Minnesota House

[glorybound]

I worked hard, but I am not happy. I'll be tweaking, but I thought I would post early, for your great advice.

[DPS]

IMO the front door is too close to the centre of the image, so the composition feels a little awkward. You could try and shift the camera so the door is on one of the thirds. Also the lighting on the slope to the right leads the eye out of the frame so I'd darken that up.

Id probably add some lighting on some of the grass in the midground to make it look more interesting and try and lead into the frame a bit more.

[glorybound]

the view has totally changed, so I'll have to post an update. The architect chose the view, and the new view, which isn't a whole lot better.

[Neilg]

Next time you get a new architect you should try picking the best view and doing a couple of other options for them to pick from. Allow them to offer suggestions, but don't let them choose your views for you. Architects want to show their building, they don't care about good composition.

[glorybound]

Okay, here is my view (heck with the architect)



I had some huge render times (18hrs), and I still have a lot of grain in the shadows. The render times were because if the foreground trees, which has a displacement modifier on them. The frustrating thing was, it took 18hrs, which is huge, but it showed 18 more hours right up until the end. When I started, by hitting render, it showed 8hrs, which was fine with me. But, as it rendered, the number just climbed.

Anyway, I'll probably do some more work, but here it is. I wanted it to look like it was deep in the trees, which it is, but had sun light getting to it through the tall pines.

[tricky]

That's looking really nice and moody Bobby. Well done so far. 18hrs though???? You need to sort that out!

[Neilg]

Yeah, 18hrs is a bit much.... I'd be aiming for 4-5 for that image at 4k wide.

What are you displacement settings? Drop most of your reflection depth down to 1, turn filtering off on all tree related things, turn reflection off the leaves etc.

[DPS]

Have you thought about converting your displacement maps to normal maps?

[glorybound]

No, how does that help?

[DPS]

You'll get a similar result but it will render much faster.

[flino2004]

the latest view is the best one but the house is in middle of the shadows....for sure I would have more direct light, if I was the owner I wouldn't like to see my house like that,(Minnesota is dark enough during the winter).

[glorybound]

Yes, I agree, and I plan on raising the sun.

[glorybound]

Here, is the back of the same house.

[Neilg]

The sun coming from directly behind the camera isnt really working for me, it makes it all a bit flat.

[glorybound]

This side of the building (back) is all morning sun. If I start to go later, the back is in shadow, and didn't work. I used RT to get the best shadows, and this seems to have been the best.