WIP Exterior, Need Advice on ligting and Materials

[mailerik]

Hello, its been a long time since i havce posted. I am currently working a project and am having a few problems. My ligting setup is an HDRI with one direct light for diffuse and shadows.

1) My lighting on the front of the house is nicer, softer but on the other side it gets blown out and looks to white. how can i mediate this?

2) MY water material looks like a pool of melted metal, whats wrong?

3)WHen i render the images look great. when i open in photoshop it looks much darker. Whats causing this? I know it has to do with gamma, linear setup but so far its not working for me. I have gamma setup at 2.2 in max.
Front View

Back View

Light Setup

Water Material

Wall Plaster Material

Render Setup
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[mailerik]

Can anyone help. Advice is greatly needed.

[jow]

Ill try....
Your water mat needs fresnel reflections ticked to stop the liquid metal look.
Its probably the same with your concrete mat, you need to tick fresnel or use a falloff map. That should stop the burning on the front of the house.

You might also need to tweak ur Direct light/HDRI brightness.
Try that and see if it makes a difference.

[Da_elf]

you might want to try my pool tutorial on http://www.elfpro3d.com

[mailerik]

Ok, thanks for the input. i will go ahead and make those changes along with the pool tutorial. i will follow up with results. thanks again.