Competing to keep Rhino+V-Ray / Rendering Critique

[reyloads]

Hello Everyone!
I am looking for the help of some V-Ray heroes. I am competing with my fellow coworker in a battle of which rendering/modeling software is better. My coworker feels that Modo is superior in quality, value and user friendless. He as proposed to our boss that we switch to it instead of upgrading my rhino from 4 to 5. Now, it so happens that we are both working on interior room scenes for the same client. He is doing it in Modo, of course and I am doing it in V-Ray. I would honestly like to continue using V-Ray. I feel although Modo may be easier to begin with, I am have been using rhino for 3 years and I hate to have to drop all that I have learned and switch to Modo.

Will you help me create a really great room scene to kick this Modo BS out the door?! I am willing to upload my 3dm files in order to get a proper critique from you guys. I feel that although I am pretty good with Rhino and V-Ray, many of you know SOOO much more about configurations, lighting and so on. Maybe a couple of tips is all that it will take to beat Modo! I dont think we are allowed to attach 3dm files, so I will post what I currently have rendered.

Thanks a lot guys! Any advice or help will be awesome. I will be checking up on this thread a lot so feel free to leave as many comments as you want.

[renevc]

Your image looks very grainy which has to do with your rendersettings. I do not know exactly what you should change but i can sent you some settings which you can import if you give me an emailadress. Some other remarks: The shadows are a bit hard which you can change by increasing the size of the sun. You can also give the sun some turbidity and ozon that will give it a much warmer tone and if oyu put teh sun very low it will look like the end of the day and you can put some more light in the spots. Your scene could also use some stuff laying around, clothes, fhone, whatever it looks to clean to me right now. Also the cushions seem to float a bit above the bed which gives the impression that they are very hard. Also you should reallu change the curtain, the shape is not right. Also some colour in your scene would be nice.
The bed looks a bit to big compared to the wooden thing at the end.
Okay, good luck!

[reyloads]

Thank you very much for you critique. I have been working on it recently and I believe I have a final image ready. What do you think about this one?

[dkendig]

need more bump+reflections on the wood floor. The wall color is a bit boring, and the lamp material looks like it could use some work. Have you tried any of the materials we have available for download? http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/downl...-ray-materials. We have wood, paint, plastic, concrete, ceramic, fabric, etc materials. Keep up the great work though, this image looks much better than the first one!

[reyloads]

Thanks Dkendig. I am trying to keep a lot of things subtle. The wood for example, there is a very thin like between realistic looking finished wood and loud, distracting wood. As if right now, I have the same bitmap as both the diffuse and the bump. I am going to change the bump to black and white and adjust the levels a little as well. And yes, I need a little more interest in the lighting/reflection of the wood. I am gong to do that as well. But again, people get nervous when their furniture finishes look too glossy. I will mess around with that.

Thanks again, let me know if there is anything else that you can think of.

[renevc]

Allrady much better! But there is still room for improvement. I would give the lampshades an emitter material and i would try to make the light more diffuse. Just look at real life lampshades. The cabinet on the left and the carpet seem to float a bit. The scene also looks a bit overexposed. If you dim the light of the sun a bit and give the lampshades some more strength you might get a shadowedge aroound the carpet in the front.
Maybe it is an idea to open the right door a bit the curtain seems to move in the wind.
Are your walls completely white? If so tone them down a bit. Never use comple black or white colours in your scene. I like your carper material very much!
I still think that things like a coffeecup a pair of glasses, etc would make your scen more lively. Regards, rene

[reyloads]

Thanks very much Renvec! I makes me feel good to hear such great feedback!!

I have been in a rut lately and just working hard on this has helped me out a lot. I very much appreciate your advice. Thanks a lot on the carpet! I had such bad luck and I recently figured it out. Before it literally looked like a rectangle of stray foam insulation. haha. I will adjust the height of the dresser and the carpet. And yes, it is very bright. I will work on that as well. Great idea with the door!!

I will work on this some more and then post it. Thanks again everyone!!

[dkendig]

I'm having a hard time seeing some detail in areas like where the doors meet, have you tried using ambient occlusion?

[reyloads]

Dkendig, No I havent. I didnt even know what it did. I just watched a youtube video on it and I will render with it included next time. Thanks for the info!

[renee81]

Like the others said it is much better in the second image.May be lowering the viewpoint would give a better angle,the wood floor also looks weird,the plank are very large....
To me the lighting looks wrong,it is really flat,we can see the sun coming from the window,but it also looks as if there is another light coming from behind the camera.
Improving the light would make a big difference,in my opinion.And as Devin said ambiant occlusion would make a big difference.

Renee

[reyloads]

Thanks again for all of your help guys! Here is my latest rendering. I turned down the large light that I have above the camera. I feel that takes away from the flat light. I also added a better color to the walls. My coworkers werent liking the lamps, so I changed the base color and made the shades a light gray, I also added an emission layer on it too.
Thanks a TON for the ambient occlusion tip. I turned that up and it looks great! I also opened the door and moved the dresser to the floor (oops).

I think the next thing is to make the floor planks a little thinner, maybe lower the railing a tad as well. I would like to add some more things to the area, but I am worried that it will start to look too messy. I would really like to add some type of blanket to the bed, but I am having trouble modeling it. I think I am going to try it again and see what I get.

Thank you so much everyone! I feel that I have improved sooo much in the last week. If you have any other things that you guys are spotting please let me know! Thanks again! You guys are rock stars!

[renevc]

Yuo are getting there.! I still think that your cushion are floating, just lower them A bit in the bed and see how that works. I would like to see some texture in the lampshades and also the carpet and the drawers could use a shadowedge to connect them to the floor. You can do that in fotoshop. Also lowering the reflection of the windows might be a good idea. And i would not worry about the room getting messy. just try it and you can allways remove it.
regards, René

[reyloads]

Thanks a lot Rene,
One thing that I really need to improve in the bedding. The pillow look great, but the sheet looks too much like clay. I built the pillows buy myself, I think I am going to build the sheets myself as well. If you guys have any advice on that please let me know.

Thanks a lot for everything!

[fooprobe]

on the lighting, try using a non-zero shadow radius on the point lights in the side lamps, it'll soften the shadows. the radius is in model units, try something close to an actual light bulb's radius. And make sure you're using inverse square decay - it will make the point light appear stronger at positions closer to the light and dimmer when farther away. note that it will seriously dim the light though, increase your intensity by a factor of 10 or more when you change it. The recessed lights over the bed appear to have no effect on the bed, how are you trying to make those?

[Micha_cg]

First I would render the room with light from outside only. Use a HDRI or the physical sky. The exterior env lighting should have a dark ground and bright sky, because this will determinative the light distributation in the room.

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...d-Photorealism

Something is wrong at the interior light. Is the default light enabled?

Also the background image is to dark, better it's bright and light. Best look at some reference photos like this:
http://www.scandinaviandesigns.net/f...t_interior.jpg