New Tropical Villa Project

[jeri]

Hi all,

Just finished off this new 2 villa project. Designed, modeled and rendered the images over a 2 month time frame. The last image is a different bungalow I started working on last night but thought I share it anyway.

Let me know what you guys think ok!

Thanx!
-Jeri-

[andybot_cg]

wow! nice work. Wish I was there!
Your pool water is just perfect. You should try caustics to get the reflections in the bottom of the pool. Your lighting is very nice, are you using a sunlight/ GI combination?

[jeri]

Thanx! The pool water is the a vismat I downloaded from the V-ray website. I adjusted some of the parameters to increase/decrease the wave size & water distortion.
Your correct about the lighting...it's sunlight / GI combo. I set my preferred shutter speed and basically go from there. Next step is to get the desired intensity regarding the lamps/lights. I add the background images already in SketchUp (the sea view ones are the actual location).
Thanx for the caustics tip...i normally don't play around with this option but I will now.

-Jeri-

[arcgraphics]

Excellent work, and a great location, I'm feeling rather jealous as I look out the window at the heavy rain and think to myself I wish I was there.

[andybot_cg]

Just a note about caustics and sunlight, you have to change the default sun photon radius much higher (one example I used 1500 for the radius) plus you also need to have your model on the origin or the caustics will get cut off.

Thanks Fernando!!!! I changed photon radius to 1500 and got it to work. I did run into an issue that I saw in another thread where the geometry has to be in a certain location relative to the origin. I had to move the geometry so that it was in positive x and y coordinates. Otherwise, some of the caustic was still getting cut off.

This was what was happening before this advice:

...weird lens shape...

[arqestevez1]

hey these images are pretty good. congrats.
of course, my favorite ones are the pool shots.
there are a few thing that i think could make you improve your images.
you have a lot of splotchiness, and that may be because you're using too low parameters in the irradiance map, or because you're trying to illuminate with an emissive material.
Some of your textures still need a little bit of work, the wood of the exterior shots is way too reflective, and it would need some bump.
Grass also looks a little bit too flat, perhaps with a little bit post production you could correct that.
it's a very good set of images anyway. vegetation looks terrific (most of it), i'm guessing it is 3d, so congrats, cause it does look very good.
one more doubt. are you following any post production process?

[jeri]

Andybot, Thanx for the additional info regarding caustics...I'll give it a go (render time will be much longer right?)

Yeah you're right about the illumination with emissive materials arqestevez. I noticed the splotchiness and tried to set some parameters higher to get rid of it. Can I get rid of it or is it always the case with emissive materials? I am still looking for good high res quality textures and I hardly use bump or displacement...that will make a big difference for sure. I did not even took the effort in using displacement in the rock walls. There is some displacement in the grass (and water) but could be more. I add a bit of 'soft' grassy edges in PhotoShop afterwards and adjust some color / contrast and sharpen the image. The vegetation is 95% 3D (warehouse). Thank you for your C&C!!!

-Jeri-

[arqestevez1]

Hey Jeri.
Yes, it is always the same with the emissive materials. It's like a rule actually. "Do not use them for illumination"
Everytime you use a very high multiplier value for an emissive layer you will have splotchiness.
If you want to produce the effect of certain illumination comming from a lamp, for example, then you must only use enough intensity in the emissive material so that the lamp might be bright (not to illuminate anything), and then you have to use any kind of artificial lights (ies, omni, rectangular, etc...)
Believe me. Your work does look good, and i could be softer and say that it's ok, but it would be a total lie, cause guys from other forums would have a lot to say to you. I really believe that if you correct the splotchiness issue and you take a little time to correct your materials, you will have a very nice set of images.