Post by Anthony on May 18, 2015 22:32:55 GMT
01 Start modelling
As for the modeling part I tried to concentrate on the building, pool with the poolhouse and deck. Everything in the scene is straightforward polygon modelling. I really tried to lay down the foundations and measurements until I had the desired look and feel for the space. In fact this stage took me several weeks, between coffee breaks. But it definitely pays off to spend a good amount of time laying the base of your architectural visualisations.
02 Decking out
I have opted to model the pool deck instead of using textures. I used the FloorGenerator script to do this (www.cg-source.com/floorgenerator) . I use this all the time – even for walls and facades. Tip: This script won’t work on vertical faces, so you have to lay out all the facade faces horizontally to apply the wooden boards to them. After that you can put them back in place. This is one of those simple tools that really takes your arch vis to the next level. Take a look at the settings as a guide.
03 Rule of thirds
For the composition, I relied on the rule of thirds the basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into three sections (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have nine parts. You can make a grid in the viewport to better organise your 3D scenes. How can you do this? Just go to Configure>Viewport Configuration and then set the values as shown.
04 Create a twilight feel
From the beginning the idea was to put the building into a twilit environment. After some experiments, I decided to use a VRayLight Dome with an EXR image created by my favourite and very innovative artist, Peter Guthrie. (1928 Dusk Sun)
05 Importing EXR files
To load the EXR into 3ds Max, create a VRayLight Dome and assign an instanced EXR image to the lighting texture map slot(1). When you’re importing an EXR image into Max, choose Real Pixel Float (32bit) from the Open EXR importer settings. Next set the mapping type to environment/spherical( and the Output of the EXR to 1. Change the VRayLight Multiplier to 1 too.
Tip: Before the final shot I use a small version of the EXR image to reduce memory usage and to gain fast draft results. Be sure that for the final renders you use the high-resolution image unless you want to lose your background details.
06 Rotate the EXR
To rotate the EXR you need to enter a U Offset value from 0-1, so to rotate 90 degrees you’d need to enter 0.25, 180 degrees you’d enter 0.5, 270 degrees 0.75, etc. You can also set the V value at this point if you desire to establish the horizon.
07 Wrap up the exterior lighting
Finding an appropriate horizontal position for your light can easily be done by assigning the same EXR image in your Material Editor to the viewport background just to show the desired position. If you’re using this workflow you must use the same EXR you used for the dome light because this new position will be automatically assigned to the light source
08 Interior lights
By populating the scene with lights, you need to take care with how you control your lights. Using different names is useful if you plan to have dozen of light sources. For this purpose I used Light Lister for V-Ray Advanced 1.50 developed by 3DZver; this can be found on . Most of the lights included in the scene are photometric lights used with custom IES files.
09 Render settings
During this stage of the project I had some serious problems with the main computer, so I decided to render on an older computer. That’s why I had to be very careful with the render settings to avoid crashing when rendering the higher-res images. It took me several tests to find a proper way to create a high-res image of 2,800 x 2,432px. To do this, I first rendered the images at a lower resolution (four times lower then the final output: 700 x 608px) and saved the Irradiance map pre passes plus Light cache map to use later. By using this maps, when you render your final image, you will skip the Irradiance and Light cache process and go straight to the render itself and, so, cut down render times
10 IRR map settings
I set the Min and Max rate to -3 and 0, respectively; this makes for a high-quality Irradiance map. If I were to render the final image with these settings the application would crash, but since I am rendering at a lower resolution just to save the Irr and Light cache maps it won’t take more than half an hour. After the Irr and Light cache maps are calculated I go back to the render settings and set the resolution to 2,800 x 2,432px
11 A little light reading
I also changed Single Frame to From File, and choose the saved Irradiance (vrmap) file and the Light cache (vrlmap) file. I reduced the Rate settings by 2 to give me a Min Rate of 5 and a Max rate of -2. More information on how to calculate these settings can be found in VRay – The Complete Guide by Francesco Legrenzi
12 Render elements
With V-Ray it’s possible to save all render elements into a single OpenEXR file, which eanbles you to open one tidy file in Photoshop with all the render elements as a separate layer for you to edit independently. Image:render elements.jpg
13 Postproduction
In my opinion, this is where the ‘magic’ happens. I have a set of adjustments that I add to most of my images during postprocessing. In Photoshop I first do some corrections with the Selective Color, Exposure and Curves tools. Then I start to play around with the render passes, mostly blending them with Soft Light or Screen blend modes
In for the long haul…
If you are the type of person who wants fast results, you might be disappointed since it can take many years to get good at what you do. If you are like me, it took me several years to discover what 3D is really about. The most inspiring thing for me is observing things around me. This can be from visiting museums, or walking around in towns or the wilderness.
Of course sometimes you need a little push, and that’s why I subscribed to the lectures at CG WORKSHOP. In those few weeks, I learned more than I would in a whole year just searching aimlessly around the internet for answers. This project could never be so succesfull without the help and advice of the staff at CG WORKSHOP and especially Pawel Podwojewski – so my thanks go to them!
