Scott Baumberger Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 I'm working on a large retail center, and the client has asked for the rendering to be as realistic as possible. I'm using Cinema 4D (ver 7.3) and a lot of Photoshop. Do you have any ideas on how to add more realism? Any other critiques are welcome as well - thanks in advance for your help! I have a bigger version posted on my site as well: http://www.baumbergerstudio.com/rendering.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 Looks pretty good to me. Great detail, must have taken forever! Two things could make it more realistic: 1. Dirty it up. It's too perfect, especially along the street. Maybe play with some depth fog? But that's the way it is with most CG images with a lot of street action - always too perfect. 2. There is nothing on the floors of the office buildings. I'd put some workstation/cubicle things, just copy one across the floor then up the building. You could add some ceiling lights, too, the do seem to be visible most of the time (in reality). Then maybe stick a few people randomly on the floors, barely visible, but the color could be enough to break up the perfection of the facade. Nice image, though, I wouldn't worry about it (unless they actually critiqued this image, which I'd be surprised to learn). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 First of all I do agree with MBR about how nice the image is and on his suggestions for making it more "real". The thing that stands out to me are the bright colors on the roof top plaza and near the entry on the street. The colors look great from a pure rendering standpoint but they don't look very realistic. Other than that and what was already mentioned about the only other thing I can think of is that the reflections in the glass could be sharper but with some wavy distortion to them. I usually notice that in glass buildings I see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 Hi, Scott! The environment reflections don't hold up. They need to be darker, and not thin out towards the right of the image--put up a billboard cutout of 'skyline' to reflect, perhaps. ome hints of 'stuff' in the windows would help, though I don't think you need very much, fairly subtle. You could even get away with a super-enlarged noise map just barely visible. Warm up the color of the sunlight. Make the shadows stronger, they are very difuse. Add some cloud shadows, maybe (those would be difuse). Car wreck? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph alexander Posted April 30, 2004 Share Posted April 30, 2004 The most convincing large renders I've seen have very accurate reflections for the glass. So I'd fiddle with your windows. http://www.cgarchitect.com/gallery/image_spotlight.asp?galleryID=20503 http://www.cgarchitect.com/gallery/image_spotlight.asp?galleryID=20469 I would try to get some window variation going on to some lit some not. (that's just one point) Your trees and grass detract from a photoreal and its also evenly lit as well. (I'm sure your client wants that though) cloud shadows sound like a great idea good luck, -joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graphix Posted May 1, 2004 Share Posted May 1, 2004 It looks REALLY good....... Just do the few things the guys here have already said and you will have a top notch render. I do have one question for you.... where did you get the trees.... I am still question for really really nice trees at a good price. graphix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Alexander Posted May 1, 2004 Share Posted May 1, 2004 Scott, Wonderful rendering- all of the above. If the tress and entourage are PS knock down the saturation, these areas are 20%+ than the surrounding buildings and environment. Lends to atmopheric substance / thickness also. Going back to admire the detail on your site jpg . WDA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donkey81 Posted May 2, 2004 Share Posted May 2, 2004 Personally not too keen on the glass: it looks a bit "grey" for my liking. But it's shaping up to be a nice image, so kudos. Huggles, Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Erstad Posted May 4, 2004 Share Posted May 4, 2004 Hi Scott, I personally feel that photo real is the most time consuming, and challenging style to be succesful with. Never the less, there is always a time and place for it, and certainly the market. I hope this note doesnt find you too late in the process, but here goes... I think you need to incorporate gradients on all surfaces, as in nature, nothing is flat in value or color. Your buildings require more variation from top to bottom, and left to right. The distant building and glass will reflect significantly more light and environment than those in the foreground, due to the more raking angle of perspective, so balance across this philosphy across the image with that rule as a guide. Conversly, contrast and focus will be more evident in the near buildings, and less in the distant, and balance this across the image as well. Gradients in layer masks applied to adjustment layers and shadow layers make this managable in PS. More punch to the glass, or contrast in reflectivity. Interal activity is good, but the overall illusion, I beleive, is more effective. Adding a shade here or there, and interior activity such as that on the closest building in conjunction with distant reflections will carry your illusion for you. Cast shadows, and cloud washes will help as well, that dappled interplay of light and shadow is something I leave for the end, along with farkles - the extreme hilights one finds in hard surface reflections - as well. To me, this is the candy that reinforces reality. The addition of atmoshpere, the additon of more