New Resi/Office tower

[Ky Lane]

Thought Id offer this out for some of my friends comments Its coming along well, and is yet to be placed in-situ (waiting on crappy weather to do the site photoshoot).

 

But would love peoples comments so far Its still very preliminary, but any suggestions are always welcomed!

[Ky Lane]

Better resolution version..

 

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s150/KyLane/edefdf63.jpg

 

[AJLynn]

Neat. But I think you've blown the highlights...

[Ky Lane]

Its been 30c+ degrees (105f+) here Thats why

[stormchaser]

i think more constructive comments can only come once we see how it is placed on site, for example the above comment about highlight, its a valid comment but as you said it is suitable for your composting work to merge it better.

[Ky Lane]

Yeah I understand that - hence its in WIP Theres still ALOT of post work to be done with foliage and foot traffic etc.. so like I said, its very prelim

 

But, going on the weather, it could be a while

 

[stormchaser]

Yeah I understand that - hence its in WIP But, going on the weather, it could be a while

best of luck man...may the weather gods shine upon you

[Ky Lane]

best of luck man...may the weather gods shine upon you

 

Cheers

[WAcky]

I always forget how humid it gets even in Brissy.

 

Its like 32 today here but half the humidity.

[Justin Hunt]

Quick there is a break in the clouds, get out there.

 

Some of the textures (brick and the mosaic) are tiling too obvoiusly.

 

jhv

[Ky Lane]

Cheers Justin. Just took about a day or two's worth of modelling changes to the entire building, so the brick and tiles are actually going altogether (although I liked the brick, shame). It was going to be broken up some in post anyway (im becoming a post whore these days - lets me play with the 21" Cintiq ).

[TSuess]

Looks good. Maybe an AO pass. I'll be interested to see how you handle all the reflections in the final. Glass could either be more transparent or show more environment in the reflection.. clouds etc.. great start! great model.

[Ky Lane]

Thanks Tom. Yeah, I have AO on for the materials, prob just need to up the settings a bit. Im photographing all the surrounding buildings so the reflections will be there - but unsure how to treat it yet - have to do a night shot too.. so could get interesting.

[WAcky]

try doing an AO pass of around 500mm then comping it at about 30-50%. I've just started doing this as well as a 10-15mm AO pass and I reckon it looks pretty good.

[Ky Lane]

Cool James - you just assign an all white material with AO then comp it?

[WAcky]

Try that quick passes script from script spot. I use vray which does AO passes on the fly. A 500mm AO pass is really slow if you are using production settings so I use the a script for my big AO pass.

 

I'm sure there are ways to do a global AO pass like the way you suggested too. Make sure you save a seperate file when using that script as it can strip your scene of all materials if it f's up. Having matte passes is also handy for boosting AO in certain parts of the scene. I find that when I comp in a grass photo and overlay shadows, it looks like the geometry can be floating so boosting the larger AO pass on the grass can really ground the building better...

 

Anyhoo, something to try!

[Justin Hunt]

An AO of anything less than 500mm becomes too obvoiuse and looks like everything has been outlined.

 

I prefer using 1 to 2 meters, as it gives more of a gradient wash to give depth.

 

You can render out a separate AO pass with mental using render elements.

 

jhv

[WAcky]

I've never tried anything between 15mm and 500mm but I find that a small one of 10-15mm can really bring out the details of things like window frames, cladding details and such...

 

I do quite a bit of masking with my AO passes. It's really worth the extra effort...

[Justin Hunt]

using rounded corners in the A&D or EdgeTex in Vray also brings out fine detail like that too. A nice bit of edge glint looks great.

 

jhv

[WAcky]

yeah I'm going to try the edgestex corners on my next job.

[Justin Hunt]

From my playing around it doesn't work as nicely as the A&D shader but does make a differance.

 

jhv

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I'm a tight AO'er. To me, most of the modern GI engines don't handle contact shadows well. I like a tight AO to add the contact shadows back in.

 

I haven't explored rounded corners or edge textures as much as I should.

 

A 500mm AO pass is really slow if you are using production settings so I use the a script for my big AO pass.

 

?? ....is this Vray or MR, and how much of a slow down are we talking? Is this just within the engine, or material? ...or also with a pass done as a render element?

 

With MR I do it at material level, and then as an extra shader with an AO pass. With Vray I do it at the GI engne level, and as of yet, have not been doing an extra render element pass.

[Justin Hunt]

I use a large AO at material level and if nessesary a tight one as a separate pass, masking out areas that dont need the smaller AO.

 

jhv

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I use a large AO at material level and if nessesary a tight one as a separate pass, masking out areas that dont need the smaller AO.

 

jhv

 

 

Makes sense. Unfortunately Vray's AO settings are way behind Mental Ray's. Vray also doesn't support the AO at material level in the A&D shader.

[Justin Hunt]

Which is a bit dissapointing, its such a powerful shader. There are ways to do AO at material level in Vray but too fiddly to be useful or even overly successful.

 

jhv