows (may not be visible in all camera views)

* added bermuda grass to area beyond the concrete area (may not be visible in all camera views)

* brick texture (with BUMP and small amount of DISPLACEMENT) to exterior walls

 

Things I know I need to add/change:

* bowl of fruit

* vase of flowers

* more kitchen cookery / things on the kitchen bench

* cabinet and plasma television and sound system and speakers facing couch/chair

* window dressing (but I want them mostly open to see outside)

* plates/glasses/cutlery on dining room table

* finish outside (BBQ, exterior table & chairs, maybe a spa, fence to hide horizon, work on grass)

 

Things I DON'T know to add/change:

* ___________________

 

 

As always, your feedback and C&C is always welcomed and listened to.

 

===

 

cam 1

 

 

cam 2

 

 

cam 3

[SandmanNinja]

cam 4

 

Probably my favourite angle/render so far.

[Justin Hunt]

They look great, I just dont like how the sofa and single seat are arranged. It makes it look like a students dig's. Swing the single around to be 90 degrees to the double.

 

jvh

[SandmanNinja]

Hi Justin

 

Thanks for the crit and comments!

 

I ended up dropping the char - the ref photo only had a couch and some sort of foot stool. I think the chair was beginning to make it crowded.

 

I feel a bit defeated.

I re-visited the kitchen/family room scene after work today.

I went through and sampled EVERYTHING and I reduced the number of samples on all textures from 32 down to 16.

 

I have a HUGE swap file, so memory (physical or virtual) should not be a problem.

 

I've turned off the rooms not in the shot (I have each room in it's own layer).

 

I turned the AA down to min:1 and max:4 and the AA just looks horrible.

I stopped it half-way through the render.

 

I'm pre-calculating the FG Map, so it will be quicker to re-render this scene if/when it crashes again (set to HIGH on the FG preset slider).

 

I'm about to hit the render button (after turning the AA back up again to HIGH), and will cross my fingers.

 

If it crashes, I'll have to turn the AA down to medium and render at A5 size (basically double 800x600 and then a smidgen more) and resize in photoshop.

 

If this doesn't go, I'm ready to throw the scene online and ask if anyone can see what's wrong with it.

 

The BSP density looked mostly yellow (I swore I uploaded it this morning).

[Justin Hunt]

High is a killer, over kill in most situations.

 

Are you using Photons? If not do. Let photons do the hard work rather than FG only. They are quicker, use less memory and when combined with fg can give really beautiful results.

 

If you only want to use FG then Low is good, from there you should only be tweaking the number of fg samples and density (although between 0.8 and 1 is more than enough). Rather than using the interpolate methode try the old school sample radius methode. This still gives really nice clean and detailed results.

 

Also dont be afraid the use the FG max fall-off distance to get "more" light into the deeper areas of the room. small numbers are bighter and large numbers and darker.

 

When calculating the FG, try turning off the mesh smoothing on the couches (if they have any). Also exclude any really small objects from FG (under the mentalray tab of the object properties), tell fg to "pass through", do this for the glass as well.

 

jhv

[SandmanNinja]

Hi Justin

 

Thanks for the crit and comments!

I never knew you could exclude objects from FG - great tip.

 

I did the above before I read your most recent post.

So, I'm not ignoring your suggestions, just a synch issue.

 

 

 

It rendered! And I think it's looking pretty good.

It never went above 1.8 gigs of ram used.

 

So maybe the trick is to pre-render the FG?

Does anyone know of a way to have a sequence of FG maps pre-calculated and tell Max to use a different FG Map as each frame is rendered?

 

I photographed another display home today and noticed they had no window dressing up in the kitchen/lounge room.

 

I'll get the other camera views rendering now.

 

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

Any more feedback on this particular render/room?

 

There is a lot more colour on the ceiling from the outside environment.

 

The look I'm going for is a Display Home, not a regular home.

The difference would be not very lived-in. Almost all display homes I visit (2-3 a week) almost all look like CGI models.

There is stuff there, and you COULD live in it, but you'd need to employ an army of maids and cleaners.

 

[BillyElNino]

I know I'm a bit late into the process to be critting the model but the relationship between the high cabinets, the counter and the fridge are not right. They are way too high off the counter. They need to be starting much nearer the counter and your reference photography confirms this. Although kitchens change in the details they rarely change in the overall dimensions. Off the top of my head its 450mm above the kitchen counter but I think there is plenty of design data on this out there in the ether which will also include standard cabinet and drawer dimensions as I think these are out too.

 

Although this might not be the purpose of your kitchen renders I think it will help the image to have a more believable scale between the elements. Great series of images though.

[Justin Hunt]

absolutly pre-calculate FG, at a lower image res than the final (no more than half) turn AA to the lowest and render. Definiterly precalc different frames, just leave the read/write on and additional fg samples will be saved to the file. Of cause freeze the fg before you render the full res image:p

 

or you could just submit the different jobs to backburner, each with its own fg map. This is what I do sometimes. Although I do prefer to use one fg map. I set up a batch render with the lower res/ AA , saving the FG. Submit it to BB, change the render settings and resubmit the batch to BB. Beauty of this is that more Ram is freeed up and if it does crash it will automatically restart itself

 

With a bit of colour balancing you will have a very pleasing image

 

jhv

[SandmanNinja]

William,

 

You are absolutely spot-on with the cabinet height! Now that all the views of the cabinet have been rendered... Oh well. I'll modify the cabinet and re-render.

And thank you for the kind words on the renders.

 

Justin - you are a living legend! To do my 'batch' renders, I just animate my camera position. So, I get 5 frames spot-on, bring up the render dialog, render from frame x to frame y, go to bed. I wake up, and it's saved my images. I find it very handy and very easy to use. I don't know backburner, so maybe that's why I've come up with this work-around.

 

But this is great - re the pre-calcuate with an animation!

Just to make sure I don't stuff it up:

01) render dialog -> enter frame range (say 5 to 10)

02) illumination tab -> calculate fg map now -> browse and give it name like KITCHEN_.FGM

03) press that button

04) it'll calc and make KITCHEN_0000.FGM, KITCHEN_0001.FGM, etc...

 

THAT is very cool!

 

I've been leaving the "build fast lookup table" ticked when doing my pre-calc'd FG map, then untick it when I use the pre-calc'd fg map.

 

When this render finished, I'll have a play with the fg map animation, fix my kitchen cabinets, and then maybe label this area done. Hmm.. Maybe a throw rug in front of the couch...

[Justin Hunt]

almost correct, only point (4) it wont create XXX01.fgm, XXX02.fgm etc but rather XXX.fgm which contains all the fg samples from all the frames calculated.

 

When it re-renders it will decide which fg samples to load according to the camera possition, and even better interpolate between the appropriate frames if no specific fg sample exist for that camera angle. As what happens when you precalc very nth frame for an animation. Lets say I have an animation 1000 frames long, I only precalc every 50 frames. So the fg samples are "blended" between frames 0, 50 , 100 ... giving a flicker free, smooth result. If you really wanted to be efficient you could specify which frames to precalc, but I'm too lazy for that.

 

Backburner is realy easy to setup and become an essential part of my workflow. Especially because I'm still on a 32bit machine so memory managment is critical. Read up on it in the help files

 

Now that "batch render" is working properly with Backburner it negates the need to animate a simgle camera for different views.

 

jhv