Apartment WIP - tips?

[paulison]

Hi All,

Heres what im working on. This was rendered out with low presets at 1024x1024 as a material test.



I think its getting there and im learning more and more about vray with every project, but maybee you guys can offer some tips.

I realise the background doesnt fit really with the skylight colour as this was done in post.

The white building on the right of the image doesnt seem to be getting any shadows even though ive used vray shadows on a direct standard light with 'overshoot' ticked

The grey panels on the left are supposed to be aluminium panels (acubond?) but they are rendering out a bit too grainy and dont look metallic enough. The glass screen wall next to it is supposed to be colorbacked glass (glass that you cant really see through) im assuming white but not sure yet.

Other than that, im not sure what else I can do to improve this. Harsh crits are very welcome (dont hold back) at the moment because my clients arnt happy with it and I cant figure out why.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

[paulison]

58 views and no comments. jees :P

[Gijs]

I think one of the main problems with this image is that the building is unsharp and that it looks very dark inside the building. It looks like an image of a building that is under construction. Furthermore, I think the saturation of the background is too high in comparison to the rest of the image.

[Nenad]

Yap, maybe try making the balconies alive by setting some chairs and/or people here and there. Also, IMO, at this moment the asphalt looks too flat. But nice work, keep posting...

[artykris]

hey,
- reflection in the windows must be cranked up (use the environment reflection override and put there some colour, or a sky bitmap - best would be a 360 or sphere sky, you can alter the brightness of the reflection level then)
- color of the background sky must be matching the vray skylight
- you could easily get away with 1 or 2 light bounces only, as long as it is a strong bounce , which will lighten up the ceiling over balconies.
- to bring more life into it I suggest post-processing work in PS to add some curtains in the windows (this is the best option I have used), alternatively you can add those as simple bitmaps behind glass of the windows (beware! don`t use opacity with vray
- I wouldn`t use this kind of composition, I mean with the camera placed so high above the ground, it`s really bad, not humane point of view . I suggest placing the camera at the eye level on the street looking high up. to correct the 3rd persp use skew modifier on a camera or a camera persp. correction modifier. Don`t use too wide angle (above 24mm)
- for alucobond aluminium I suggest using interpolated glossies - soft and long (may be you need to place some omnis there at the back to make the alu come alive. if it doesn`t work and deadline`s coming there`s always PS which does the job faster than any renderer here
- It`s a quite nice resi-design, who did it?

cheers,

[artykris]

- one more - I don`t know if you can change that or not, but the form of the railings on the balconies sucks big time. it makes it look as an unfinished construction rather than friendly residental building. maybe change it to some more solid, stronger form, to match the bulkness and thickness of the balconies floors.

[paulison]

thanks for the comments, i'll be trying to apply what I can in the short time allowed. I have to get this right before I do any animations. As usual, deadlines mean i cant spend long enough on this

maybee ill model up some curtains but i think the client wants it to remain simple so the architecture stands out

i have a reflection ovveride 360 hdri map at the moment but theres no clouds on it which is probably why it isnt working too well

the glass is just a standard egz glass because im struggling to find anything better. For some reason though i'm not getting much light through the windows. Im considering rendering the IR map first without glass on. im using IR map + QMC for secondary 1.0/0.7 with 1 bounce and 3 subs...but its still dark. .should i try 2 bounces with 6 subs?

the balustrading is frameless glass (what the..) which doesnt look good at a distance

lastly, the Architect is Hassell architects, Perth (formerly Spowers)

heres an update in the form of a ground level montage but i havnt applied the comments from here yet (getting there!)

[paulison]

Heres the pooldeck. Increasing the secondary bounces from 1 to 3 made a huge difference to the undersides of the balconies. It would be nice to see inside apartments but theres nothing inside at the back



In future i'll probably use the background map properly for lighting and reflections but other than that and the tiling timber texture, does anything stand out as needing attention?

thanks

[paulison]

entry - using camera correction to keep lines vertical



do you dig my crap 2D people?. Other than that, there is supposed to be a bit of texture on the charcoal frames and theres no clouds being reflected off balconies - im still struggling a bit with this side of things.

more comments welcome

[artykris]

Well, now You`ve overdone the camera angle in the last one, IMHO.
It`s too much to take, looks odd. The camera is too close and the lens is far too wide.
Another thing - the glass still suffers from a lack of reflection. On such a sunny day, you`re proposing , it would probably behave more like a mirror really. So you should try to pump up the exposure value for your HDRI map (but only for reflections override - you`re using it through the Vray environment dialgo, aren`t you?).

[artykris]

And three more:
- try to find people that match the llighting conditions that you have in your scene, they really don`t look that bad then.
- it`s a rule of thumb in photography and composition: "never take picutures with the sun behind you!"
(as for the rules - it`s often good to brake`em, but certainly not in this case!)
- try to use soft shadows, when you`re so close to the building elements like on the last shot. it really gives it a kick!

[artykris]

And the last sentence, just not to be only criticising:
I love the second image you`ve posted. The one composed into a photograph. It works great and shows the scheme in the best way possible.

[paulison]

Thanks for the very helpfull feedback. Im definatly going to crank up the reflection multiplier for the HDRI. at the moment it is set at 1 but ill try 3-4 and see how that looks.

For the last image, it is really distorted but I think I may crop the topof the image off for now and next time use less of a wide angle lense.

I didnt know about the photography rule about not taking photo's with the sun behind but I can definatly see what you mean and will think about this for future work.

I think i'm close to getting some images im happy with, now its just about finishing them off to look decent (can be hard!)

The people were added in Piranesi and they do look a bit average. Have ordered some dosch libraries and some RPC people though (especially for that pooldeck!)

The funny thing about this job is timeframes.... the Architects are constantly making changes, which is cool, but the client is blaming us for delays in having final images. On our quote we said we would need about 3 weeks for stills and animations after ALL final information had been received.....but now they are demanding next day turn around times and animations fully rendered out and produced onto CD on friday when we have been given more changes on Wednesday. It's insane! Having to say no, not possible constantly to every request is demoralising and what is worse is the client is actually annoyed at us. I really dont understand why people who know nothing about this work think they know better. Anyone got any suggestions on how to handle this? I've already hyjacked 4 other computers for this job

[artykris]

The funny thing about this job is timeframes.... ...(...)...Anyone got any suggestions on how to handle this? I've already hyjacked 4 other computers for this job

Hey,
glad you found the tips useful.

And for the job timeframes issue - I`m affraid it`s always like this - everyone feels that he can easily be an architect, graphician, doctor and a lawyer.
And I thought that this is only happening here in Poland

The only way out of such a situation is a well done - signed agreement with all the time keeping rules written down. Both with your architect and client. But then, architects will always change and delay (I know something about it, cause I do ) and clients will always complain. And you`re stuck in the middle between two sledge hammers

But... " Always look on the bright side of life ..." <whistle here> )))

Cheeers,