Daylight and Dusk

[OPEN_RANGE]

Hi,

I have not posted renderings here before but have been following the forum. Here are two versions of the same exterior scene. This was done for a developer who will build the house to be sold.

The daylight scene uses vray sun and sky. This is my first stab at dusk/sunset lighting using HDRI map in vray dome light. Altering the background/site photo was a trial and error effort involving about 4 adjustment layers like exposure, photo filter, brightness/contrast, saturation.

Any comments and criticisms will be much appreciated.

[OPEN_RANGE]

first evening render seemed too dark.. this morning.

here is a revised version with brighter site photo treatment.

[OPEN_RANGE]

One more slight tweak. GF commented sky was too purple. I agreed and so here is a version with sky adjusted. GF also thinks lights in windows too strong, maybe yes but I would need to re-render to change and I'm not so keen on doing that. Wish I had it as a render element that could be adjusted but I have not yet incorporated that into my workflow. Plan to do so on next project.

I'm hoping I may get some feedback on this. Like /don't like. I will not mind hearing I should to go back to square one cause the entire thing needs re-working. I place a high value on review and c&c's.

cheers,

[glorybound]

It looks like you are talking to yourself. I know how it is, I do the same thing. I have learned that reference photos are king when it comes to producing something believable. Also, there are some basic composition rules that might help. Never, or at least I never, have the main light source behind the camera. We only have a few things that help us and light/shadow is a big one. The light behind the camera produces a very flat image. Like, you should never use your cameras flash. Overall, good job and I can see you have worked hard.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Hi and thanks very much for your helpful reply! Hoping you may not mind imparting a little more advice.

Regarding composition - It does seem a bit out of balance. This had to be photo matched and I will say I was somewhat limited by the surrounding buildings, trees, etc influencing where I could actually take the photo from. Regardless, any specifics on better composition are welcome.

Would you say that the daylight scene has a more acceptable light position? I may have the hdri map rotated somewhat incorrectly for the evening and could rotate it so the sun/bright point is more to the left/west.

Thanks again for your help!

[glorybound]

I try to keep my light source over a shoulder about 45 degrees off the camera. Unless you have the opportunity to have shows from the environment, have the light source over your should gives you nice contrast. My rule is, at least 2/3 in sun and 1/3 in shadow. All this could go out the window if you have some creative reason to do what you want to do.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you again! I'm feeling a bit of chagrin regarding light position. I typically avoid having light directly behind camera. I had inadvertently rotated bright point of hdri into a not so favorable position. that seems pretty self evident now that you pointed it out. I got too caught up in just getting the hdri configured and working and lost sight of the more important aspects. couldn't see the forest for the trees sort of thing. Anyway that's my (weak) excuse.

I rendered it again and here is the result. I hope it's OK to have posted this WIP sequence here versus finished work.

[glorybound]

I would maybe come from the other direction.

[OPEN_RANGE]

OK. my thinking was for dusk, the front of the house that is shown is the South elevation, so West is to the left. If the light was coming from the other direction (East) it would be morning. Also the sunlight is coming from the West in the background photo which I shot at about 5:00PM MST about a month ago. maybe that's not so important with the processing I did to the background photo.

I'm wondering if morning light would have been better for the original daylight scene I did. It's pretty shadowed in that area in the morning and the mountains beyond aren't lit as well. this is a very narrow and deep East-West valley at 8750' with 13,500' peaks/ridge crest surrounding

I'll give your suggestion a try and thanks again for your time and review.!

[werticus]

Did you forget to texture the window frames or are they really going for pink? :P

And I'm just going to say it, the dusk shot isn't working, I would suggest the white balance would look better in the blue. You probably need to do a little bit of filler inside the rooms also. IES inside looks better too.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Hi thanks for your comments! Exactly the kind of critique I am seeking. Yes the window frames are specified to be that color. It is a big deal to the developer who picked the color scheme and loves it.

To shift to a mare cooler white balance temp I am thinking that would mean using a different hdri in the dome light texture?

I did have a warmer filter color on the interior lights in one of the earlier iterations but toned it down on suggestion from GF. I will try to experiment with using IES. Currently I have a few vray plane lights with a warm orange filter. I think
They were set at 2500 temp and I changed to 3500 for the most current.

Thanks again for your helpful comments.

[glorybound]

You can use the cameras white balance. Basically, just use the color picker and pick something that is supposed to be white.

[squintnic]

looks wrong unless you are going for an end of the world bushfire
what hdri are you using?
id re-do the lighting from scratch

[OPEN_RANGE]

Hi and thanks to you both for your replies. Ha, no I'm not going for an end of the world bush fire look <g>.

I am ok with redoing lighting. this a test effort and (hoped for) skill building exercise. the hdri ski I'm using is this one: http://hdri-skies.com/shop/hdri-sky-157/. The hdri is causing the red/orange color of the rendering as compared to the daylight version. I was thinking I would try one that didn't have the red/orange and was more overall a late day blueish, per comment above.

I am curious to try the white balance color picker technique. I have the phys camera white balance set to white / 1.0

thanks you all for your help.

[padre.ayuso]

Hi and thanks to you both for your replies. Ha, no I'm not going for an end of the world bush fire look <g>.

I am ok with redoing lighting. this a test effort and (hoped for) skill building exercise. the hdri ski I'm using is this one: http://hdri-skies.com/shop/hdri-sky-157/. The hdri is causing the red/orange color of the rendering as compared to the daylight version. I was thinking I would try one that didn't have the red/orange and was more overall a late day blueish, per comment above.

I am curious to try the white balance color picker technique. I have the phys camera white balance set to white / 1.0

thanks you all for your help.

I think your camera settings, that is, your White Balance is making those colors. If you are going to use the Exposure settings, then you should know what White Balance/Kelvin Value to set your camera at as if you were in real life. Here, I found a link to help you out with this:

http://lowel.tiffen.com/edu/color_te...mystified.html

I find many attempts at this to fail if the basics of lighting and photography are not understood. Hope you have some success with this.