contrast and abstract interest to the sliver of background between the two buildings (which is an excellent compositional element by the way) will also help out. The vegetation requires some attention, but not too detailed - shape and form, and modeling. I think the hardscape would benefit from some of the cloud shadows (as compostiional elements) as well. I sometimes look to some established acrylic painters such as Richard Baehr (http://www.baehrenderings.com) and Art Associates (http://www.artassoc.com) for inspiration, and then back off from the drama a bit. Acrylic seems to be a meduim that traditional artists who paint hyper realism seem to employ. Production wise, the key is to render out an image for masking purposes within photoshop, using wacky colors which are easily selected. I know some of my comments were represented in earlier posts, but such is life. Load up your coffee mug and go get em! Cheers, Scott PS: Look forward to seeing the final image, and thanks for letting us all participate in your work. I have been a fan of your studio for some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baumberger Posted May 6, 2004 Author Share Posted May 6, 2004 Wow - thanks everyone for the comments. I'm hoping to have this thing wrapped up in the next couple weeks or so. As you said, it has taken forever, and one of the things that I've limited myself to is not to try to model the interior of the offices (I have to make some money on this project, right?). So I'll probably focus on the glass reflections in the towers - I think that would help a lot, and hopefully that will obscure the emptiness / soullessness inside. Maybe also some downlights in the ceiling planes - we'll see. Keep in mind though that the focus is on the retail, and although the rendering is supposed to be "photo-real", the offices are merely a backdrop to the street-level activity. I'm mostly concerned about the ground plane and the retail podiums - are there good asphalt maps out there that I could apply to the street to "dirty it up"? Are the images in the windows enough to sell activity in the shops? Believe me there is enough atmosphere - I did render the image to layers, and I've already got about 15-20 gradients going on in the towers. An unfortunate result of the view angle / sun angle composition (which were dictated to me btw) is that the sun is only about 15 degrees north of the camera angle, so getting interesting shadows has been problematic - it's also been difficult to visually separate the towers because the lighting is so flat. The client has been afraid to put any part of the project in shadow fearing that the project will appear uninviting - anyone else ever run into this problem? As a result, the gradients, shadows, cloud washes, etc. need to be subtle, but hopefully some added sparkle will give the rendering a bit more punch. Thanks again everyone for the critiques - keep 'em coming, and I'll post the final version very soon! PS - the trees are all photos pasted in with Photoshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graphix Posted May 7, 2004 Share Posted May 7, 2004 If your area of intrest is just the retail area with all the umbrellas why not zoom in a touch closer so you can see more detail? Where'd you get the trees from? graphix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph alexander Posted May 7, 2004 Share Posted May 7, 2004 So the reason that its not photo-real is because its too evenly lit, but your client wants an evenly lit rendering that's "photo-real". hmmm. -joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baumberger Posted August 6, 2004 Author Share Posted August 6, 2004 I know that you've all been anxiously awaiting a new version of the rendering, and here it is! The project's been on hold for some time, and the client has finally decided to finish it up. Joseph Alexander - "So the reason that its not photo-real is because its too evenly lit, but your client wants an evenly lit rendering that's "photo-real"." This really speaks to the disconnect that I've had with this client - I see two schools of thought for photo-real renderings: one is to create a realistic photo-looking snapshot of the project, and the second is to create a rendering that has a "heighted reality". The client seems to prefer the former, and I'm solidly in the latter camp. Anyway, a bizarre fear of putting any part of the building in shadow seems to me to be a common problem in retail projects - I was just wondering if anyone else has run into this. graphix - "Where'd you get the trees from?" All of the trees are cutouts pasted within Photoshop - mostly from a collection I picked up a while ago from archimodel.com. Nothing too exciting, just lots of adjustment layers to correct the lighting and blend the trees into the scene. That said, please give me any further crits & comments and I thank everyone for their suggestions - the rendering's much better as a result. Cheers - Scott http://www.baumbergerstudio.com/rendering.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted August 6, 2004 Share Posted August 6, 2004 I think it has come together nicely. Good work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted August 6, 2004 Share Posted August 6, 2004 I love it! It still has a nice "rendered" feel to it which I prefer to absolute realism anyway. I hope your client likes it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Posted August 7, 2004 Share Posted August 7, 2004 Wow, Scott. Absolutely beautiful work. The only thing - and this is likely just me...the street lamp lenses seem too bright. Humbling. Work like this pushes me to constantly improve. Thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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