Exterior house_ shadows questions --- Updated

[tom182]

hi all,
here is a wip of an exterior I am working on, I originally did this file in brazil and now have completed a Vray version, I knew I wouldnt get the exact same look but I would be interested in hearing what people think,
There are some obvious errors I am aware of , the asphalt needs correct mapping, grass should be improved, but the most annoying are the shadows from the tress.


There is 1 light in the scene which acts as the sun and I dont like that type of shadow it is casting from the trees. I would like to get something like the following shadows but these are too dark and (alt+p) , using VRAY shadows and adjusted the density but I am struggling to get the effect I want.
Have tried to soften them but its either too blurry (see 1st image) or too crisp (see 2nd image).

any help and cc is much appreciated,
thanks,
Tom

[tom182]

no comments so far

[tom schuelke]

Hi Tom

What sort of shadow do you use ? Vray shadow ? if so, and it looks like, your sunlight is much to big i think , this makes the too soft shadows.

for example if your sun is 100m away, make it about 1m.

in realworld, our sun is 150 000 000 km away, and mesures also about 1500000 Km diamiter, so 1:100 is good for a natural looking "crisp "shadow.

other, your colors seem to me a bit to strong, and also the gray stones seem to me a bit overscised.

do you use vray 1.4570 ? if so , take care to use the new opacity slot for your trees. it renders much faster. also you could use displacement for your grass, which improoves reality feeling very much.


god luck


also Tom (fantastic name by the way )

[flagusco]

Great models by the way.

A couple things about the lighting, your lighting currently looks like its from an overcast sky, which is what would give you soft shadows. In reality, the sun like previously stated, is extremely bright, but also very far away. The shadows cast by a bright sunlit day will in fact be very sharp, in contrast with an overcast day where the light will naturally diffuse as the clouds/fog act as a diffuse filter on the sun.

I can't tell you about exact settings in VRAY, because I only use the free version, but just look at a real house to compare...

Believe it or not, its ok to have sharp shadows...what I might try for you is duplicating the sun light source, but exclude everything except the trees, and then make adjustments on that light once you have your main sunlight source taken care of...good luck. and keep it up, you will get it.

[tonymacdonald]

are you using the new light map in v1.45?

if so try unticking 'store direct light' under Vray lightmap settings.

Regards
Tony MacDonald

[ultra]

this scene is so beautyfull,
i think the trees you are using are not good enough for the scene
maybe you could try another kind of RPC less saturated trees ot an imageCel, or maybe try luck wuth speedtree

congratulations !

[tom schuelke]

xfrog does do the best trees in my opinion



Tom

[tom182]

Sorry only getting back to your comments now, First off thanks for the comments, today has been mental, spent most of today in traffic and not at computer doing what I should be doing.
I am using 1.09 as I intended to wait till 1.5 but I may begin the 1.45, my concerns are that I have little time to begin getting up to speed with the new features, ideally I want to concentrate all my time on the models/rendering.
@ tom schuelke using Vray shadows, with u,v set to very high figures
Might look a bit saturised but this the image posted is after Photoshop tweaks, out of Vray it looks blander. Grass need work , will put disp on later. Will look at xfrog and see whats on offer.
@flagusco: II know exactly what u mean, and it looks too like an overcast day (I live in Ireland ), I would love to have the sharp shadows but just not so dark (they are almost black), will try furtehr tweaks
@ tonymacdonald , am using 1.09
@ultra will looks at other,

hopefully will have a better post in the next day or so.
thanks,
Tom

[NumButt]

Down and Diirty

Looking excellent so far.

I think your choice of trees is fine, but I would desaturate them to fit in with the tone of the rest of the picture.

Don't be afraid to use sharper shadows under the eaves as mentioned above. but if you think they are too dark try using a slightly brighter skylight or even a slightly blue fill light.

You're white render areas on the building look just a little too white to me. I would use a "dirt map" in your specular. There are loads of free textures out there that you can use. Try one of these:

http://www.forwardwebenterprises.com...ncrete&start=0

You could also try mixing in a dirtmap with your brickmap diffuse to try to break up the repetitive mapping of the brick colour or if you're using a procedural, try using a bigger uvwmap.

Hope that's of some help.

[flagusco]

Num has a couple good suggestions, sometimes you have to fake light to get the real thing. I especially find this if you are doing night renderings, because light sources that give off light for one area don't spread like they should in reality...so you have to use many light sources, even with good GI these days. exclusion of objects using specific lights can do wonders for a scene that isn't working. Even in movies, they use fill lights or fake lighting conditions to get the look they want. Often, it's the fake lighting situation that we take for being real that amazes us in film.

[tom182]

well here is an update to the image after I tried your suggestions,

I know the ashpalt is poor but I am going to add that in in PS, CC is welcome and thanks for the suggestions,

cheers,
Tom

[Erkut]

excellent job

[NumButt]

Perfectionism

Much better!!

Now I'm going to get really anal and get stuck in. If you're a perfectionist like me read on. If you're perfectly happy with image as is, read no more.



Love your new blinds, they really liven up the windows!
Timber textures are a hell of a lot better.
The tree you put in the foreground is brilliant, nice touch.
Personally I think the car is a bad idea and completely detracts from the image.
Blockwork on the stairs and railings are much better.
Really good grass, what is that displacement mapped?

Lastly and this is being extremely picky to an already excellent image:
The roof plane on the left seems to be lacking the texture of the other roofs. Compare your last render to the one I've posted to see what I mean.
Compositionally I would move the birds to the right of the image to give it balance.
The white render I've given a bit of dirt, this could just as easily be done with a bump map.
And what is that hairy shadow in the centre of the image? (see circled above) It is distracting to me as it is catches the eye and is not relevant.

All of the above I did in PS in 5 mins so you wouldn't necessarily have to re-render the whole thing to make these amendments.

All that being said, you're doing a great job keep going.

How long are your renders by the way?

[tom182]

NumButt , thats what I need, someone to get stuck in and make decent suggestions,
Maybe I'll replace the car with one or two people in the scene,
Grass is a displacement map,

Roof: your're right, I had 2 different textures, cos its a new house I will use hte texture that is on the left roof, I know you think this is wrong but the other one is too weathered looking (imo),
Birds, yep good pointThat was meant to be some flowers, will remove and add in post.
Will add a little bump to the wall, its just too smooth and clean,

Render times are 30min on a duel xeon (2GB RAM) and 1hr 13min on a dual PIII (1ghz with 1 gb ram)

appreciate your comemnts and graphic work
cheers,
Tom

[kippu]

very nice .... personally to me that car is screaming out and also those 2 trees in front ... if you can mellow the trees down then the building will look really good