Glass shop w.i.p.

[Tim Nelson]

This is the first stage in my next project. The real work will come with the lighting & materials.

 

Then the final challenge will be showing all the product. There's going to be hand blown glass-ware, every-where! I still haven't decided whether to take the plunge into modeling & rendering the pieces or to try to comp. them in. I have a feeling that I will end up doing a little of both though.

 

[Ernest Burden III]

Tim

 

Throw some grain on that WIP and you're done. Doesn't your client understand ART?

 

Check out the work of Andy Hickes: http://rendering.net/htm/frworks.htm His work has an over-the-top shininess to it (though less so in the more recent stuff) that is a holdover from his day as an airbrush renderer.

 

My advice--model the glass. The point of the space is the glass, you can't go cheap on it. Use IES lights to get some great light effects, turn on caustics perhaps, render yourself into a lather. It'll be great.

 

Do the glass thing.

[kippu]

oh yes .... go for modelling although its going to be tough

 

good luck

[Tim Nelson]

Ok, I will go for the modeling. But I will still probably fake a lot of the pieces towards the back.

 

I like Andy's work very much. What really blows me away is his before & after section. I guess it pays to be an artist AND have good technicals skillls. I don't have too much of either!

[Tim Nelson]

Here's an update on lighting & modeling. This one only took 6 minutes to render, which I was really happy about. The main reason it was so fast was because I used lightmap for the 2nd bounce. When I go to QMC it really slows down a lot. I'm also keeping the light subdivisions at only 3, which causes some grain, but not too bad. I'm only using Vray lights (plane & sphere) and free point lights. They would probably look better with ies files, but I don't have the time to find the right ones, or time to wait for the longer renders.

 

[Ernest Burden III]

They would probably look better with ies files, but I don't have the time to find the right ones

 

Why not just make them? I find that even a basic shape created a much better render in Lightscape.

 

I recently did a quick model/lighting to help a friend with a deadline (he re-painted the scene) and the room had this lamp which created a star pattern. The maker's website SAID it had IES files, but you registered for access, they never sent me the email with the login code. So I had to make it up. It worked reasonably well.

 

For a space like this, with 'special' glass objects I would think IES files would really add a lot to the image.

[Tim Nelson]

So how did you go about making those? They look good.

 

I'm just worried about being able to render the scene once I get everything in there & think it will be hard enough without IES lights. I will probably do some highlighting work in PS to really make the glass sparkle.

 

Fran had an interested idea on her latest project that she posted on the Vray forum. Something about faking the ies using a projector map, but I haven't tried it yet.

[Brian Cassil]

I've used the projector map method and it works fine.

 

I'm not sure I realized you even could make IES files. Ernest, would you mind sharing that process?

[Ernest Burden III]

I'm not sure I realized you even could make IES files. Ernest, would you mind sharing that process?

 

Open Lightscape, edit IES, save.

 

I'm not a lighting expert, so I figured all programs that use IES files edit them as well.

 

Maybe they don't.

 

Using a map to modify the shape of the light would be a nice idea, too.

 

Tim, if most of your lights are the same type, I might be willing to whip up a fun shaped file. I tell you what, I'll email you the star one I made, you can try it to see if it works at all.

[Tim Nelson]

Thanks for the files Ernest. I'll try them in the a.m.

 

Here's the first update with some finishes - not all though. Sorry if this is boring, but I always enjoy seeing other peoples wips, especially from start to finish. Speaking of that Ernest, whats happening with your restaurant project?

 

[kippu]

this is "Oh so not boring !! " .. i love seeing how other ppl work and their progress.. i wish i can show it ..... oh well ..maybe next time

 

its coming along nicely Tim .... nice colors .... its just waiting for those glass pieces

 

and edit ies hmmm thats a nice way

[Ernest Burden III]

Sorry if this is boring, but I always enjoy seeing other peoples wips, especially from start to finish. Speaking of that Ernest, whats happening with your restaurant project?

 

It is SO great that you are posting the progress images.

 

My WIP project has been sidelined for a few days as I rush a watercolor animation together. I will get back to it and continue to track the project. Thanks for asking!

[Tim Nelson]

Ok, this will probably be my last post before the final. I just have a few more things to fix & I will be ready to go. Since I am running out of time, I plan to only render the right side with glass & then mirror it over to the left in Photoshop since both sides are symmetrical. Then I will probably just change the colors of the glasses so its not so obvious. The owner & architect decided to take out the carts to free up the space a little. Good for me since it will save rendering time.

 

I am having problems with Vray caustics as you can see in this image. Whenever I turn caustics on, none of the glass objects let light through. They are still transparent, but just blocking all direct light. So I am going to have to turn them off.

 

Does anybody have any tips on how to really make those glasses sparkle using post process? I am using ies lights now, but that will only get me so far. I want to really pump these glasses up & make them shine. Any ideas?

