Architectural Elevations

[Travis Smith]

I've always struggled with this and have never found a great solution. I'd like to know your thoughts. When creating color elevations for a client they tend to get very picky when it comes to colors and shadows. They want to hold a paint chip to the printout and they want it perfect. There is no "explaining it away". So here's my dilema.

 

What is the best and most comprehensive way to render architectural elevations or perspectives in 3DS Max using a standard camera and VRay materials with each material and the shadows exported or saved out with Alpha Channels as a file (be it Tif or Targa) where I can compile them in Photoshop and control each material individualy. I saw a tutorial where render elements were used and each layer in PS was set to multiply I believe so each layer was transparent. This is good but not a great solution because the act of setting the layer to multiply etc will slightly change the colors. I am looking for a true alpha channel where I can physically remove everything but the color from a layer.

 

I saw another tutorial where the materials were given ID's and rendered seperately as bright colors and then each of those could be "selected by color" in Photoshop. This work soso as the edges of each material in photoshop were not slightly feathered or pixelated but rather very crisp showing very defined edges which made the image look bad.

 

How do you guys render materials and shadows efficiently and accurately in Max for later compositing and control in Photoshop using "alpha channels"?

 

Thanks for any ideas.

T

[Corey Beaulieu]

Using a Material Wrapper, VRay material, in the override setting you can get an alpha channel for each material type, one at a time, by setting the objects with the same material to exclude while the rest get the wrapper material that is set to Matte, Alpha -1 and affect shadows and alpha ticked. You don't need to turn on GI for this once you have a beauty pass. This new alpha channel will be only for the material excluded from the wrapper and it will have the exact same anti-aliasing as the beauty pass version so when used in PS there wont be any fringing. The only trick here is that you need to open these passes in a separate file and select-drag the alpha channel into your final PS file so you can use it as a selection.

 

With this you can just use hue/saturation on your best rendered version to color correct the final into an exact match. Just use the individual color channels of the hue\sat adjustment layer to control the material more exactly.

 

It all sounds like a lot, but it's actually quick, easy, and effective. Just make some selection sets before you start, one for each material. This will save time on the excluding from the override.

[Travis Smith]

Thanks Corey. I had tried a wrapper and did not get the results I was looking for. I most likely missed something, but look forward to giving it another try! I'll follow your instructions and test it again. I'll let you know how it works. Thanks for the reply.

[Corey Beaulieu]

With GI off your renders will look un-usable, but all you want is the alpha channel. The whole thing is about excluding what you what to have a matte for from the material wrapper.

[CliveG]

You could also look at Ivan Tepavicharov's excellent rendermask script for quick and easy post processing masks from selections.

[vincentg87]

I've always struggled with this and have never found a great solution. I'd like to know your thoughts. When creating color elevations for a client they tend to get very picky when it comes to colors and shadows. They want to hold a paint chip to the printout and they want it perfect. There is no "explaining it away". So here's my dilema.

 

What is the best and most comprehensive way to render architectural elevations or perspectives in 3DS Max using a standard camera and VRay materials with each material and the shadows exported or saved out with Alpha Channels as a file (be it Tif or Targa) where I can compile them in Photoshop and control each material individualy. I saw a tutorial where render elements were used and each layer in PS was set to multiply I believe so each layer was transparent. This is good but not a great solution because the act of setting the layer to multiply etc will slightly change the colors. I am looking for a true alpha channel where I can physically remove everything but the color from a layer.

 

I saw another tutorial where the materials were given ID's and rendered seperately as bright colors and then each of those could be "selected by color" in Photoshop. This work soso as the edges of each material in photoshop were not slightly feathered or pixelated but rather very crisp showing very defined edges which made the image look bad.

 

How do you guys render materials and shadows efficiently and accurately in Max for later compositing and control in Photoshop using "alpha channels"?

 

Thanks for any ideas.

T

 

What's the size and resolution you used?

 

how about using this technique:

"I saw another tutorial where the materials were given ID's and rendered seperately as bright colors and then each of those could be "selected by color" in Photoshop."

 

if you're worried about this:

"This work soso as the edges of each material in photoshop were not slightly feathered or pixelated but rather very crisp showing very defined edges which made the image look bad."

 

and try rendering in higher resolution so that you can feather your selection (1-3px), create a new layer, and tweak accordingly. From my experience this avoids the image's edges from being too well-defined.

[Scott Schroeder]

Easy way? Get a new client. You are not their bitch and you shouldn't let them take an easy 1-2-3 step process and turn it into a 1-2-2.001,2.002,2.003, ......, 3 step process. Let someone else deal with the paint chippers, the, "I TOLD you it was supposed to be Swiss Coffee! This looks like Swiss Mocha!" crowd.

 

The way you explain this away is you tell them you will fix it. Wait 4 hours, go see a movie maybe. Then send them the exact same render and they will always say, "Perfect! You really nailed it this time!"

 

Try taking the client outside and showing them the paint color in the sun. You know, that bright non-adjustable light in real life. Help explain to them using real world, non-tech savy terms and they will understand.

[Nic H]

sounds like a ridiculous situation - i would tell them to piss off.....

 

can you just not set up a load of Material ID elements in vray for each of your mterials that need adjusting? then use teh resulting perfect R G B masks as selections?

 

there is no need to make a matte set up for every object - that sounds like a pain

 

how does screening a matte layer over change the colours anyhow?

[Travis Smith]

Corey, that was exactly what I was needing! Thanks for the schooling. This will be very helpful.

[Travis Smith]

Yes, it does sound ridiculous and the guys writing the checks sometimes have us by the short hairs. Holding a paint chip up to a printout is insane, but some clients (at least in my experience) will not accept any scientific explanation or reasoning. They don't want to hear it. Geez, I've even worked with designers and Architects that don't want to hear it. They call it an excuse.

 

They matte layers simply gives me a quick way to cut out or mask each material in Photoshop so I can tweek it and print it, tweek it and print it, tweek it and..........

 

Thanks for the feedback.

[Travis Smith]

Hey Scott, that's funny. I'm picking up what you're putting down for sure. I don't work for myself but rather for an Architect that has a client that will not accept excuses. When my boss (the Architect) says figure it out, make the client happy...well, that's where I'm at.

 

Oh, and I have spent hours holding paint chips up to print outs outside. Yes you heard me, outside in the sunlight. Crazy I know. Or maybe I'm crazy to putting up with this industry for 12 years! I do like what I do 95% of the time.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

[Scott Schroeder]

Hopefully this is being billed back to the client and you aren't taking a bath on this one. Clients request stupid, because they know they can get away with stupid. They think that because they pay, they wear the pants.

[Travis Smith]

You are correct sir. I have actually heard of (not in my office) and architect buying an identical monitor for the client so they would stop complaining about the colors they were seeing on their end not matching. Sounds crazy I know. I suppose this discussion could be a whole other thread in and of it's self. Heck I could devote a website to this subject!

[Tommy L]

They think that because they pay, they wear the pants.

Thats what paying buys you. The only pair of pants in the room.

If you are looking for a selection set for tweaking colors in post then take a look at PSD Manager from Cebas. Vray can also render out to several select-able passes in its render elements tab. The 'hard edges' that give you a bad matte are from an unfiltered pass that sufferes bad aliasing. I believe multi-matte and object ID pass both have an option to anti-alias the pass. Maybe material ID, maybe wirecolor. Look for a render elements tutorial.

Oh, and I have clients just like that. I actually quite like it, but thats because I bill for the changes.