Looking for critique and a question about pixels

[cballtgh]

So other than a few splotchy bits of grass and not rounding the corners yet (design not finalized), could you let me know what you think and how these images can be improved? I also have two questions.

1. Can anyone explain the black dots on the images? They seem to be just pixels that didn't get filled with info.
2. When I apply a plastic shiny or paint gloss/semigloss template to some of my components, I get a lot of tiny green dots. I think it's referred to as scattering.

These images were done with Easy 08. @ 200 passes each (11h 53m).

[Chris]

That is quite strange. I don't use the Exterior progressive preset much because of it's tendency to produce sparkles, but I haven't seen the black pixels before. What is your lighting setup? Are you using just the sun and physical sky for the background?

[cballtgh]

That is quite strange. I don't use the Exterior progressive preset much because of it's tendency to produce sparkles, but I haven't seen the black pixels before. What is your lighting setup? Are you using just the sun and physical sky for the background?

Yes settings are as follows:
Physical Sky
Brightness - .8
Sky Rot. - 0
Turbidity - 2
Sun enabled
sun shadow on
sun soft shadow on
Sun Color - 251, 251, 215
Hazy - 10%
Sun Strength 2

If you don't use Exterior Progressive what would you use for this scene?

[Chris]

Probably High or High+. It would probably get done faster, too.

Your lighting setup is perfect for using the Exterior Preset. I don't know what could be causing the black pixels though. I know that having brushed metals in the scene is a big contributor to sparkles when using the Exterior preset (but those are always white, not black).

I would give one of the biased presets a try first. The abundance of plants might be an issue (as far as how fast it renders) but I think it should be ok. Try the Low preset first and if it doesn't produce good enough results, go to High.

[Fletch]

These are quite good images, believe it or not. Of course there are a few small things to do to take them up a level.

The thing that stands out in the first instance is the background trees seem too distant/small.

You need a good seamless treeline spherical sky or seamless treeline sketchup curving model because the tree reflections are obviously tiling/stepping in places.
Olishea sells these curving treelines for sketchup for a fantastically low price on SketchUcation shop website.
In our Red Carpet section there are some that may be perfect as well.

Next, is color mapping the image - if it has a bluish cast, that can easily be alleviated in Twilight V2 with the Render Dialog - Post Process > Temperature Adjust section where you can increase the warmth of the overall image by adjusting temperature. I edit the "new" temperature number all the time to about 6700... default is 6500. Don't be afraid to go incrementally higher than that as long as your colors look natural.
Your images look pretty good on a good computer display that is calibrated, look washed out on laptop. So maybe this is not critical in your case here.

The multitude of instanced grass looks impressive but is slowing the rendering down massively and yet the components need some color work. They look like dry/super thin grass in your images, not a lush lawn look. If you prefer instancing the grass and increased resulting render times, this is fine, only you need to make a small test scene and "fix" your grass to look better in the final scene lighting conditions. Be careful not to overly saturate the grass to beyond real world material capability - keep saturation to below 85%... but push it to it's limits, and if it still needs more in the end, don't be afraid of increasing image green saturation in post-pro. I would always post-pro my grass, it just looks more realistic in the end.

High or High+ will not handle this number of instances. For exteriors the Flare Fix render settings are best if you want unbiased rendering. You made the right choice with Easy08 in this case. I render all exteriors with this setting. I typically do my grass in post-pro because instancing grass increases render time exponentially. If I had a super computer, or am not in a hurry, then it's not a problem.

The black dots are a result, I believe, of so many instances. It could be a caustic resolution issue. Some metal materials, some plastics/glossy materials don't play nicely with Easy 08. Easy 09 may render in this case with so many instances faster than Easy08 and whether it's faster or not, it will not likely have these artifacts.

Finally, tonemapping the image in the end is required - usually in post-pro to get just the effect you desire - increase exposure while deepening the darks slightly will improve the image quickly. Look at a real photo of a similar building in similar lighting to get an idea how that photographer tonemapped their image. All images are modified by professionals in some way in post-pro... photos, or 3D images.

The color of the palm tree bark seems way too light, my guess is that most of your materials are too light - make sure all colors are what that material looks like in a flat lighting on a cloudy day. Not in bright light.

I would encourage you to use the default settings for physical sky, the sun is too dim and changes the exposure of the image later on. Sun power 4 is good. Sun power 5 is ok.

[Post Production - Secret 1]
Spherical Skies Pack 1
[Post Production - Secret 2]

[cballtgh]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the help.

Grass instances - all proxy, I tried to photo shop the grass in as I read a post where Fletch said this is the easiest method. Maybe I am not good enough a PS yet because I couldn't get the grass to look real. I have an 8 core 3.40 ghz intel xeon with 16 gb of ram. So it takes about 2 hours to run 150 passes.

Do you know the defaults for physical sky? There doesn't seem to be a reset button.

[Fletch]

Open new SU session/empty file, look at the default sky settings.