House Rendering - pool side

[glorybound]

Here is the house that belongs to the earlier flower box I posted.

[glorybound]

I stepped back a couple hours and I'm looking at it again. It looks CG, so what can I do to make it less CG?

[Morne]

It looks nice... maybe okay(ish)
Let me explain: The flower box you showed, had lots of detail and you went for the realistic look. With this pool image the modelling is excellent, but seems you went for a different look and feel with the overall image compared to the "detailed" from before.
In my opinion this looks a bit "dreamy" or hazy even bordering on cartoony. It's almost overdone. But I don't know if maybe that is the look you were going for.

I just feel it's screaming for more realism. Maybe stronger contrast between sunny areas and shadow areas. Since this is the pool side of the house, I would exploit the pool a bit more, maybe have an outside barbeque going. It's asking for a couple of people perhaps. If you prefer not to add people, then maybe remove the floating ball and other goodies in the pool otherwise it looks like everybody left in a hurry

[Morne]

These examples aren't the worlds greatest photos, but they bring across the point of bright sun and dark shadows:
http://capetownholidayaccommodation....use-pool14.jpg
http://www.fincacolibri.com/images/house-with-pool.jpg
http://www.magicdinero.com/wp-conten...pool-house.jpg

If you're using an HDRI to light your scene, maybe lower the VRayHDRI's gamma to get more contrast
Maybe also use a sky with less clouds and more deep blue. Something with blue only on one side, fading into heavy almost overbright white clouds on the opposite end

[glorybound]

I didn't use an HDRI. I started, but I was getting major orbs. I'll work on this because it has potential.

[Neilg]

throw on a curves adjustment and take some of the green out from the middle of the curve. I'd also increase the contrast, crush the blacks a little, drop the saturation and then add another hue/saturation layer on top set to colorize at 5-10% to tint the whole thing. go either teal or a rich orange, whichever takes your fancy. It's just very pasty & there's not enough contrast between the light areas and shadow areas.

You could render a dirt pass set to 5-10m and use an inverted raw light pass as a mask to add more depth in the shadows. only 20-30%, just to add some gradients in your shaded areas.

[snivlem]

Take away the glow! Almost no architectural photo was taken with vaseline on the lens!

Pretty good render to be honest though, nothing at all wrong with it. If it were me though, I'd make the grass a little lighter and greener to make it more of an advertising image as a whole.

[glorybound]

I work non-destructively, so everything can be undone , I am working on this now, and I'll post an update.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Nice one mate!

I would suggest to do 1 thing tho. Use a 3d projection noise/color texture to tint the grass from top with it. Some variations would make it a lot more natural. Also if you can vary height rotation and so on would give quite a bite nice feel.

[glorybound]

here is an update

[glorybound]

Maybe I went to dark with the shadows. I forgot to set my PSD Manager, so I don't have masks or elements saved. If anyone is interested, here is the PSD. I have to print it today, for a tomorrow meeting, so if you can make it better...

I brought some detail back to the foreground shadows

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

the image looks to be a little bit like funeral. Can you add some vibration to it? I think it might be a bit nicer.... Maybe overcontrast and saturate RAW GI pass that usually give nice result

[glorybound]

Yes! that made it pop a little

[Morne]

Something that also works well is to stick a color balance adjustments layer on top. Then work with opposites for highlights and shadows. Leave midtones where they are.
So, it basically goes like this:
If you have warm highlights, you should have cold shadows. And if you have warm shadows, you should have cold highlights.

Play with that and see what you get. So for highlights, push the cyan/red RIGHT, over to the red side and also push the yellow/blue LEFT, over to the yellow side more or less the same amount. Now go over to your shadows and do the opposite. For shadows add more cyan and more blue.

Maybe also add a slight vignette.

This was done very quickly, so can still be improved. Hope you don't mind my attempt: (this was your last image)



Hmm I also checked your 1st image vs your last image. The 1st image now suddenly looks 100 times better than your last image...

[glorybound]

The 1st image now suddenly looks 100 times better than your last image...

I put the prints side-by-side, and I agree that the first one is better. I need to render it again, but this time I need to make sure my PSD manager is enabled.