Tips to make renders with a "professional" look

[Hires]

well, im not a professional user but i think that ligths play a great role for the final mood of a image, since im very newbiea in ligth placing is there somewhere someone that can tell us how he placed the lights in his profesisonal render? :D

[Aldaryn]

With 4 years of CG behind me, I don't wanna call my self a pro. Not even a good amateur... Just a wagabond spirit. :)

But something I've learned about lights.

The first thing: Never ever use white lights, even if you want to compose a "steril" look or some sort, you'll get along better with a blue tone. Use lights witch low stauration colors instead, this stands closer to the real world.
And use lots of lights. Some "key" ligths, and sveral other support lights with intensities just about 0,1 , 0,2...
This way a totally black area will look more dramatic, and separated from the rest. Also the support lights should cast extremely blurred shadows...

And as My gnadmother(was an art teacher) always told me:
"Light keeps the whole picture together, without light you won't see a thing..." and:

"The shadow is not a negative light, but the lack of light!"

I think this is a useful thought, and sould be remembered by all...

[Aldaryn]

Oh, I've found another thing:
"Geometric edges: Chamfer them all! "

And especially chamfer edges of objects with a bight specularred shader. This is most useful in animations, when the specular of a side "walks" to another side of the objects, during this movement, the specular will walk through the chamferd edge, and breaks a bit....

I've seen it in many pro renders, and adds a lot of realism in the "final tuch" stage...

[Ian Jones]

Aldaryn : Can you plz explain the walking specular thing a bit more...!?

[Aldaryn]

...I also need to work a litle bit on my English, so i figured it wold be better, to do an image explanation:

http://www.revai.hu/~mcdodee/upload/chamfer_demo001.jpg
All the images use the same light, and shader setup. (On the images on the right the light was moved closer to the glound)
The images on the left are almost identical in shading, but when the light is moved, the image above lost its "metallic" look, because we cant see any specular highlight...
When the edges get a little chamfer, the bigger normal divergence of the cubes let us see some specular even when the light is moved, and the sides don't get that much of a specular effedt.

Hope I was able to explain my piont in that. ;)

[neversong]

I'm not a professional...but

using anti-aliasing filters is could be also a tip, I think.

for example, I saw some TV animation using blend filter.

[Ian Jones]

aah yes.. I see. I do that already, it really is all in the reflections. nice explanation and materials!

[Ian Jones]

I forgot to mention that I have read about these types of 'internal silhouettes' (for lack of a better description) and the fact that apart from making the material look more metallic they also make the form much easier to read. Especially as you mentioned during animation when the light plays across the surface.

[plaguelord]

aldaryn, thanks for share those important details with us, the chamfer edged is a great detail.:thumbsup:

[Aldaryn]

Gee, thanks, I was happy to share my ideas...

By the way, I've found something, I wrote down several months ago:
I was wondering why my foliage looked oddly dark, I've tried to ceate some vegatation aroun my scene, trres, garss, flowers, but the grass and especially the trres looked too dark even in bright sunlight...
So I went outside to studie the trres in our garden. I was shocked to realize the obvius: It is all in the transluciency...

I've played some with translucient shaders, but it was a nightmare to carefully tweak it... Even the standard MAX raytraced transluciency (Not SSS) was too slow with that amont of foliage....
So I've took the "old" self illumination property, and droped a single Falloff map set to light/Shadow into it... And voilá it worked.

Sorry, if this is too oldie, or a really obvius thing...:

"Don't be afraid to use self illumination, not dramatically, but it can enhance the look and feeling of outdoor scenes! " - Just play a bit with the light/Shadow falloff. By this way, the exrta illumination created by self illumination wont bother the original "scene" illumination, but corrects the ambient.
(Also a same falloff map in the ambient slot would be suitable...)

Again sorry if it was "well known" or booring. :)

[I animate]

I've played some with translucient shaders, but it was a nightmare to carefully tweak it... Even the standard MAX raytraced transluciency (Not SSS) was too slow with that amont of foliage....

Would you please show us an example of this?

Thank you.

