Help with strange dark spots

[luismacedo]

Hey guys, I've been using 3ds max and vray for a while now and my renders are okay, but it's time to take things to the next level. I want to get that photorealistic look. The thing is, my renders seem to have dark spots on several surfaces (on the white and gray walsl) and I can't seem to get why. How can I make them disappear? Also if you have any suggestions on how to make it appear more realistic I'd appreciate it!

 

Edited July 15, 2016 by luismacedo

[Francisco Penaloza]

Those dark spots are low Irradiance map, it is hard to tell from your image how many lights you have in your scene but, when light conditions are not optimal, then your GI has to work double.

 

Increase your Irr settings, should fix that.

A cheap way to fix it would be increase the interpolation of irradiance, try to get a number closer to the actual number of samples. But this will also lose some details in the GI, one way to fix this is enabling detail enhancement.

 

Regarding realism, you need to build more real. This sound silly but, when you cheat in 3D it look like cheat, if you take a look at the making of of great CG artist, you will notice they put a lot of details in models and textures. Also a good workflow of post production can take your image to the next level.

 

In your case, for instance, those wood planks could be modeled instead using a simple texture.

adding chamfer to everything. Same thing for your tile floor. Using a better plant model also will help.

The person in the background look like she is running out of the shot. She should be walking in to frame. Maybe make it blurry to fake a longer shutter speed that may be used in this light situation in real life.

The tree in the background looks strange, it is inside or outside?? seems like one branch is inside? why you would want to do that??

 

Well the Devil is in the detail, that what they say

Best luck.

[luismacedo]

I'll try playing around with the interpolarion settings, thank you! Instead of modelling esch plank, wouldn't it be the same if a made a displacement image with just the gaps between each plank and assign it to the diffuse channel? You're right about the blurriness, the thing with the tree is mereley an architectural detail, there's a tree right next to a wall, but instead of having it removed, we are integrating it into the house reception area, hence the hole in the wall hehe. Any other advice? I'm eager to try it out.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Bump is a cheat, disp is a cheat, normal map are cheats. This does not meant that you should not use it, you need to learn and master all techniques and then decide when to use them.

If you think your image is lacking about realism, is because you have not put enough time to develop more the details.

Nowadays with tools such, floor generator or iToo Railcloner or Max graph system it is very easy to replicate tiles and wood plank systems.

If you don't have high quality displacement map, wish most people doesn't, then your displacement won't look believable.

 

Producing nice visualizations is not about how photo real it look. Of course photo realism help to impress, but that's not everything. you need to sell your image, you need to invite the viewer to explore your image, instead of locking the eyes in something that seems strange or wrong.

If you spend a few minutes on your project it will look like a few minutes projects, there is no secret on this, not magic. Just good technique and Artistic approach.

 

Composition is also very important, for instance your image was composed as one point perspective, this is very standard on Architectural photography, but shooting straight does not meant good composition, in your case there is a wall dead center, this divide the image in two right away. The viewer does not know if this is a wall or are two different images together, if you back up a little and show the area where the wall touch the ceiling and the floor, then you make the viewer understand that this is a wall between both places.

Or maybe mover the camera a little to one side to show that it is indeed a wall. It may not be straight center, but still give you the idea of one point perspective.

 

Try to explore Architectural photography and general photography, that will help you to produce better visualizations