alex_rob Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 (edited) Studio/Institution: n/aClient: ruiz constructionGenre: Residential ExteriorSoftware: 3dsmax 2011 / mental rayWebsite: http://achmedthesnake.comDescription: Hi guys - just starting on my 2nd attempt on a residential exterior... **Images edited to reflect update 14/048/2011** different angle: [ATTACH=CONFIG]42337[/ATTACH] I'm currently pulling my hair out, just to get this looking good - seems to always look too cg-ish and unrealistic. Unfortunately, it a bit of a uninspiring house plan - and I can't quite find a good focus point or area of interest (its looks a bit bland) I'm using 3dsmax Mr Daylight (sun&sky) with a&d materials - Final Gather (no GI) And I was hoping if anyone had some suggestions on making this more 'realistic' or at least believable - the finished examples I see on this site just seem to be a big step up from the quality i'm gettin here... the outside wall's surface meant to be a fine stucco (in Colorbond bushland color) It's a wip at the moment - I plan to put some real scattered grass (rather than a texture) in - and more plants to frame the image. garage door is a placeholder. I apologize if I'm sounding like a noob - i'm preety confident in my modeling skills - its just getting a decent render is hard to come by... -anyone have any tips on getting believable 'mulch/ground cover' ? (at the moment it's a texture with a bit of displacement/bump - same with the grass. I appreciate any comments, crits and suggestions made Cheers. Edited April 14, 2011 by alex_rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrender Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Some thoughts: 1. Scale seems WAY off in the image. That's why it is looking like a scale model rather than a real image. The garage door and the shingles in particular. The shingles look to be about 2'-6" wide (you can convert the metric!). 2. Your lighting is off. You currently don't have any direct sunlight hitting the facade of your house. The softness is another cue towards a scale model (like lighting a physical model with a couple of incandescents rather than a strong sunlight). The direct light will help ease the contrast under your eaves as well by introducing realistic ambient bounces. 3. Camera angle - you're squeezing the image. Either back out some to get some relief from the visual tension on your borders, or zoom in for a more dynamic shot. 4. Glass needs more reflection. Materials are too pristine to truly be "realistic". You asked about the mulch - consider messing it up some. Right now it looks like the world's most anal landscaper hand placed each wood chip hehe. 5. Your background sky doesn't appear to match the soft lighting of your model. What light IS hitting your house appears to be coming from the right - your sky suggests the left. 6. Your landscape plantings are haphazard and really don't constitute a thoughtful design. Group them together and visualize an actual landscape design. Perhaps an ornamental tree or two with some evergreens, varying ornamental grasses and shrubs. This will help break up your render and pull the viewer out of "cg world". Hope this helps a little bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrender Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Just noticed I had commented on one of your other renders. Appears to be almost the same issues between the two! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tron Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 Good crit Ryan. You could also adjust the ratio of your rendered frame... change it so its more landscape. I like 1600px by 1200px for subjects like this. Your modeling looks really good, except for the roof (tiling seems a tad large). Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristocratic3d Posted February 2, 2011 Share Posted February 2, 2011 What are these red dirt? idea of nice grass would be great. I meant a small green garden is always beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_rob Posted February 3, 2011 Author Share Posted February 3, 2011 Hey guys, worked on it a bit more [ATTACH=CONFIG]41154[/ATTACH] - started on the plants, grass & trees, they still look a bit hap-hazard but I'll work on it a bit more - got some direct sunlight and attempted to match the background so there's no conflicting light source visuals... - fixed the garage door, added a bit of reflection for a weak 'metal/paint' reflection aristocratic3d - hey, the 'red dirt' area is actually mulch/groundcover, hopefully the new render shows it a bit more... wrender & tron - unfortunately the squeezed 'camera' view is requested by the client - so hopefully the trees frame it a bit more I fiddled with the glass in the windows - still doesn't seem to be reflecting much (i'm using an edited version of the deafult a&d glass shader for mental ray) - and I've got plenty of trees behind the camera and an 'image' plane of an environment for some extra reflection... anyways... cheers for the comments/crist (thanks wrender) If you guys have any more I'd love to hear it - gotta polish this off over the weekend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrender Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 Huge improvement - good effort. For the glass - just bump the reflection to 1 and refraction to 1 from the default material. That will give you 99% realistic glass. Check here for some tips - great blog by Ramy. http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/2008/11/mental-ray-glass_07.html Make sure you don't have double planes of glass - or if you do, ensure both have a material applied. Right now it looks opaque/white. Now you can start delving into the details, like concrete joints on the driveway, a light fixture above the garage, and some work on the entry area to get some more diffused light bounced in there. Might try to get some texture on the material on the house - reading a little flat. Could also try messing