Why does my render not look as photorealistic ?

[stevesideas]

The image below is what im working on for a client at the moment. Im using reinhard and im aware that I need to reduce the burn somewhat so that the light on the floor doesnt look so overblown. I know also that there isnt as much contrast in my scene in terms of materials, but the clients brief was that this area needs to be bright and airy.

So what am i doing wrong...The lighting is basically a vray sun, environment, and some vray lights at the main entrances..same as what Aurelalto is using in his scene. http://www.evermotion.org/vbulletin/...ad.php?t=62310

But his scene looks so much more realistic.

Maybe its my modelling, or is it the texture/material settings that are letting me down.

I really need to sort this out quickly as Im getting a bit worried the client isnt going to like it. Any help is appreciated

This is my image so far:

[/url]

[sv]

it's really not that much of a bad start.

my crits would be:

(*)your plants need much more texturing - they are just solid colours for the leaves - add some textures with bumps, reflections, SSS if necessary...

(*) You have a lot of hanging or directional lights, but no lights in them - there is nothing shinning onto the walls etc. Add these - will massively boost your render times, but if it was a proper photo, i suspect these lights would be on.

(*) That water is weird - i know it's nails to do as i had to do a similar wall recently and it really wasn't that good, but try some motion blur on the water?

(*) What is that desk? Is it actually a solid block of glass? looks a bit odd - could you add a really small amount of SSS?

(*) I'd personally desaturate the floor and the walls a bit - they are basically orange, well creamy orange. It appears to have quite a difference in the overall white balance, so maybe just adjust this?

(*) More 100% glossy reflections on the floor? Not sure - the finish might not be like this, but i'd expect it....

it's a good start though as i said.
I'd build it up with an override of a grey material.
Make sure you can get all the lights working properly and to correct brightnesses (1700lm for a 100 watt light etc)
Bring the textures back in, and just tweek some of the colours that seem a-miss.

It's good though, i'm sure they'll be happy with what you've got.

[stevesideas]

Thanks for the tips. The desk is actually a glass block with another white block in the centre of it acting as the actual desk bit. Being glass, I thought it would just be a case of creating a refractive material...what do you mean use SSS on this ?

I was told the floor has to be matt. With this in mind, i realise that anything that is actually matt will still have a glossy reflection to a degree, its just hard to estimate what percentrage to put that at.

Yeah, i will add actual lights to the scene. Problem is though, I find that when I add lights to the scene and im using vray cam with exposure I cant generally go by lm's because they dont seem to show up because they are so much weaker than the sun and other lights that i am exposing for.

I'll try your other tips...meeting with the client today, so no doubt will change a lot of stuff anyway.

[sv]

The desk is actually a glass block with another white block in the centre of it acting as the actual desk bit. Being glass, I thought it would just be a case of creating a refractive material...what do you mean use SSS on this ?

well in that case put the white block in the middle - you will see this as the glass is see through! I meant use Sub Surface Scattering to make the desk not actually 100% clear glass like - i didn't really get what the material was.

was told the floor has to be matt. With this in mind, i realise that anything that is actually matt will still have a glossy reflection to a degree, its just hard to estimate what percentrage to put that at.

yep, i'd add some glossy reflections - just make them fresnel and not very strong

Problem is though, I find that when I add lights to the scene and im using vray cam with exposure I cant generally go by lm's because they dont seem to show up because they are so much weaker than the sun and other lights that i am exposing for.

well of course compared to the sun, a 100watt bulb will hardly be noticable, it completely depends on your scene. It is not true however that you can't get the balance right - with the exposure on the physical camera i think it is easier - but i think with a scene like this it would be quite hard as you say. What you could do is turn off the sun, expose the camera for the lights, say 200watts or something, then turn the sun on, use reinhard to bring the levels in - i could be completely wrong of course, and it would ruin the image, but then again, you might get some nice weak lights on that backwall which would really bring it alive - at the moment it's quite a flat, solid texture. I would have thought an atrium like this would have used a lot of lighting though. You could always change the sun a little to make it more late afternoon / evening.

anyway, it's up to you. just my 2 cents, i would add extra interest with more lights.

[stevesideas]

Well, just got back from the meeting. They seemed to like it...i guess im overly critical. I still feel you are right about adding the lights. We are getting together more details and surface requirements, so will hopefully look better after a bit more work.

Thanks again.

[stevesideas]

Can you explain at all how to setup the SSS for the leaves. I had read the forums and created a blend material with fast SSS in the base slot and then put a vray material with diffuse, reflection in slot 1. Do you think this may work ?

Thanks

[sv]

actually, if they are flat polys, use the Vray2sided material!

[stevesideas]

Ok, i'll give that a go..ta

[meanadam]

Try some things with the vray camera exposure. Hit the camera correction while you are there too.