House in the valley

[OPEN_RANGE]

A house to be built in a lower elevation river valley. An infill development of 54 lots that will be part of an existing development with golf course, country club, etc. 6 miles from the center of a mid sized town with a college and etc.

I did this house a couple of years ago on a different more forested site. The house design was modified a bit and they are going to use it for this new project. They plan to build 3 other designs and the 4 spec houses will get the interest and etc up for the rest of the lots. It's in a very desirable location with nothing else for sale so it should work for them.

[OPEN_RANGE]

some minor updates

[T0ofic]

poor GI, no LUT, 60% of the frame came from photo, basic scattering skills clearly lacking not to mention the others...
my question is are you serious? Do you have any artistic background, be it photography, drawing, painting you name it..
and you "say" they are doing a master plan based upon this.

[fixeighted]

Wow...you are one rude dude T0ofic

[T0ofic]

Let me clarify one thing, being rude is not commenting/judge/help/suggest to the OP in a gallery forum section post.

on that matter, I think this kind of renders will benefit greatly from a slight touch of dirt and weathering. some AO(with bias..)/distanceTex etc
ho, and don't forget fog/participating media

fixeighted please don't reply .at me directly or else I'll be forced once more to provide advices when I was just curious about the project.
cheers

[fixeighted]

Whatever...

[OPEN_RANGE]

poor GI, no LUT, 60% of the frame came from photo, basic scattering skills clearly lacking not to mention the others...
my question is are you serious? Do you have any artistic background, be it photography, drawing, painting you name it..
and you "say" they are doing a master plan based upon this.

Thanks for your comments. An update is below.

Poor GI? I have Vray Sun/Sky with the sky instanced into Vray dome light. A very common setup I believe? Vray calculates the GI, I do not control that, so I'm not sure how that gets improved?

I added a LUT. I had not used one before and thought to give it a try. I downloaded https://3dcollective.es/en/producto/...ender-engines/. Most have pretty bad results but the AgfaColor Futura 400.cube gave a nice boost. Will try using some of these in the future (hard to know which one of the 70 different ones to use).

The background photo is critical to the client. I would say it represents 50% if not more of what they want to convey. The setting with the cliffs beyond are a very important selling point. It cannot be obscured by distance fog or etc. Likewise with weathering the exterior materials, they are trying to pre sell a new house, not a weathered one.

I included the back ground photo below. the orange cones show the approximate size and location of the house footprint. I used some license to minimize all the foreground. The composition is arranged using the rule of thirds.

I did not mean to suggest they were basing a master plan on this. They already have a master plan PUD with the lots all surveyed. They are going to build 4 spec house using 4 different designers/architects to get the ball rolling.

[T0ofic]

Hi again..
forget about gi, LUT,etc..
focus on materials before, texture repetition(plenty of tools available here), albedo(look at your own grass ref..) and I would suggest stronger reflectivity for the architectural stuff(don't forget the fresnel component damn you!)
Photo is part of the game sometimes more than 50%, this is where we should excel. the fog part of my last comment was referring to this very point.. not asking you to "change" the photo but rather blend your own render'ing
Thanks for the detailed program, hope to see more soon.

[glorybound]

I blocked T0ofic a while ago, so I do not have to witness him mistreat others. I suggest others do the same.

[glorybound]

You put a ton of work into your pieces; kudos. The roof needs work. I have found that Poliigon has the best roof textures. I use Railclone and a custom script for most of my roofs nowadays. (https://www.behance.net/gallery/9208...e=en_US&isa0=1)

What a view! I am a hiker, and all I see are places to explore.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thanks Bobby! Yes the roof needs to be replaced. (I have something better.) I used this when I did the previous version of the house a couple years ago and just left it on there. I somehow got myself to ignore it and avoid replacing it, but knew it should be addresses. Kind of a self induced denial delusion I reckon. I will post an update.

Lots of great trails, wilderness, skiing, boating etc all around this project locale. We get out hiking quite a bit also.

[glorybound]

I always let my projects sit for a day and then look at them with fresh eyes. Black/white, inverted, upside down, and squint. If I don't, I always miss something.

[OPEN_RANGE]

very good advice! I usually try to do similar plus put them up here for feedback. However, I often have to fight the urge to send to the client as soon as I can (they are often wanting it asap) + the get er done so I can move on mentality. That's where I'm at now, a lot to do and a little time to do it in.

reminds of the lyric "we got a long way to go and short time to get there" Jerry Reed - Southbound and Down. (theme song from smokey and the bandit)

Thanks again for your valuable comments!

[glorybound]

You should run some tests on your model for the best lighting scenario and have the back plate photographed to match, not the other way around. The sun is almost behind the camera in this image which is a bad idea. I think most photographers would time the shot better to get better contrast. I don't know, just an idea. I cringe when the client says they have photos to use for the background. Usually, it is with their iPhones or, even worse, their nephew's $99 drone. Yours is excellent, to show off the mountains, but not so much the house.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you Bobby, the points you bring up are very relevant to this particular project and are 100% correct.

It is a case of real world conditions vs ideal rendering conditions.

Re lighting the house: I experimented with best view angle of the house and then best lighting for that angle. The layout of this house made it challenging to reconcile those two aspect, this felt like the best combination.

Re photographing the site : The client is old school. Wanted to meet on site in person and provided very little info, site plan, or anything in advance. 4.5 hour round trip drive for me. There was one clear day forecast for the next week. Autumn was ending, leaves were dropping, and it might snow in the next 5 days. The client could not meet until 2:30. The important cliff side background is shot looking to the West- NorthWest and would have been best shot earlier in the day which would have better matched the sun angle I used on the model. BUT, No way I was going to make another round trip back plus the weather didn’t clear for a week, everything green turned brown and now there is snow on the shaded aspects. Also did not want to use a less favorable sun angle on the model just to better match the photo. So, I had to make due with what I got (and the client is very happy with this rendering).

I shot 3 other sites later that day, Site 2 and 3 had to be photographed looking more towards the East- NorthEast which will hopefully work nice, but impossible to know since the other houses are not yet designed. The fourth site had to be photographed looking towards the West and I was shooting almost right into the sun in the late afternoon so….. No way anyone else is available and capable of shooting the backgrounds. These renderings have to show the actual background cliiff sides and a warmish day time scene. No snow, brown grass, bare trees. That is no longer possible till next summer.

The client is cool and easy to get along with. However, he has no interest in hearing about any of these issues. He just wants nice rendering(s) and trusts I will deliver, details are un important to him and left for me to contend with. “Just come over and I will walk the site with you and show you what’s important and then you take it from there.” Paid in full in advance and always happy with the work.