Placing a Max created building into a Photo

[danb4026]

I have been searching hi and low for the proper image in which to place a building I built in Max.

 

Getting the proper perspective and making it look realistic has been difficult. I just want to avoid having to build the entire street scene in which to place this building.

 

Does anyone have any advice or tricks of the trade to do this?

[starkeyart]

Sorry to say it, but I've been doing this for a living for almost 10 years and I still haven't found any easy way. I've spent a lot of time in Photoshop taking existing buildings and adjusting the perspective on them to make everything fit together. As for making things look photorealistic when dropping a model into a scene, the best thing I've found to do is to play around with the levels of both the rendered model and the scene to get them equal. That's the dead giveaway. Sometimes putting a light film grain filter on both and then playing around with the "FADE" in the edit menu works out.

 

Another trick I've used a lot it to create the foreground in Photoshop, kind of overlapping the model with the scene with landscaping or people or car cutouts... I think it helps to blur the line between the photo and the model.

 

Lastly, sometimes I lightly blur the outside edge of the render.

 

Probably not that much help, but just some of the tricks I use.

[danb4026]

Thanks for the post Andrea. I have been messing with it quite a bit but the results are sketchy and time consuming. I will play around with the methods you spoke of and see what results I can achieve. Thanks.

[Tommy L]

If you post your efforts then people can give you much more constructive feedback.

[Ky Lane]

Mockup very roughly the streets, so you know your perspective etc - print it out - and go for a walk with your camera