Mountain Chalet

[OPEN_RANGE]

A recently completed exterior. Comments, critique always welcome.

[glorybound]

Good job. I think the camera position makes for a very flat image. I try to chose eye-level images, so it looks more naterual.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thanks for your comment and it is 100% valid. I had it as an eye level normal human like camera position. The client/real estate agent/ developer insisted the view raise up so the upper patio with hot tub at the left could be seen better. So……no worries I do what they want, they are very happy, I got paid.

[bardo]

Except the camera view, that is quite unnatural but it worth if it helps you to be paid, the other aspect I think that should be improved is the lightning.
There is something strange as the main lighting seems quite orange (as sun is low) but the vegetation (particularly the trees) seems enlighted by a white light.
Another thing is that the contrast is quite low.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thanks for your comments!

One thing that is seen more and more in real estate photography is drone shots. So….unnatural yes but able to show elements that otherwise can not be seen is often important to the real estate sales people.

i also did something else I pretty much never do for exterior. I added a bit of fill light coming from the left. The clients felt the sides of the house not in the main light were too dark. I think that is causing the issues you point out re trees and contrast.

[fixeighted]

You got paid, which is the main thing, however the image does exhibit issues, in my opinion.
I'm quite critical, so apologies if I seem overly so

So, things like:

The path geometry seems clearly to be boxes that show the joins, with a rather uniform texture.
It doesn't appear that anything is chamfered, giving everything a very sharp appearance.
Some tiling mismatch on the stonework.
The grasses on the bottom right appear to be oddly angled.
As others mentioned, it just lacks any contrast, thus making it very flat. Most definitely needs depth.
The yellow window reflections create some kind of conflict with the background sky colour...maybe that's how it is in reality...not sure, but it looks odd.
The bottom floor windows do not reflect this yellow...rather they look missing, so we see through to the interior...looks odd.
All the trees are practically the same colour...not buying that

Maybe you can post a photo of a similar property to show what the light is like in that area. I am not used to such an environment so it would be useful to judge by

[OPEN_RANGE]

Hey, no apologies needed. I welcome and value your comments!

Not sure about the “path”? Is that the driveway? Those are control joints, typical in concrete drives, sidewalks.

This was a revit model and the architect would not transmit the .rvt file so I got it as .fbx. No chamfer on the imported model geometry. I did use a fair bit of vray edges texture when possible. Maybe should have increased radius.

I have lights on in all the rooms. No reflections just the light in the rooms. You are seeing into all the rooms.

All the trees are aspens with a few spruce. Aspens grow in colonies that all share the same root system so…. They all have the same color leaves. (I believe the largest living single organisim in the world ism thought to be an aspen forest.)

[glorybound]

I push back every time someone asks for the camera to be raised like that. They'll feel that Uncanny Valley effect. Something isn't quite right, they'll think, but not know why. How often do we see a house standing on a 20' ladder?

[OPEN_RANGE]

Agreed. I think one of the things that's making this much more common is drone shots. I just got the newest local glossy real estate/resort living summer magazines and they are full of drone shots of existing properties. Lots of them similar to the angle of this rendering. Real estate sales people do not care about the same things we do. They are way more focused on showing every possible element of the house, making it look big, mountain views etc. They are my clients or are directly connected to the client/developer so.... that's the way it is.

Thanks for your comments! Always helpful and of much value to me.