Housing building (competition)

[theedge]

Hello,
Here's a render that was made for a competition we won for a housing building. It was done in a hurry over a week-end. Many parts aren't very clean because there were endless modifications done, many of which, directly in photoshop in the last hours before the deadline. But the bosses were happy with it
Just a little note on the colours : the cladding has in reality a gold appearence and not reddish like you see in the pic. But our plotter always messes with colours, and the gold image plotted greenish... so we had to compensate for that.

[DaForce]

Looks pretty cool.

Althought not enough contrast for me

[pixelstudio]

the building looks good, but the overall colours are far light and saturated. you can also play with the light direction and shadow. if you hit the building from the left you get the otherside in shadow. this is for more depth in your image.

[theedge]

Thanks for the comments.
Concerning the lack of contrast, there are two things to mention :
1- First this is the image that was used to plot. And it is indeed a bit desaturated because our plotter (hp designjet 800) tends to add a LOT of saturation to the output. But that's just a detail...
2- There's also a lot of postwork done to lighten the zones in shadows. In reality, for eg, the balconies in the lower part of the building were in a dark shadow. But the bosses didn't like that and wanted those parts to also stand out. This is always the case for all our projects we render anyway and usually a source of frustration for me as it's quite hard to keep a sense of depth and volume with very light shadows.
So if you have any advice or examples of photos/renderings on how to keep an image contrasted without having strong shadows I'd be very very grateful.

[pixelstudio]

well, if you read up on how to use the vraycam, vraysun and LWF. you should be ready to go.
what i meant with the shadows is, your light is comming from the same direction as the camera (both side of the building are lid). instead of doing this try moving you light so that it hits only side of the building (most important side of the building). the other side is then in shadow. this well get much more depth in your image!

for a quick setup, you could try:
- set 3dsmax preference gamma all on 2.2
- install Lele's script pack!
- add a vraysun to your scene and delete the other light (in CM i place it around 6500cm height)
if asked if you want to add a sky map press yes.
- drag the skymap from the environment to a map channel and check the manual, pick you vray sun
- use Lele's script convert camera to convert you camera to a vrayphysical camera
- use lele's autoexpose script to get a working ISO for you camera.
- now keep adjusting the ISO value until you are satisfied, if you want you can use the white balance to correct some light

for exterior render with the DMC sampler, GI i use IRMAP and bruteforce

if you try the above all textures should be fine, but you have to adjust all you RGB values to match the 2.2 gamma. so if you have a diffuse color, copy colour, put a vraycolor in the diffuse channel, past colour, gamma on specific 2.2.

hope it helps ya a bit

[DaForce]

There is no need to pick the light manually in vraysky. That is only if you wish to use another light such as a direct light ..etc.. for the sun.

[pixelstudio]

There is no need to pick the light manually in vraysky. That is only if you wish to use another light such as a direct light ..etc.. for the sun.

ooh hehe, i thought this was a bug first.. hmm kinda habit for me

[Neilg]

I understand what you mean about it not being able to have too much contrast/be moody, but youve simply eliminated the whole idea of the colour black and pushed where that would be to a grey.

[theedge]

Well this is done in lwf with only a vray sun a vray camera. And I even have lele's script pack installed

The sun was indeed placed differently in my the first test renders, and was hitting the main facade while leaving the side one in the shadow. But then again, the bosses couldn't stand having a side brighter than the other

I guess that as cubiclegangster suggestes, it is pointless to try to figure out how to avoid that moody look while I'm precisely eliminating shadow and dark areas. It is simply non sense.