Retail development - want to improve

[Gary Ledgerwood]

Studio/Institution: Self
Genre: Retail Exterior
Software: 3ds Max, Mental Ray, Photoshop
Description:

Hello all. So I have been at the business for about 3 years now and while my work has improved immensely in that time, I feel like I have hit a bit of a wall. Now that I gotten to a level that people seem to respond positively to, I keep doing that same thing out of ease and time saving. But in my head, I am not all that happy with it. We have a lot of new good work coming in and I really want to make a conscious effort to improve. One of the major things I want to learn is how to make my trees and foliage more realistic. I currently use Xfrog and Archmodel trees and I am a little disappointed in the look as compared to some of the amazing works I see on this site. I typically have some many of these models in my scene that my poly count is ridiculous and I get a lot of crashes. I have worked a bit with Mental Ray proxies with varying success. I am considering converting to Vray but I am concerned about the learning curve and the probable loss of productivity during the switch. Any input you could share to improve my workflow and appeal would be greatly appreciated.

[Justin Hunt]

The trees aren't too bad, its the leaves that need work, Jeff Patton did a really good post on leaves on his blog a while ago.

 

There are two other areas that need work, one is the materials, especially texture scale , in some areas its too big, like the road. The reflections also need attention, eg the cars and road are too shiny but the steel isn't shiny enough.

 

The other area is composition, there is way too much empty foreground and not enough sky. The first image would be wonderful if the sun was striking the building (sorry I had to have a little play)

 

jhv

Edited May 20, 2013 by Justin Hunt
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[Gary Ledgerwood]

Thanks so much for the valuable feedback, Justin. I really appreciate you taking the time. I am going to head over to Jeff Patton's blog now. Do you have any input on the best type of trees to use? I have been debating on investing in the Onyx tree software, but again, I am just comfortable with what I doing now and I am concerned about the downtime involved with learning a new software. I do like the idea of being able to create my own random trees though.

 

I agree with you on the scale of the materials. That is another area where I struggle. I haven't found a method of creating good pavement for example that doesn't noticeably tile. I occasionally bump the size of the texture to avoid that. I am sure its a big no no. Any tips on create nice, realistic looking pavement? I also definitely don't pay enough attention to materials. I get some that looks decent and go with it. I don't think it is out of laziness, but just that I don't know exactly how to achieve the appropriate reflection values.

 

I like your quick adjustment. Again, I really do appreciate the feedback. I will work to incorporate this advice in my next view. Thanks again.

[Scott Erstad]

I agree with Justin - lighting, materials and composition. Lose that car in the center of the image, use people to identify access/egress points of your scene. Add some brighter floral, contrast, sharpness and "specialness" at those points as well. I see no reason to incorporate such vast swathes of paving in any of those scenes you've attached. Ask yourself as you compose "is this element serving a purpose? Is it necessary?" An image is nothing more than patterns of color, value, focus and overlap that should result in a pleasing composition. I am a firm believer that the last 10% of any image delivers 90% of the success. Broad comments I know, but I think that the challenge you have identified in your work lies not in the technical any longer. It's good that you are not satisfied, much to build upon. Enjoy?

[Justin Hunt]

Far a while I used to make my own trees with Onyx, however I was never really pleased with them. These days there are some many pre-made trees that it is far simpler to use these. With variations in leaf colour, scale and rotation of the trees it is very easy to get the variation needed.

 

As for the paving, I usually mix several asphalt and concrete textures which hide the tiling. Although the wet look on roads can be quite appealing, the illusion is lost if it is the only thing that is wet, ie you have to make the pavement etc wet too. Rather have very subtle reflections on the road.

 

jhv

[Ernest Burden III]

As Justin said, crop up. Less foreground, more sky. Do you want the building to relate to the parking lot or the park and world? In renderings, structures are in conversation with their surroundings. Who is there, who should it be talking to? Cars? Trees? Sky? People? All buildings join a world already in progress.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

Thank you all for the replies. For some reason I struggle so much with cropping the foreground. My brain always wants about equal amounts of ground and sky on either side of the building. My boss has brought this up to me before and I ignored it. ) Obviously it is a very valid point. For some reason it makes me feel like the viewer eye height is too high. I am very anxious to give all of these great suggestions a try and will share the results when finished.

 

I just reread Scott's point before sending this and one of the reasons I often have to show a lot of paving and parking is that we do a lot of marketing images for developers to try to get retail tenants interested in their buildings. Their main concerns are typically how big of signage they can have and access to plenty of parking.

[Justin Hunt]

I can second this, parking, signage and sight lines are pretty much all they are interested in. The trick is to imply that there is a lot of parking . Its a difficult thing to get right, but you will find that with a carefully composed image the clients dont get too tied up in how many car spaces are visible.

Signage is an other matter, you cant be too specific or too generic. You also have to keep in mind the types of tenants they are attracting.

 

Marketing to prospective tenants is very different to marketing to Joe Soap. They are really interested in how visible their store will be and how many customers are around. The architecture is almost secondary.

 

JHV

[Ernest Burden III]

Show them what they will experience once they're out of their cars. That's why they came. The plan shows the vast paved lots best.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

If you guys have a spare few minutes, would you mind sharing links to, or posting images that successfully employ these techniques and ideas we are discussing? I would love to add some content to my inspiration folder. All of this input has been very valuable. I did my first view yesterday where I forced myself to crop a lot of the foreground. I really struggled with it but I made it through. I would post but it is for an early design competition and not for public consumption yet. That is usually the case with most of the projects I work on so posting them on here for feedback over the years has not been an option.

[Tommy L]

Even if you put all that parking lot in there, whoever is publishing the shot will crop it out anyway.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

Here is another building from the same site. A couple of quick interior and exterior views used for marketing. They did the trick in this case. This was an old 1800's school house converted to retail. I will have to see if I can find photos of the finished product as it turned out pretty close.

[Sourpickles]

I didnt read other comments and maybe you mentioned it here but to me the roads seem a bit too shiny. Even if they were wet they seem too shiny.....no? If they were wet they would have areas of gloss and none gloss....puddles and what not. Otherwise I really like these

[Gary Ledgerwood]

I agree, Jason. Most of the images that I produce are used more for glitzy marketing tools than a hyper-realistic view that is going to be scrutinized by the end user. They are typically a proposed tenant who just want to make quick emotional attachment to a view to get them excited about the project and it is those types of cheap tricks that I use to achieve that. Sure the architecture should speak for itself, but I am not above distorting reality if it is going to get a tenant to sign a lease.