Last Dollar House

[OPEN_RANGE]

This project is to help the owners visualize and discuss with their builder and various designers that are involved. I will likely be revising this after they discuss. I did not have any cabinet or counter top specs.

Working off of some plans where the CAD file doesn't quite match the pdf set. Also was given a max file made by someone else to start with. Pretty weird model. I swear it was not done in max but was done using something else and then imported to max. I have replaced everything. It's like the roof on one side is part of the same mesh object as a wall on another side,etc. Weird naming, everything is called object. Use of symmetry for walls on either side that are different from each other. Strange lighting and viewport setup. Metric units but house and owners and architects and everyone is in US. Kitchen counters and base cabinets were all 48" high versus standard 36".

anyway, even with all that, it's a nice project and so far so good. working on an exterior view now.

Posting this here for feedback before I send it to the owners and their people.

[M.Max]

despite all these challenges you did great !
I liked the second shot but I think a bit higher exposure could help to add more life to it imo .
the first shot background could use a bit of desaturation also but overall well done and I see a progress here (Y)

[OPEN_RANGE]

M.max thank you for the review. I agree with both points. I will de saturate the background plate in the kitchen view. Not sure why I did not do that, seems so obviously necessary and easily done. That is a site photo taken by the client last fall. Very vibrant fall colors. I may end up replacing it altogether once the leaves come out, second week of June.

I wanted to increase exposure on the living room shot. I was using the bright spot on the wall above the window seat on left as sort of a limit. Any higher exposure and that starts to burn out, so I stopped where it is. Tried to open up shadows with some tone mapping. A photographer might shoot multiple exposures and blend together in pshop. I may try that. It?s possible they may ask for a darker,plaster and that could help allow,for increase in exposure.

Thanks again for your feedback. Very valuable and helpful to me.

[glorybound]

Yeah, I see a ton of work. Good job! Try Camera RAW, it does a nice job of balancing things out.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you. I have tried camera raw filter for tone mapping. I will re-visit that. For this I have used a photoshop technique where, starting with 32 bit exr render (you can add an exposure adjust layer here), then copy the render to a new layer, blending mode = divide. Make a new white layer , blending mode=linear dodge add, then clip it to the rendering copy below. Then adjust opacity of render copy. Save all that as smart object. convert to 16 bit, use other filters etc like curves adjustment layer. Kind of hard to describe in this post. seems to work good. I have also tried tone mapping with Fusion, which worked fine, but it's way too much for my limited use. Better for me to stay in photoshop, at least for now.

Thanks again for your review and input, very helpful to me.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Here is the exterior. The background photo was taken by the owner last fall. Too bad about the cloud shadow on the mountain. I will most likely be shooting new site photography later this june when leaves are out on trees. also no info was provided regarding drive and walk to front entry. That will probably get added later as well.

[OPEN_RANGE]

weird error message caused double post.

[rusteberg]

Nice work.... Regarding the backplate for the exterior, you could just photoshop that to something like the attachment.... or match the hue of your rendered deciduous trees with the ones in the background

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you rusteberg. I might try some pshop on the background photo as a short term fix and thanks for the example of how that might look. Ideally i want to shoot a better photo and that will be what ultimately happens. Just have to wait for summer foliage to pop. I live only a few miles form the site so it should not be too difficult. Just wish I had something good to use now. His photo would have worked if not for that cloud shadow over the best mountain in view. As I once read somewhere, probably on this forum, good background photo = good rendering, bad background photo = bad rendering

[OPEN_RANGE]

I finally was able to updated these renderings with new background photography. I had to wait for the trees to get to full leaf and for some excavation stuff to move out of the way. I also did some variations on the Kitchen for the owners design studies. different cabinets, counters, stools pendant lights and other stuff.

(The mountain seen thru the Living Room window is a 14er. It is the mountain that is used in the Coors logo. also appears in lots of car commercials and other advertisement.)