A small house that is actually on a golf course. Very limited to almost no info from the client regarding materials. No actual plans but a poor quality model generated from, I think, Chief Architect that was only able to be exported as a .3ds file.
Any comments and critique are most welcome as always.
Yeah, I don’t particularly appreciate getting models from the client.
The angle makes the house look flat, and the clouds are underexposed. Other than that, it looks good.
Thanks Bobby. I had the view rotated more to the right but it seemed like then it was then all about the two garage doors. (that’s another full size garage door to the right of the one shown. not sure why you need a 3 car garage in a small house but…that’s not for me to know).
This house did not seem to have any angle that I would call good.
I may not understand all the cloud parameters in vray sky. To get the dark undersides more brighter I was using density multiplier. Adjust it much lower and the clouds disappear (evaporate I guess). I’ll work on that some more and see what I can do.
I never got anything good from the clouds, so I do it in post. I sometimes do Cirrus clouds.
This took about 10 seconds in Krea and mostly solves the errors I perceive in the original, such as the odd DOF, lack of any window reflection (just the sky grey horizon) the very noticeable haloes around the trees and what I’d say is a general flatness to the image.
It also greatly improves those foreground trees, which are not great imo 
Thanks Bart! I have no knowledge or etc of the AI products. Not sure what is involved with using Krea but I will look into that.
I used the DOF because I wanted to soften the tree on the right. I was not that keen on the blur it put on the meadow grass. Your suggesting no DOF?
The trees need to be Ponderosa pines, that’s what grows there. They are Globe tree models.
I was aware of the halo around the more distant trees. Tried to get it to go away but could not. That’s the way vray was rendering it. I think it’s due to using the vray sky w clouds. Better to render with Black/Alpha and and add sky in photoshop. A failed experiment with vray sky/clouds.
As stated the client gave me a 3D model he made and pretty much nothing else. I had asked for at least a PDF set of plans to compare but got no response. This morning I learn there is an architect who designed the house. The architect pointed out a discrepancy between her plans and the rendering and included a colored elevation drawing as a reference.
Now I see a whole lot of difference’s beyond what the architect noticed . I sent the attached mark up to the client.
So…I will be doing this again and will try to improve on the things you pointed out.
thanks!
You absolutely need to be using a black background if you want to do anything in-post with stuff like this, otherwise you’ll have bad results every time.
The DOF…the only thing in focus that I see is the tree on the left, so you’d need to adjust things so that you get the defocusing you want whilst maintaining the exposure.
That, or just fake it as in olden times 
Naturally I don’t care about the architecture, such as it is, as it’s dull and uninspiring. However, the way it integrates into the landscape, if it’s done well enough, can
compensate for that to an enormous degree, so that should be the overall focus in my opinion.
With regard to using AI…well, I’d advise at least experimenting, as the results are fantastic when used sparingly and specifically. It’s not magic; just a part of the process.
This is only my take on things, so as always, feel free to ignore my (currently alcohol fuelled) ramblings
First thing I’d look at is the lighting.
I’d avoid lighting from behind the camera, this is making the image and building look flat. I’d try lighting from right to left, casting the left facades into shadow. I’d also increase the contrast in the lighting, forests should be moody and interesting.
Yes I am well acquainted with needing black background when adding in sky in post. What ls odd about this is I have the vray sky included in the rendering. I did not add sky in post. And it’s just the more distant trees that are getting the “white alpha halo”. The closer trees don’t seem to have that. I”m going to abandon the vray sky and add my own in post.
I struggled and spent too much time trying to adjust the fstop and focus distance and still didn’t get what I wanted, I changed the vray physical camera to EV so the exposure remaines constant and then adjusted fstop and camera target distance.
I don’t really understand what the 3 target distance camera planes (near, middle ,far) actually represent. Everything behind the near plane and everything beyond the far is out of focus? Everything between the near and far planes is in focus? The middle plane is only shown to represent the mid point? Focus gets more blurred the farther away from the near and far planes?
I looked at a Krea tutorial video. I will give the “enhance” option a try. Thanks for recommending that and “stay thirsty my friend”.
Thanks for you comments Suzanne or Dean (?). I did have lighting right to left initially. It felt better changing to left to right. Wanted have garage door more shaded and walkway to front entrance more lit. This house has been unusually problematic in regards to camera angle and lighting. Trying to find the lesser of evil’s. Will try moving the sun a bit more to the left to increase the contrast.
This needs to be more cheery then moody. Openmforest of wide spaced mature ponderosa with little to no understory. That’s what the site is. Sunny day. House in on a golf course. Not a mid evil or northern euro feel. It’s a real estate sales peice.
My guess would be that the tree needle shader is not quite right. Probably just low res textures at that distance that can’t pick out the fine details well.
Where’s the model from? I looked at a load of great looking Ponderosa pine models that seem much better than this one, such as https://cgmood.com/3d-model/set-of-ponderosa-pine-tree-bull-pine-2-trees
Or you could simply take the textures from one of the Cosmos pines that has the exact same needles that work as expected
Images of the actual trees do show ‘fringing’ caused by their shape/reflectivity, but that’s depending on the lighting, as in the attached.
I’d argue that the non-fringed variation works better.
The middle plane of the camera is the focal point, so everything blurs either way out from there by some maths calculation or other
Thanks Bart!. Those trees are from Globe. I think their stuff is pretty good quality?
3D Plant Models Library | Photorealistic VR & CG Plants | Globe Plants
The trees have to be ponerdosa. The example you show are some other species and would not work..
Eh? both those images are ponderosa pines…one’s from Ponderosa Pine Trees For Sale Online | The Tree Center
Anyway, there’s a simple enough fix so you shouldn’t have the same issue occurring.
I stand corrected. I have drain bamage from trying to fix the provided super messed up, worst of all time house model from the client. never would have used it but that’s all he gave me and I find out later there are architects CAD drawings available.
thanks for your continuing and generous help!
Much improved
My exact workflow is to work it until it works. It looks much better!
Thanks Bobby. that’s pretty much my workflow… or until I just can’t do anymore and force myself to move on. sometimes “don’t let perfection be the enemy of good” or however the phrase goes comes into play.
For some reason I am suddenly not getting email notices when someone posts to the topics I’m on.
Much better with the revised lighting!
Thank you Dean, it was your earlier comment above that got me to move the light.
I originally had the light from this direction (coming from the right) but the entryway to the front door was very dark and the garage seemed too prominent. In the revised model the roof is higher and the entry way is wider and the element to the let of the entryway moved. All that let more light into that area. I also moved the camera more to the left from my first arrangement and that helped.
Thanks again!