As for the modeling part I tried to concentrate on the building, pool with the poolhouse and deck. Everything in the scene is straightforward polygon modelling. I really tried to lay down the foundations and measurements until I had the desired look and feel for the space. In fact this stage took me several weeks, between coffee breaks. But it definitely pays off to spend a good amount of time laying the base of your architectural visualisations.
02 Decking out
I have opted to model the pool deck instead of using textures. I used the FloorGenerator script to do this (www.cg-source.com/floorgenerator) . I use this all the time – even for walls and facades. Tip: This script won’t work on vertical faces, so you have to lay out all the facade faces horizontally to apply the wooden boards to them. After that you can put them back in place. This is one of those simple tools that really takes your arch vis to the next level. Take a look at the settings as a guide.
03 Rule of thirds
For the composition, I relied on the rule of thirds the basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into three sections (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have nine parts. You can make a grid in the viewport to better organise your 3D scenes. How can you do this? Just go to Configure>Viewport Configuration and then set the values as shown.
04 Create a twilight feel
From the beginning the idea was to put the building into a twilit environment. After some experiments, I decided to use a VRayLight Dome with an EXR image created by my favourite and very innovative artist, Peter Guthrie. (1928 Dusk Sun)
05 Importing EXR files
To load the EXR into 3ds Max, create a VRayLight Dome and assign an instanced EXR image to the lighting texture map slot(1). When you’re importing an EXR image into Max, choose Real Pixel Float (32bit) from the Open EXR importer settings. Next set the mapping type to environment/spherical( and the Output of the EXR to 1. Change the VRayLight Multiplier to 1 too.
Tip: Before the final shot I use a small version of the EXR image to reduce memory usage and to gain fast draft results. Be sure that for the final renders you use the high-resolution image unless you want to lose your background details.
06 Rotate the EXR
To rotate the EXR you need to enter a U Offset value from 0-1, so to rotate 90 degrees you’d need to enter 0.25, 180 degrees you’d enter 0.5, 270 degrees 0.75, etc. You can also set the V value at this point if you desire to establish the horizon.
07 Wrap up the exterior lighting
Finding an appropriate horizontal position for your light can easily be done by assigning the same EXR image in your Material Editor to the viewport background just to show the desired position. If you’re using this workflow you must use the same EXR you used for the dome light because this new position will be automatically assigned to the light source
08 Interior lights
By populating the scene with lights, you need to take care with how you control your lights. Using different names is useful if you plan to have dozen of light sources. For this purpose I used Light Lister for V-Ray Advanced 1.50 developed by 3DZver; this can be found on . Most of the lights included in the scene are photometric lights used with custom IES files.
09 Render settings
During this stage of the project I had some serious problems with the main computer, so I decided to render on an older computer. That’s why I had to be very careful with the render settings to avoid crashing when rendering the higher-res images. It took me several tests to find a proper way to create a high-res image of 2,800 x 2,432px. To do this, I first rendered the images at a lower resolution (four times lower then the final output: 700 x 608px) and saved the Irradiance map pre passes plus Light cache map to use later. By using this maps, when you render your final image, you will skip the Irradiance and Light cache process and go straight to the render itself and, so, cut down render times
10 IRR map settings
I set the Min and Max rate to -3 and 0, respectively; this makes for a high-quality Irradiance map. If I were to render the final image with these settings the application would crash, but since I am rendering at a lower resolution just to save the Irr and Light cache maps it won’t take more than half an hour. After the Irr and Light cache maps are calculated I go back to the render settings and set the resolution to 2,800 x 2,432px
11 A little light reading
I also changed Single Frame to From File, and choose the saved Irradiance (vrmap) file and the Light cache (vrlmap) file. I reduced the Rate settings by 2 to give me a Min Rate of 5 and a Max rate of -2. More information on how to calculate these settings can be found in VRay – The Complete Guide by Francesco Legrenzi
12 Render elements
With V-Ray it’s possible to save all render elements into a single OpenEXR file, which eanbles you to open one tidy file in Photoshop with all the render elements as a separate layer for you to edit independently. Image:render elements.jpg
13 Postproduction
In my opinion, this is where the ‘magic’ happens. I have a set of adjustments that I add to most of my images during postprocessing. In Photoshop I first do some corrections with the Selective Color, Exposure and Curves tools. Then I start to play around with the render passes, mostly blending them with Soft Light or Screen blend modes
In for the long haul…
If you are the type of person who wants fast results, you might be disappointed since it can take many years to get good at what you do. If you are like me, it took me several years to discover what 3D is really about. The most inspiring thing for me is observing things around me. This can be from visiting museums, or walking around in towns or the wilderness.
Of course sometimes you need a little push, and that’s why I subscribed to the lectures at CG WORKSHOP. In those few weeks, I learned more than I would in a whole year just searching aimlessly around the internet for answers. This project could never be so succesfull without the help and advice of the staff at CG WORKSHOP and especially Pawel Podwojewski – so my thanks go to them!