Dyer House Plan

[Pixelcon]

Both renders are extremely cold.

Take a look at these 'references'. Everything about them feels warm and inviting.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...52fb375aa0.jpg
foliage: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...c27da470df.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...7a27477c95.jpg
http://1cqgxm3l59yi2wwbnn3qy35h.wpen...dt-Designs.jpg

not the best references but it's not a bad starting point for the colours and feel you should be aiming for.

[glorybound]

Looking at it again today I would agree... very cold.

[Pixelcon]

Good work! Already much much better. Further to your tweak I would suggest the following:

- The house is really bright and leaning towards blown out. I would reduce the exposure overall to bring a little bit more softness into the image.
- If you have the appropriate masks, cool the foreground foliage elements and make the grass a little darker. Use a gradient on the grass mask going from foreground to background so you get a falloff of sorts. The foreground foliage is sometimes tricky to get perfect. It's tempting to darken it off but you can end up with an image that gives a "rapist in the bushes" vibe.
- The sky is a bit too 'purple' to my eye.
- I think using photos for grass is way more flexible, fast, easy and realistic looking than bothering with 3D grass...

Hope you don't mind, but this is along the lines of how I would have tweaked it... (I have a terrible screen at home so my colours might be off).

I think there's a lot to be said in that your 3D renders are more than capable of producing great results, it's just a matter of tuning your eye, learning all these tricks to enhance a render in photoshop, and generally practicing your post skillz.

[glorybound]

Here is the back. I enjoy post in PS, however, sometimes I get lazy . Any good post training videos that you could recommend?

[glorybound]

Warmed the top and cooled the bottom. These were supposed to be quick turnarounds, but they were rough. It's funny how some project just work and other ones don't.

[Pixelcon]

Yep that rear shot looks a million times better.

In terms of training videos, no not really, sorry. It's just something that takes time to learn. I still strongly recommend building a reference library of nice images that you react to positively when you see them. When you need a "warm afternoon sunlight" sort of scene then find an appropriate reference image from your library that relates to your scene, and observe it's colours and values. Use photoshop to sort of "match" those things like darkness and colours of shadows, foliage colours/highlight colours, etc etc etc. Trust me, from what I've seen, even the best use reference images every day. Pinterest is a great way to find references (but beware over-tweaked images!)

There are also just tricks or should I say "methodology" that isn't really documented that much in our field unfortunately. Perhaps Mr. Warwick needs to have someone do a "mastering visualization" video series. Practice photoshopping your images (even after the project is completed) to see how close you can get it to a reference and at what point you've taken it too far. Remember, there's no such thing as a failed experiment!

[Pixelcon]

Also, I'm happy to give you a psd back of a tweak on one of your images one day if you're happy for me to do it. I would need some specific passes rendered out is all.

[glorybound]

I typically render out the main passes and I render at 32 bit. I'll wrap these up and post them; I would love to see what you can do to them.

Also, I'm happy to give you a psd back of a tweak on one of your images one day if you're happy for me to do it. I would need some specific passes rendered out is all.

[Pixelcon]

I typically render out the main passes and I render at 32 bit. I'll wrap these up and post them; I would love to see what you can do to them.

Great. If possible, a rawtotallighting pass, a vraylighting pass, and selection masks of the different materials and the various foliage "groups" would be nice and if you're happy to let others on the forum have access to the PSD then I think we have a deal...

[glorybound]

Here she is. I didn't render it again, so I don't have the passes you asked for, but I have several others.

https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/...1-a0932d440853

[Pixelcon]

Not the best tweak, but ok. I would personally have rendered it with more space around the house to allow for a more creative arrangement of the foliage. You can always crop down afterwards... Also I would have done all the foliage in photoshop but that takes a bit of time to get right...

As you can see the folder in the PSD named "tweak" is a bit of a mess but at the end of the day, that's how I got to the final result. Personally, I'm aiming to have fewer adjustment layers in my work, but that relies on a good render and better knowledge of curves.

Let me know if the link doesn't work: here


Also, here is what I think a better crop of the rear view should be. Opens everything up a bit and gives a nicer sense of space, don't you think?


*feel free to compliment me on my marvelous painting skillz.

[glorybound]

I do like the back of the house's composition better, too. I'll take a look at the PSD tonight; I am sure it's awesome! Currently, I am rendering out the front again. I removed the plants running down the driveway, which I think did nothing for the image.

Not the best tweak, but ok. I would personally have rendered it with more space around the house to allow for a more creative arrangement of the foliage. You can always crop down afterwards... Also I would have done all the foliage in photoshop but that takes a bit of time to get right...

As you can see the folder in the PSD named "tweak" is a bit of a mess but at the end of the day, that's how I got to the final result. Personally, I'm aiming to have fewer adjustment layers in my work, but that relies on a good render and better knowledge of curves.

Let me know if the link doesn't work: here


Also, here is what I think a better crop of the rear view should be. Opens everything up a bit and gives a nicer sense of space, don't you think?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26639[/ATTACH]
*feel free to compliment me on my marvelous painting skillz.

[glorybound]

Yep! Your PSD looks great! Now, could you reproduce that if something changes and you have to render it out again? That's usually my fear. I use to put a lot of time into post production, but got burnt too many times with last minute changes. It seems that once someone sees something, that something is the 'correct' one, however, doing it again would be very difficult. There are a few things that I could do, that I see in your PSD, that would help and be easy.

[Pixelcon]

I try to leave as many adjustment layers and masks in tact so updating isnt such an issue. Sometimes there's nothing you can do but I have to do some mixing and matching. If I do merge down for some post effects I try to note down what was done and what the settings were etc. but when you get to doing dodging and burning right at the end, there's nothing you can do but try to match it by eye.

[Morne]

I also try to work as non-destructive as possible so that when I do re-render, (there's always changes) I can just replace layers and I'm done