around with a dirt map to get some grit on the page. Ramy's blog has a pretty good/easy way of doing this through an AO Pass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_rob Posted February 3, 2011 Author Share Posted February 3, 2011 hey wrender - thanks for commenting so quickly - here's a link to the fullres image (7mb) :https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4704618/diffuse_exterior_hires_01.jpg - I have put a little bump on the exterior surfaces - but it gets lost when i compress the image to post on this thread - do i need more? In regards to the glass - I've done the reflection:1 and refraction:1 - the opaque/white color is from the 'blinds' (just some simple planes with an off-white material) - the blinds are placed in relation to real blinds - I'll move them back a bit so they don't affect the windows so much. I've yet to do and AO pass - I normally do a ' ao material override' in mental ray - and them comp the rendered image in pshop - the Ramy example looks a bit more messy - do i do both? or is that over-compensating.. With the entrance/door area - do I just up the fnal gather bounces ot get more light in there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrender Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 Consider only taking the blinds half way to let in some light. Also, I would model the blinds so there's some texture there. The AO Mat override is definitely the way to do a pass with MR. Ramy just adds a dirt map to occlude more heavily in corners (where dirt and grime is typically hiding). The front entrance can be done several ways. One is to simply up the reflectivity on your concrete floor. This will bounce more light up from the direct sun. Otherwise, you could start messing around with the bounces - but might be more time consuming to get it to look right. Light isn't the only way to add interest though - consider putting a bench or potted plant in there. The color/material variation might be just what it needs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristocratic3d Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 How about moving the sun t a different direction? increasing some light and adding AO map? I think these were very needed for your scene. Hey guys, worked on it a bit more [ATTACH=CONFIG]41154[/ATTACH] - started on the plants, grass & trees, they still look a bit hap-hazard but I'll work on it a bit more - got some direct sunlight and attempted to match the background so there's no conflicting light source visuals... - fixed the garage door, added a bit of reflection for a weak 'metal/paint' reflection aristocratic3d - hey, the 'red dirt' area is actually mulch/groundcover, hopefully the new render shows it a bit more... wrender & tron - unfortunately the squeezed 'camera' view is requested by the client - so hopefully the trees frame it a bit more I fiddled with the glass in the windows - still doesn't seem to be reflecting much (i'm using an edited version of the deafult a&d glass shader for mental ray) - and I've got plenty of trees behind the camera and an 'image' plane of an environment for some extra reflection... anyways... cheers for the comments/crist (thanks wrender) If you guys have any more I'd love to hear it - gotta polish this off over the weekend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tron Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Your grass and bushes are very realistic. The second image looks much better. The dark areas look slightly too dark. Very big improvement though. Congrats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nachi Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 Hey Alex, i'm seeing youre having some problems with your lighting. The darks are too dark and you're shadows are almost black. i advise you to use a linear workflow to get more light in you scene. Cheers, nice progress though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSuess Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Shadows seem way to dark. Are you using a proper daylight system? More sunlight should be bouncing upward off of the concrete. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heni30 Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Errrrr......... I think it's just a very ugly building painted a drab lifeless color. That carport is so forbidding. A pig with lipstick is still a pig. The MAIN thing you have to do - regardless of your settings is to make your shadows lighter - that's your responsibility as the artist - regardless of what the program is doing. The simplest way to do this which is very low tech and easier that doing a lot more trial and error is to add another light that does not cast shadows. And definitely try to change the color. Colors are really flexible just because they are different in different light so you can really push and pull the hue so that it looks attractive while still remaining in the required overall hue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heni30 Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 OK, next. [ATTACH=CONFIG]41506[/ATTACH] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_rob Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 ha! jeez thanks heni30, I should frame that - I totally agree about the lighting - I am attempting to up the 'sky' bounces and lower the sun's shadow casting strength - in regards to the colors(roof/wall), unfortunately they were set by the project manager... tsuesswba - I was using Mr daylight with sun and sky in 3dsMax2011, working it out slowly.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fooch Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Agreed. Sometimes, its hard to make an ugly building look good. Turd polishing unfortunately is part of the job. 1. The angle is off. Zoom out. Get better angles which shows more of the context or tighten in. 2. Scale of is wrong-ish. Best to check it again. 