Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

[Hoop]

Hi Everyone,

Below are renderings I've just completed for an architect friend of mine who is working on a new addition to a local hotel. This is a meeting / sunroom that will be added onto the Hotel next to their Spa. The renderings will be used to help them pic out furniture and artwork for the walls.

I'd appreciate some constructive critisism on this, as these are my first interior renderings ever (i'm an industrial designer and typically do product renderings) and I'd like to improve on them for the next go around. Also, I'd like to send a special thanks to Flipside and Micha for their help with working out some shadow issues i was having.

Thanks all!

[craiggorton]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

Great stuff! Can you post your settings? And lights?

The white paint still has some splotchy-ness.
The ceiling lights are strange- they don't look like they are coming from the recessed parts. And the inside of the recessed cylinders would be bright. Have you found a way to get the light within the cylinder? I've struggled with that too.

The dark spots on in the wood on the floor are a bit repetitive, but maybe realistic.

I like the glass on the exterior doors. Can you share the material settings?

The window at left on the exterior shot is washed out in light, but maybe accurate.

Are the exterior beams wood? They look too perfect.

But I wish my first arch attempts were that good!

Craig

[Hoop]

Settings and additional questions

Hi Craig,

Thank you very much for the feedback, that's exactly the kind of comments i was looking for. I've attached all of my settings, everything other than what is shown were the default settings. The light info and glass info are also included below. I hope this is of some help to you.

The white paint still has some splotchy-ness.

Yes, I can't seam to get rid of this, but I'm sure there is a simple explanation. Micha and Flipside helped me a lot with this. Most of the splotchyness i was getting was due to using QMC for the second engine rather than Light Cache. Do you have any tips for me on how to get rid of the additional splotchyness, or is it different for every interior rendering?

The ceiling lights are strange- they don't look like they are coming from the recessed parts. And the inside of the recessed cylinders would be bright. Have you found a way to get the light within the cylinder? I've struggled with that too.

Yes, i have not figured out how to make the interior of the ceiling sconces glow, but i have not played around with emissive layers yet. I hope to have time to do that soon. If i figure out anything i'll let you know.

The dark spots on in the wood on the floor are a bit repetitive, but maybe realistic.

The floor is a bamboo floor, which has these dark spots in it in a repetitive pattern like this. the texture map is from a photo i took of the sample the architect had. It looked strange to me at first too, but i guess i've gotten used to it.

The window at left on the exterior shot is washed out in light, but maybe accurate.

Yeh, funny story about that -- there is a building outside of that window, but they may erect a wall to hide it. They are not sure yet, so i was asked to leave it "blank", so i washed it out like it was flooded in sunlight to make it look a little more purposeful.

thanks again for the feedback Craig, and if you've got any tips on getting rid of the additional splotchy areas i'd like to hear them. I havne't loaded 1.0 yet, but i'm hopeing it will come with a user manual to i can figure out some of the settings.
Hoop

[bdcali_cg]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

I'm not sure if you want this effect or not, but there doesn't seem to be any sun passing through your glass windows or doors casting light onto the floor. The floor is reflective, so it sorta does the same thing.... and then again, I don't even know if you exterior light would show through the windows, depending on their location and direction. But if you want them, tick the "Affect Alpha" and "Affect Shadows" in your Glass Mat. Refraction Layer.

Just an idea.

[craiggorton]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

On your glass, did you model the glass as a surface or closed polysurface?

Can you try min/max of -3/0, subdivs 100, samples 50 with IR + LC, or IR + QMC? (I haven't had a problem with QMC 8/6 bounces.) You can use the render window command to check just the white paint area. I'd be curious to see those to tests.

The best user manual is this forum, as far as I know.

Do you need caustics on?

Thanks for the settings.

[Hoop]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

Bdcali -- i orginally had sunlight passing through the windows and onto the bamboo floor, but the architect asked me to take it out because of the location of the windows -- there is a building next door that would prevent sunlight from directly shining onto the floors. Thanks for the info on the glass refraction layer though, good tips, i didn't know what those did exactly.

Craig -- i modeled the glass as a polysurface -- is this wrong -- i was trying to simulate reality. i haven't had much experience with glass, need to play with it a little. I'll try your settings today to see what they turn out. Thanks. I didn't turn on caustics becuase i didn't feel with this rendering that they would make that big of a difference, but i may be wrong.

[craiggorton]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

I think modelling the glass as a poly is correct and that's why it looks good. I always try to use surfaces because I'm lazy, but I don't get great results.

You have refract caustics on in IR. I'm not sure what it does or whether you need it on- I usually have mine off. ?

[Micha_cg]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

"splotchy-ness" - I would let the IM subdivs at 50. If I'm right informed, this setting is very important for speed. Don't increase it to much. For interiors I use higher IM samples count - 128, 256 or 512. Test it.

[Hoop]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

Hi Micha,

Below is the original rendering and then one below it at 512 samples in the IR map. everything else I kept the same. I tried 256 samples and it didn't quite knock out all of the splotchy areas, so i went up to 512.the splotchy-ness is now completely gone, you were right. Howerver, as flipside suggested in our earlier conversations, the IR map seams now to be "blurred" or "stretched out" because I've lost some shadow definition behind the curtains. Just something to for everyone reading out there to be aware of if you use this "sample increase" method.

[Micha_cg]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

In my tests here I have learned, if need IM shadow details I must use max rate 0 or 1.

I'm not sure which shadow is wrong, but I'm sure the light effect behind the curtain is bad.

I have learned, the IM method is a raw fast approximation, never compare it to more correct brute force method. My rule is, if the IM GI looks good, than it is ok. Maybe some shadows are wrong, but the client will not see it and is happy if the image is ready after a short time.

Test the higher IM settings min/max -2/1. If you dosn't like the IM, than go to QMC+LC and full adaptive workflow. It's not so fast, but you get stable solutions. Have you seen the user tutorials. There I used both methods.

[Hoop]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

thanks Micha,

You are a great help, i really appreciate it. I'm about to start another render with IM min/max and -2/1 as you suggest.

Oh, one other note too. Previously, my render time was about 1hr 12min. But the increase to 512 samples bumped it up considerablly to 4hrs.

Have you seen the user tutorials. There I used both methods.

I've seen quite a few on the web -- and your starter kit -- do you have more tutorials somewhere?

Hoop

[Micha_cg]

Hotel Interior / Exterior Renderings

Tutorials - I have posted yesterday:
http://www.asgvis.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=726