House on steep hillside and narrow lot.

[OPEN_RANGE]

This project has been a bit of challenge for several reasons. The client has had both the center house and the left house designed and approved. He wants to sell the center house and then build the left house for himself. The two houses are designed by the same architect who also designed the house to the right for a different client. The house to the right is under construction with foundation concrete forming happening now. Very steep hillside with rockfall fencing required on the slope behind.

The purpose of the renderings are to try to sell the center house approved plans and lot. Getting a house plan approved takes about 1.5 years in this location so some value to pre approved plans. The approval is good for 3 years.

They wanted to have all three of these houses shown but the focus on the middle one. So a lot of extra work to the sides of the actual subject house. Any comments, critique, etc are welcome as always.

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi, not bad but a bit flat and at the same time too much contrast. You could try a bit more ambient lighting with more GI rather than that much direct light as it is now so to soften the materials and everything. This is may main suggestion for the interior.
Both images can be improved greatly in post production to reduce the contrast in some materials and to give the images a bit of separation between foreground and background and a bit of depth.

[glorybound]

A million dollar view, for sure! I bet those drives are impossible in the winter.

Have you tried playing with LUTs? I bet they'll bring your images over the top if you find one that works.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you both for your comments!

Vladimir - Regarding having more GI. I'm not sure is it possible to increase the amount of GI? For the interior image I have Vray Sun w vray sky in a vray dome light. Sun is somewhat low in the west (right). I have one vray plane as a fill light behind the camera. I will try to reduce the amount of fill light and that may help. Is that what you mean by increasing the GI? My understanding is vray calculates the amount of GI based on the scene lighting and reflective properties of materials, there is not a control to independently add or subtract the amount of GI?

For the exterior I have an hdri (sunset 03 from vray cosmos) in a vray dome light and a very low in the sky vray sun augmenting from the same angle.

Bobby - I have tried using LUTs to some limited extent. Do you use them on interiors and exteriors?

I have a collection that I have experimented with as a layer in the Vray frame buffer. I also have experimented using the ones that come with photoshop and adding them in pshop as an adjustment layer.

It seems like random guessing which LUT might help and so far I think when I have used them I have turned the layer opacity/contribution down to 50% vs leaving at full strength. Not sure if that's correct.

In renderings with separate photo back plates I add the LUT to the entire image versus just adding it to the 3D render from vray or just to the photo backplate. IOW the entire final image gets the LUT?

I have to make some (inevitable) revisions and will try to incorporate your suggestions. I will post updated versions.

Thanks again to you both!

[dayna_beaver]

You're involved in some really cool projects Mark!

The driveway textures almost look like they're tiling at a really small scale? I would add some variation to the driveway, retaining walls and road. Maybe even get some debris scattering going on.

I think a straight on shot for these places would look cool too. Tall and narrow places on a tall and narrow canvas..! jmo

Really cool projects!

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you Dayna! The drive texture is at the right scale, it’s a poliigin material and mapped per the spec. Agree it could benefit from some variation. It does look better at high res bs the lower res I posted here. Rendering an update now and on a short time schedule so, that may remain undone. Same with scattering some debris.

I did change the retaining wall material to be a board formed concrete per architect’s request. So that will be improved.

tThanks again and I will post updated images soon.

[Ihno]

I think it would help the interior if you lower the intensity of the artificial light quite a bit. Half it, or quater it. I'd even turn It off at first.
Then use the Camera exposure to get similar overall brightness. Now, the direct lighting from the sun will probably get over white and might look a bit too bright.
But on the walls you'll get nice gradients from the GI
You can now use the tone mapping in the VfB to bring the burned out sun down to something appealing without lowering the Overall brightness. Maybe add curves to raise the contrast Afterwards tonemappied images can look a bit dull. The Image will have much more GI from the sun and hopefully some nice gradients on the walls.


I like your exterior shot

[OPEN_RANGE]

Super helpful Ihno and I was planning the same. Working on a bunch of revisions to the interior now and will be posting updated renderings soon.

Thank you for your helpful comments!

[OPEN_RANGE]

Here are updated renderings. A unch of client and architect directed revisions. Plus incorporated the valuable suggestions received by the generous folks above.

I used a LUT on the exterior but reduced it's contribution by 50%.

I cut the fill light in the Interior buy 75% and added a cuves liner contrast adjustment in pshop.

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi, the images are coming along nicely!
Here are my suggestions that I would try in you place:

- table in the interior fits and looks much better than the old one.
- interior is a lot better looking now in terms of lighting and contrast except maybe the mountain view that still looks flat to me.
- balcony is quite a big one (looks like it) and maybe if you add people next to the railing will be a good idea? Adding furniture could possibly not get along well with the foreground group.
- window glass in the exterior needs more reflections, also the asphalt and probably a bit more reflections to all materials since this is typical for a night/dusk photography and your render could look more realistic
- flowers next to the garage are over saturated and draw too much attention
- I would reduce the saturation and contrast of the tall trees in the back a bit more.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you Vladimir!

Re mountain view.You are correct it is lacking strong shadows. I took the photo on the only day in weeks with some afternoon sun. By the time I got in position at the site, thin cirrus clouds had moved over the sun but the mountains still had blue sky. It's been cloudy/snowing since. Except yesterday 9sunday) which was my GF's bday so.....no work was done. Snow and cloudy for the rest of this week. So that's gonna have to do <g>.

I almost never include people in these real estate sales images. Only if it's a public space. You will almost never see people included in real estate sales photos of homes.

Not sure I want to add any more reflections to the window glass of the two flanking houses. The idea is to draw focus and attention to the middle house which is what they are hoping to sell.

Agreed on last two suggested refinements.

Thanks again for your helpful comments!

[fixeighted]

Just one thing I meant to point out...your fire textures are missing opacity maps

[OPEN_RANGE]

yeah I gotta look at that. It's a cg axis fireplace model and there is something weird going on. It has a strange glass object inside the firebox that I have deleted in the past. that may be part of it. Hard to describe. I knew the problem was there but had tried to ignore it.

This has been a challenging project. Client is very pleasant and cool but...... high maintenance, design/decorate as you go, revise, all good, revise again, etc. Yesterday it was all super fantastic, better than expected, nailed it!!. This morning, could you add reclaimed wood beams to ceiling, change rug and coffee table? (12 hours over my estimate now) That's my weak excuse!

I will check it out and make the fire better. thanks for calling me on it!

[glorybound]

Twelve hours is a lot of work, so I sure hope that you are charging. Otherwise, it'll never stop. This is called value added!

[OPEN_RANGE]

Yes it is a lot of work. Part of the overrun was that I was given an outdated Revit model to start with and after I had worked with it for some time, they transmitted the current Revit model. The Revit models are not great with stuff missing or modeled incorrectly plus the normal Revit model issues. The rest is really time spent on design as you go with the client and his architect having somewhat different ideas. This is a new client but I have done quite a few projects for the architect (who referred me to his client). I get along well with both of them and have been treated fairly in the past. Since it's a new and good client I offered to split the 12 hour overrun and only charged for 6 hours. I have already been paid in full.

Now I am doing some more updates, reclaimed wood beams in ceiling, different rug and coffee table. That and all else going forward will be billed by my hourly rate.

I will post the updated interior soon.