Corporate courtyard WIP

[dorfpunk]

Corporate courtyard WIP

Postby dorfpunk » Sun Jun 26, 2011 6:43 am
I have been working on this courtyard area that was designed for a corporate client. The problems I am having are:

Lighting the big Corten screen at the back - don't need it for this scene but want to set up some evening shots too.

THe way I would like to light it is either with a lot of small low power lights behind it which would look good but will take forever to render or:
2 or 3 (1?) spots below it to cast the shadow but I am not sure how to make spots in Twilight that wil bevery strong as required here but still very directional so they don't light too much else.

Also, the windows. There are a couple of panes of glass that are not reflecting properly although they are EXACTLY the same as every other pane in the image... don't know quite what to do.

Any other comments/tips etc would be much appreciated. I feel I am nearly there with this one...

[Stu]

Its looking pretty good!

I'm not a fan of 3D vegetation in PR renders and while the palms look OK the Bamboo in the planters look less good.

There is some better looking Bamboo in the 3D warehouse.

I would also experiment with reducing the scale of the weave texture on the furniture.

[dorfpunk]

Cheers. The problem is that Timor Black bamboo doesn't look real even if you're standing right next to it - it is an almost unnaturally black and shiny plant which looks as though the leaves have been stuck on - makes it difficult.

Anyway, I havn't really got into using 2D plants as I find them weird in walkthrough stuff and also they tend to look too uniform as they are harder to individualise although I fully appreciate that this might just be because I havn't put the time into learning to use them properly.

I might set something up with this courtyard and some 2D plants just to answer my own question of how they react to a scene with so many reflections as I have no idea really.

Thanks for the response Stu.

[Gareth]

Maybe Stu does his plants in Post Pro (even though he claims to be a Post Pro Phobic, i suspect he is better at it than he lets on...!!)

[dorfpunk]

I have never tried to do anything like that at all. My version of post pro is about 5 seconds messing with colour balance and adding the occasional bit of smoke or whatever. Always more to learn. Anyway, here's another image with a couple of changes including one species change and a bit more fiddling...

[Fletch]

Lighting the big Corten screen at the back...

Not sure what you are talking about - if you can find a picture on the internet showing a real photo of the material and look you are going for, I'll help any way I can.

THe way I would like to light it is either with a lot of small low power lights behind it which would look good but will take forever to render or:
2 or 3 (1?) spots below it to cast the shadow but I am not sure how to make spots in Twilight that will be very strong as required here but still very directional so they don't light too much else.

If this doesn't help, I can post some examples of different spots and their settings. Essentially, set the hotspot to the angle you want, and the falloff just a little wider than that. Or, better, find an IES light definition that throws the light exactly how you want. Look at these IES lights (IES#29 maybe?) first for example.

Subject: Diagram of a Spotlight

Also, the windows. There are a couple of panes of glass that are not reflecting properly although they are EXACTLY the same as every other pane in the image... don't know quite what to do.

My guess is that either the faces are reversed for those pieces of glass and the back is painted with the wrong material, or that the faces are reversed and the group or component is painted with a wrong material.

Any other comments/tips etc would be much appreciated. I feel I am nearly there with this one...

In addition to the comment above about fixing the texture scale on the furniture...
These are looking great, they feel maybe like a little saturation and warmth in post-pro could help liven them up.

[Stu]

Okie....the 2D plants I use.

I have a library of around 5000 CadPlants http://www.cadplants.com/

Generally pretty good images....particularly smaller shrubs and plants....[larger trees tend to be less well cutout, for obvious reasons.]

They come in a variety of packs and file types including Skp.

I have the entire library loaded in SU as components which can be quickly imported and placed and turned into a face me component using the 'plant face me' ruby [a search should find that.]

If you set the sun in the right position Twilight will generate good looking shadows.

If you work your layers selectivly for each view you can work with quite big SU files stacked with these images....say up to 150Mb.

This is the best solution I have come up with after of years of searching, from the time I started with SU v2.

[dorfpunk]

Cheer guys. I will have a go with the lights and se what I can do - thanks a lot for the help

Fletch - you have done to that image what I usually try to do in photoshop but often end up overdoing. I bet it took you about 5 seconds too.

Stu - I agree - I have seen really good use of 2D plants in PR stuff but I have just not made it work for me yet. I am pretty new to the rendering side of things and have essentially taken what I did before and then rendered it. I am starting to thing about the rendering process during the modelling stage - the building in this one was done quite differently from how I have modelled before because I had Twilight in mind the whole time.

Will post more when done.

[Fletch]

5 sec - yes. (Used a Topaz Adjust filter)
however, I find nothing beats High Pass Filter sharpening method. It's high quality and super fast/easy.

[dorfpunk]

Wow! Thanks for that. That is so quick and easy. Dead impressed