Lightning/Shading Approach for Exterior Visualisation - White Facade

[Monogon]

Hey Guys,

I'm working on my first architecture visualisation (birds eye view) and I'm struggling with the basic setup of the VRaySun und PhysicalCamera as well as the RGB values for the basic materials.
The main problem seems to be finding the right balance between the white facade and the rest of the scene. When I set the sun to directly exposing the facade I always end up with either a total overexposed white wall or way or a unnaturally contrasted image with grey walls.
I also tried setting up an indirect exposure of the building front (sun behind the bulding) which kind of works but the roof and other parts got highly over exposed and all my materials seem to be way too dark.

I would really appreciate if you could give me some advice how to approach this correctly.

Thanks an best regards
Felix

[Monogon]

this is my result so far

[yyk]

The results you have look fine to me. Have you tried with Reinhard color mapping with Burn value of something below 0,5 ?

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Is it possible to attach the scene file ?
We would like to look at the settings in the scene.

[Monogon]

@yyk, had the burn value now set 0.4. this how it looks like with some AO and without adjusted curves


@Svetlozar, Thank you, I really appreciate this.
http://felixschuch.com/viz.zip

[ledisnomad]

The general rule of thumb I was taught was to keep "white" as a value of something like RGB 217-217-217. When setting up the VRay sun and sky, I use the override materials with this default "white" material and then adjust the VRay physical camera exposure settings until I get the lighting the way I want. Then you can turn off the override and start messing with the other materials.

Having said that, your most recent pic looks pretty good lighting-wise.

[Monogon]

Another test, but I'm still not there I guess. Missing the atmosphere/mood but maybe it's just the perspective and the missing environment. I tried another camera angle and sun position yesterday and I liked the result but it has to be the bird eye view..

[lukx]

I prefer to keep white RBG when using LWF below 200 200 200

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Hello there - we have played we the settings on your file and here is one result of our tests.
We have changed the parameters of Vray Sun - Vray Camera , and some of the materials.
A additional lights are added to the scene to illuminate mainly the shadowed area.
The illumination is very smooth now - but the scene still looks somehow flat - this is because almost everything is white.
If you add a nice environment and a small details like trees / cars / flowers / people / curtains etc - this scene will be much more interesting.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/45398240/ChaosGroup/vis08.zip - Max 2013

[mdi]

Very quick go,

I removed vraydirt from wall, deleted lights (other than skylight), changed exposure and white balance, and turned on Ambient Occlusion.

regarding the whites - I rendered it underexposed and brightened the image up with curves to retain the detail in the whites.