Council Building Exterior

[Nate]

Hey guys, this is an exterior shot of a proposed council building in Australia. I'm pretty happy with the result, any C&C are welcome.

 

3ds Max & Vray.

 

Day scene

 

Night Scene

[mrucereto]

I like the design. You might check the white wing roofs, you have some faceting occurring. Also, I think that the reflections of your people look a little odd considering that you aren't seeing the true reflection, but the back of them again.

 

For the day scene, try "remove black matte" in PS, you currently have a black edge around your building that can be scene against the sky.

 

Try moving the camera down to something more like a photographer would take. Currently the camera position in a no mans land... it's not ground level, and not birdseye. Pick one or the other.

[Nate]

mrucereto thanks for your reply.

 

- I have since found a way to import CAD models into max to eliminate faceting (see the curved roof in the night scene).

- I agree the reflections are wrong, it's because the people are opacity maps and appear the same on both sides of the plane, not sure how to fix this.

- I'll give the remove black matte a go.

- The camera was at eye level but my boss liked a more aerial view...not much i can do about it.

 

Do you have any tips on making it more photo realistic? I feel i have a pretty good handle on max and vray...maybe its all in the materials?

[WAcky]

Hi Nate,

 

Regarding the "more photorealistic" idea.

 

I personally think there are a lot of small tweaks you can do to make your image a bit more "realistic"

 

A few things pop out to me:

 

Your shadows are so harsh to the point that they're stepping. What type of light and shadow setup are you using?

 

Your foliage is looking a bit samey. I know this might be a request that all the foliage is of the same variety but atm your plants are looking a bit flat. Are you using an Ambient Occlusion pass? If not, I think AO passes usually make plants look much better as they'll darken up the base of the plants and give them a bit more contrast.

 

The white roof: I'm not sure what the material is supposed to be but a bit of a blurry reflection (fresnel) could look good as the roof moves away into the BG.

 

The ppl in your scene look like they have a bit of a green tinge to them. Have you considered motion blurring the moving people? It works for some ppl but others don't like the look of it.

 

A better sky could be used as this one looks like its been blown up a bit too much.

 

The stone textures in general could probably use a bit of scaling down as they're looking a bit big atm.

 

I think the image is looking a bit washed out at the moment too. You might want to do some adjustments in Photoshop. I suggest taking a look at this tutorial (you need a login but its worth it) and moving on from there.

 

Good luck!

[WAcky]

- I have since found a way to import CAD models into max to eliminate faceting (see the curved roof in the night scene).

 

Hi Nate,

 

Just wondering if you could explain your method. There have been people having this problem for a long time and a solution or any information would be much appreciated!

[erickdt]

Well I'm not Nate but...

 

The primary factor that affects the smoothness of curves is the "surface deviation for 3D solids". The smaller this number is the smoother your imported AutoCAD curves solids will be. I usually keep this set at 0.005 and that produces pretty good results.

[Nate]

That's the method i use erickdt. It's a value that can be set in the import dialogue box.

[Nate]

Updated the Sky BG and faceting on the white roof. I still have the problem with the roof clashing with the BG image, the photoshop tips didn't seem to work. Also dropped the camera to 1.8m height.