 

[Ernest Burden III]

Use the material mask method to select the glass in Photoshop and use brightness/contrst to pull up contrast, you may need to then use hue/sat to pull the saturation back down a bit, but it'll help.

 

The foreground ceiling lights are great. Try brightening up the parts near the glowbulbs. In other words, more contrast against the ceiling, which could be darker while you're at it, to punch the light of the main shop.

 

The foreground tiles look nice, but could use more obvious grout. Photoshop it.

 

If caustics aren't working, try to learn how to use them. Short deadline? That's the perfect time!

[Tim Nelson]

Thanks Ernest,

 

What do you mean about more obvious grout? Funny thing with those tiles, is that they are actually individually modeled with a real grout layer beneath. I had about 9 different tile samples of this kind, so I made 9 different layers and placed them randomly to avoid seing a repeat. I'm sure there is an easier way, but still it didn't take too long the way I did it.

[Ernest Burden III]

Thanks Ernest,

 

What do you mean about more obvious grout?

 

The grout looks somewhat specular. It would make the tile look better to have more specular contrast to its grout.

[William Alexander]

The grout looks somewhat specular. It would make the tile look better to have more specular contrast to its grout.

 

Sir Timothy Nelson (aka timmatron)

 

Here's a picture, the real thing, freshly laid. The grout is almost void of any specular (it's a 'dead' effect, beyond flat), maybe some very low levels of glossy & spec using phong. Oren-nayer-blinn has the diffuse roughness settings which work well for grout. If you look really close you can see a little specular effect that just warms up the grout a bit- same color in spec as diffuse.

 

If nothing else it may be a good reference shot

 

Cheers

WDA

[Tim Nelson]

Thanks William,

 

Thats kind of what I was thinking too...unless they put a sealer on it or something. But my joints are even smaller than that so I didn't think it would make a big differece either way. What I should have done though, is put a very small bump at the edges of the tiles. This particular tile has very sharp, square edges, but it would have been a nice effect for the rendering at least.

[Chad Warner]

Tim-

 

Looking real good. What kind of render time are you looking at?

 

-Chad

[Tim Nelson]

Tim-Looking real good. What kind of render time are you looking at?-Chad

Thanks Chad. Times aren't too bad. It took about 1.5 hours to generate the irradience map, & then about another 5 hours to render it at 3000x wide.

 

Last night I increased the settings though, & also copied the glasses to the other side, so the irradience map took 2-3 I think. Then I hit render before I went to bed, and when I woke up the scene was completely rendered except for one small bucket that Vray decided to crash on. Then of course Viz decided to crash too so I wasn't able to save any of the image. Now I've got it rendering on another machine while I do other stuff over here.

[Brian Cassil]

I think the tile looks great. In fact, it was the first thing that struck me about the image. Modeling individual tiles is couragous indeed, do they have beveled edges? The only crit I have would be that I think the lights on the right and left under the yellow masses are creating hot spots on the walls that are too bright. Maybe one other thing and that is that the two small lights near the forground on the left and right could cast hot spots that aren't perfectly round.

[Tim Nelson]

Good points Brian. I will be take some more time to adjust the levels in Photoshop once I get the final image done.

 

I didn't bevel the edges, but I wish I would have. Unfortunately it's not easy to go back & do that now since they are modeled in Autocad. There is no easy 'instancing' with solids.

[ipdesigner]

 

The foreground tiles look nice, but could use more obvious grout. Photoshop it.

 

*congratulations TIM!, its a job clearly, very well done..

*just curious about the grout, its not much appreciated here since the tiling is smaller, maybe its around 10cmx10cm each piece...it will show if its bigger.

*another pointer, any idea how the architect put some "elements" (if there is any)between the tiles and the wood parquet??(an image attached) im not comfortable without transition between these two elements..thnx!

[Tim Nelson]

You're right, there is a material between the big tile & the wood. It's supposed to be 1" glass tiles with metal transition strips on either side. Here is a closer look.

 

I don't much care for the glass tiles in this environment, but maybe it will look better in real life. Something I ask myself a lot is: "Do I not like it becuase I'm doing a bad job on the rendering, or do I not like it because it's a bad design?" Sometimes it's really hard to tell.

 

I realize that it doesn't even look like there is grout in those big tiles. But I lightened it up a bit so hopefully it will show up next time.

[Chad Warner]

Those are your random tiles you were making the other day? They look a little rectangular instead of square.

 

Something I ask myself a lot is: "Do I not like it becuase I'm doing a bad job on the rendering, or do I not like it because it's a bad design?" Sometimes it's really hard to tell.

 

I find myself asking this question all the time, with certain materials that are hard to achieve the look of. Most of the time, I can pretty much tell if the design looks bad, but there are the times if it's because I can't get a material to look right. Then of course there are the times when I know the design is bad, and I have to make it look as good as I can.