Images of Finnish apartment, tips needed!

[mkoljone]

Hey,
I'm trying to learn to make interior images. I'm selfstudied only through internet and now I would need your help to develop my skills. I'm making pics for a small company that is renovating a three-room apartment. They are pre-selling it with 3d pics. So that means that I can't change the wall color, floor mtl, any closets etc.

Somehow I feel my pics are not so clear and bright as I would want them to be. I also find it quite hard to match the outdoor image to the light inside the apartment. The outdoor image is the real image from the apartment. Any tips and points are more than welcome

I have attached here 4 of my images and one reference image (livingroom with yellow chair) which has the quality I would like to atchieve.

Thank you in advance!

[Morne]

1) For one thing, I would lower the camera on all your shots. Compare your cam height with that of your reference pic.
2) In general, if you have a day interior scene and you expose for the interior, then the exterior will be slightly blown out, Again, look at your reference image, in that one the outside is almost white. Test it for yourself. Get a DSLR and go into any room in your house during the day. Take a photo and expose so the interior is nice and bright. You will see the outside is hardly visible. Some professional architectural photographers sets up various additional flashes etc inside a house to make the interior brighter (to compensate for the harsh exterior sun which is much brighter than any other light in your scenes) You can simulate this by adding a couple of fill lights. Don't go too nuts however, an interior with too many fill lights quickly looks weird and unnatural especially if there are windows and you can see the outside
3) Try using the glare and bloom lens effects built into the VFB. Lower the size and amount for both the glare and bloom. This is something you can adjust after the 1st render is done

[mkoljone]

Thank you very much for your tips! I´m just rendering a new image of the livingroom. I will post after it´s ready.

I´m really strugling with the bathroom image, especially with the lighting. Do you have any tips about the bathroom lighting? At the image I have attached the lights are only vray light mtl, and the camera and render settings are the same as in other images.

[Morne]

Try sticking in a VRay IES in that downlight

[Jiri.Matys]

I think you have to work on gamma. Looks like you have incorrect settings. This is why you have something in interior too bright and some other part right beside too dark (in first four pictures). Fifth picture is great. And another one thing is white balance in camera, maybe slight change is needed.

[mkoljone]

Hey!
Jiri, would you have any link to tutorial that would help me to check gamma settings. I have checked gamma settings few times so I´m not sure what could be wrong.

I have attached new pics that have been made after the tips Morne gave me. Any comments of the new images are very welcome
When I´m compering my images to professional arch viz images it´s obvious that I still have lot to do with the exposure. For example I´m wondering how the other pics have the point were wall and ceiling meets so explicit. The shadow is perfect. Is it about the exposure, or ambient occlusion pass or something with postproduction?

I have got some comments about the new images. Basically they are saying the outdoor is now too bright and the interior is too dark. So I´ll be making new versions of these images. But if you have any tips or comments I´m more than pleased to hear them

Thank you in advance!

[Crayox13]

Hey,
What kind of system do you use for overall daylight? I feel there is something missing there.
I use vray sun which then makes vray sky. Later I manually adjust them but that's for fine tuning. First you should setup that. For faster and less noisy renderings I put vray lights as portals on all windows. Try that. That should add the natural warmth and feel to your scenes.
Set your vray camera white balance to daylight.

[elivnA]

It might be that your glass isn't letting GI through? Seems there's only the sunlight coming in, I don't see any secondary bounces on the ceiling near the windows, for example.

[mkoljone]

Okey, how can I fix that?

[mkoljone]

This is the newiest version.

[Macker]

You've rolled the camera? Everything on the left is skewed.

[padre.ayuso]

You've rolled the camera? Everything on the left is skewed.

Yes, it seems your verticals are not anymore and the room is rocking backwards and the camera is about to fall off the tripod. Also, I believe you may gain quite a lot from some post-production, the last set of renderings were not bad in my opinion. Use the Elements, like Reflection pass and when you are sort of done with the Photoshop, do a merge visible holding Alt and take that layer and blur it, put it on overlay or soft light and then reduce the opacity until you are happy. It should give some nice feelings to the renderings.

[mkoljone]

Thank you for the photoshop tips, need to check them out. I also need to study the camera view.
The latest pic is attached. Now I´m quite happy with the lighting or what do you think

[Oleg_Budeanu]

Looks nice , though i'd change lighting completely
Thing is that now it looks a bit boring for me. I mean there are no spots of interest , you are not highlighting anything and it looks flat.
What i'd do is i'd throw sun on the left part with sofa and photos on the wall.
Also i'd remove AO completely - this looks fake and never adds any realism i think - there is no AO in real world , and you do not have any tiny details for it to help with.
Also i'd use more interesting accessories in interior - not usual flat bowls and vases - make it play , make some shapes out of them , some bump , anything , so they will start come out.
Also camera looks a bit weird for me , it's target looks down , try to line target and camera , make them eye-level , that should help with composition.

[mkoljone]

Hey Padre thank you a lot for the photoshop tip. It really added the realism as you said
Actually I feel the photoshopping quite hard, becouse there is so many ways to make it and tiny things affect the pic a lot.