Colors and materials

[sirio76]

Probably if you use the auto correction from PS camera raw you will get similar results

[suzanne_doherty]

So you're mainly doing stylized renders and not shooting for photo realistic images?

I do more realistic renders that non-realistic. For me, realism is largely down to materials and form, and lighting is what gives the image style and interest. Putting a vraysun and a physical camera into a scene doesn't make a realistic render.

[sirio76]

Putting a vraysun and a physical camera into a scene doesn't make a realistic render.

I disagree, Vray sun and a physical camera coupled with a good tone mapping produce quite accurate results, and this is not surprising since all modern render engines are based on physics.
I’ve done several comparisons between renders and real dslr photos and results are always pretty close.
Here for example I’ve used physical sun and a Vray camera, later I’ll upload some real photo of the room:
https://forums.chaos.com/forum/chaos...nt-in-florence

[sirio76]

Here, an early render test and a photo made with a good reflex. Nothing but Vray sun/sky(default setup and intensity), a physical camera with the same exposure of the reflex and some basic tone mapping (white balance, highlight compression and a photographic LUT):

[suzanne_doherty]

I disagree, Vray sun and a physical camera coupled with a good tone mapping produce quite accurate results, and this is not surprising since all modern render engines are based on physics.
I’ve done several comparisons between renders and real dslr photos and results are always pretty close.
Here for example I’ve used physical sun and a Vray camera, later I’ll upload some real photo of the room:
https://forums.chaos.com/forum/chaos...nt-in-florence

Dont get me wrong, vraysun and such can be used in great images, my point was (and perhaps unclear), is that you cant just drop in a vraysun and expect your shot to look realistic, the materials and forms need to be realistic before lighting.

For me, I prefer the control other lights give me, such as spot, directional, dome, etc give, rather than being tied into a sun system. But that's just my preference.


When trouble shooting images, I have a simple process -

Does it look "right"? If not check modelling (scale, proportions, accuracy).

Does it look "real"? If not, check materials, shaders. Are these are real as possible.

Does it look "interesting? If not, check lighting, balance and contrast, and composition. Is the lighting and composition correct for the shot.


9/10 this process works and helps narrow down the process.

[sirio76]

you cant just drop in a vraysun and expect your shot to look realistic, the materials and forms need to be realistic before lighting.

I can agree with that, to get good results you need to take care of everything
I still recommend a physically based method, not because you can not get great results using an artistic oriented workflow, but just because a physical workflow is much more predictable in my experience.
I mean, if you take a simple system with a single area light and a physical camera, it doesn’t matter if your area light has 10x the intensity of a real world light source as log as you decrease the exposure by 10x, you will get the same identical result. But as soon as you start to add many light sources(in my scenes I use often hundreds of different lights), things can get out of control easily because you’ll soon start to tweak each source until you get a decent results. In contrast with my method you start from the very beginning with a real world intensity for both natural and artificial light sources, this gives automatically a good starting point where you need very little tweaking if any.
Of course you’ll still need to be able to create detailed geometry, plausible shaders etc, and on top of that apply a good tone mapping since the default Vray output is a linear render and dslr cameras output is not linear.

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

I think the sun is the killer, and lowering the intensity seems to help. If I want to boost it in a post, I can do so by using an element.

Here is one that I got pretty good on the first try: the colors seem to work with no adjustments in post. The sun's turbulence was adjusted to 5, which I think helped. I also used real world camera exspoure.

Just curious, are you using RichDirt?

[glorybound]

Just on the foundation walls for this one.

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

Just on the foundation walls for this one.

Thanks for replying. Do you think it's still worth paying for or should I just stick with VRayDirt?

[glorybound]

It is straightforward and quick. I am sure you can develop something close using V-Ray Dirt.

[glorybound]

Probably if you use the auto correction from PS camera raw you will get similar results

It doesn't, so I'll have to study the iCloud images and reproduce it in PS to see why I like it. I know it brings up the shadows and ads saturation a lot.

[fixeighted]

Personally, I don't like RichDirt or the Vray dirt for that matter.....just too uniformly dirty imo....they're ok as a quick thing to slap on but they don't really look great unless you mix them judiciously with other stuff...grunges etc.

[glorybound]

I am waiting for the AI to make a rendering look slightly aged. I found one a while ago, but it turned my house into a creepy teardown.

[oglu]

We use a validator tool for substance to make sure we are in range.
https://youtu.be/8TnadUKLoJE?si=1LWoqOPtc9cO39yo