3. Easy on the darkness. You might be able to fix stuff in post instead of constantly tweaking minute settings. Just make sure you get enough light into the image (Linear work flow will help) and render enough passes to correct this. However, the camera angles do need to be fixed Here's my 5 min post go at it while awaiting for renders.. [ATTACH]41510[/ATTACH] Errrrr......... I think it's just a very ugly building painted a drab lifeless color. That carport is so forbidding. A pig with lipstick is still a pig. The MAIN thing you have to do - regardless of your settings is to make your shadows lighter - that's your responsibility as the artist - regardless of what the program is doing. The simplest way to do this which is very low tech and easier that doing a lot more trial and error is to add another light that does not cast shadows. And definitely try to change the color. Colors are really flexible just because they are different in different light so you can really push and pull the hue so that it looks attractive while still remaining in the required overall hue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_rob Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 whoa, that looks preety good fooch, cool pshop post-work could you step me through that - looks like a blur with a mask, color tint, color overlay?, and 3 separate curve changes w/ masks? do you normally make such drastic changes in post? or just do it right in the render the 1st time round... nice to see an aussie archviz perp aswell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulp Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Add more multiplier to you HDRI (If you are using one). You're dark areas are way to strong. Try working on you wall texture further, maybe add a hint of dirt near the bottom. Fix camera angle and ratio, bring more into context. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fooch Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 I'm fairly post based so normally if it was me solo, I would just get it to a rough base to "paint on". Plus render a lot of masks (via Vray MultiMatte Element or by the script "rendermask") Essentially the image is to be well balanced light wise has good 3d elements in and the rest is post. I tend to keep my vegetation in post too unless its an animation. Here are my layer structure from memory from top to bottom. FINISHING GROUP - VIGNETTE (Curve to darken. Normally i tweak the individual channels differently. I think i raised red + green slightly but pulled the overall RGB down) - GRADE (A colour shift. Green Channel tweaked as an "S" curve. Maybe i raised red a little to get more light in. Plus the overall RGB was raised a little) - SUN (Raised RGB Overall. The mask mimics the sun coming in.. plus to get the yellow light, red + green is raised a little) - COLOUR TONE (regular layer which i set a gradient over and muck around with the hue to get what i want. Then paint blotches of colour over it. Btw, the fill would be say around 20% and the blend mode would be "Color". this is just to tone/tint it RENDER STRUCTURE BLUR 4 (I normally duplicate the base layer and blur it. Then set it on softlight, just to get a smoother image.. less CG. This is roughly masked in for where I want constrast in. Plus the layer opacity would be say 50-70. I would attach a hue adjustment layer to it and colorize that layer to give it a tint and to lighten it. Base Render (nothing is changed, sometimes I would add a slight grain to the CG image to match photos - or I would duplicate the render layer, add grain and mask it in.. Just to dirty it up a little and match the BG) ---------------------- whoa, that looks preety good fooch, cool pshop post-work could you step me through that - looks like a blur with a mask, color tint, color overlay?, and 3 separate curve changes w/ masks? do you normally make such drastic changes in post? or just do it right in the render the 1st time round... nice to see an aussie archviz perp aswell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkle xia Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 i like some lights and funiture inside of the house, keep the house warm and living Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSuess Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 Rendering>Exposure Control>mr Photographic Exposure Control (EV) between 11 and 13 Gamma Input and Output 2.2 on PC or 1.8 if on a Mac Turn on Affect Color Selectors and Material Editor. These changes to your setup will probably make your rendering look far worse at first. But they will allow you to more consistantly and accurately control all lighting and rendering parameters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdesign Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 You're getting there. Could use some GI. The shadows are way to dark. The model of the house itself could use a bit more detail, such as a foundation, framing around the garage door, etc. to give it more life. To boxy otherwise. Go for a walk around your neighborhood and take note of the little things you see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rendershape Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 i found shadow too dark and if i where you i will desatured green of grass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_rob Posted April 8, 2011 Author Share Posted April 8, 2011 (edited) Hey mates! I managed to rework it somewhat - after the client requested some revisions (changing the porch/garage/roof design and colors - hopefully that's it for this one! (again the camera angles are ones requested by the client) [ATTACH=CONFIG]42243[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]42244[/ATTACH] crits and comments would be appreciated - hopefully i can translate that advice on to the next project secondly - off hand, does anyone know a decent roof/tile creation methods? (I'm currently using Batzal roof designer..) Edited April 8, 2011 by alex_rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now