[jeb]

this is good thread.. often i imitate area lights by placing point lights in a form of a plane. like if the lights where the vertex of a geometry plane. its a cheap trick but it looks very nice, and in animation you wont even notice the diference with real area lights and this method.


also when you have a not so heavy scene you could use reflection instead of specular. in max i use raytrace material and add falloff to the reflection slot. i make a very narrow gradient in the falloff so it gives a wet look, old trick too but nice results.

that translucency shader doent give the desired results sometimes. i totally agree with the self illumination effect. it works very nice

[NRat]

Sometimes i use ambient light to make lights and shadows "soften"...

[Aldaryn]

I animate : I'll try to look up my files about that scene. It was a bit long time ago... :),...

Or I'll just do another one... ;)

By the way, jeb mentioned the reflection usage instead of specular highlights.
I've got a big problem with that: It only works with totally flat surfaces, or surfaces with only a small bump; cause' if you're not using any "adavanced" raytrace renderer, such as fR, Brazil..., you cant add smooth glossiness to the reflection, using a small, dense bump won't do, max's scanline can't sample it right.

I've experimented with this problem, and still I can't find any good solutions. Currently I'm using the combination of specular and reflection: In such "smaller scaled" scenes, into the center of every brighter object I put a light source with specular affection only. This way I can add an addittional specular highlight sorounding the raytraced reflection. But this can kkll CPU time, and the translation betveen not so round objects, and their specular seems to be odd....

Any good suggestions?
A solution would be to use a "specular map"... or something like that, I don't know really...
Anybody ever wrote such thing?

[Aldaryn]

Well, I've tried to look up the nature scenes of my, but all I've found was a preview image one of the background trees:

Tree ExtremeBeta image... (http://www.revai.hu/~mcdodee/upload/tree_nagyonbeta002.jpg)

The leaves were made with Shag: Hair, and a hair shader was applied to them, with a falloff mapped "fake" transluciency. The image shown above was renderer in less than a minute, and I think it still looks OK to be a background prop. (On the full image this tree was half this size...)

So, something about faking transluciency to save lots o time:
http://www.revai.hu/~mcdodee/upload/falloff.jpg

The idea of this image sequence is to demonstarte how you can add some extra realism, and still maintain a smooth, quick render.

Warning!: This method should be only used in big scales: Leaves, grass, vegetation. For focused transluciency, or a closeup of a tree, grass etc. use don't use this method, you'll get far more better results with the standard raytraced transluciency. And with leaves, grass you won't even encounter artifacts due to the raytrace engine needs to work only with flat surfaces.

So, some explanation to the image above:

The first image shows a shader without any transluciency at all.
The second image shows how "real" transluciency should look like, to cerate this, I've used Brazil R/S was shader.
On the third image, a falloff map was added to the self illumination slot of the shader, resulting in a much too bright "aura" around the sphere. The only match between the raytraced and this effect can be found close to the bottomn of the sphere. This falloff also adds extra illumination to the already illuminated areas, and this is not normal for transluciency. So we need to mask those areas...
So on the fourth image the type of the falloff was changed to light/shadow. So we only get the extra light on the shaded areas, and leave the lit areas out. This is getting better, but the center of the sphere looks overlit compared to the "raytraced" transluciency....
So on the last image another falloff map was added to create a fresnel mask, so pixels with normals facing the viewer are excluded form the faked effect.
As you can see, this is really close to the truly raytraced solution, and still, it's fast, extreme fast....

And to get the effect even more precise, you can add another falloff map eith light/shadow settings as an RGB multiply. If you set this map a bit blurred, and inverse colors of the other Light/Shadow falloff, you will exclude tarnsluciency from really dark areas, so the image still can keep the a healthy amount of contrast....

Yep, Thats all... Sorry again if it was booooring. ;)

And to add to the topic:
"Faloff maps are extremely useful! Experiment with small adjustments with multiply falloff map combinations in every aspect of shader property!"

[plaguelord]

Is not boring at all, that is a good advise. I agree with your tip, fallof are very powerful.

[conio]

Cool pics!

Aldaryn, could you maybe just post an image of your Brazil and Shader settings that you used in the second image here.

[zarkos]

I often use a simple trick. I'm making rear lights stronger than front one. It looks more pro-like.

[Ryno]

Taking into account that you are not using a Global Illumination solution like Brazil, one of the main things to consider is that light bounces off of surfaces. The biggest light-bouncing surface is the ground, which causes light to be reflected upward, so that the undersides of objects are illuminated. You can simulate this by placing low-intensity lights below the ground, facing upward. Try to slightly color the lights so that they match the ground color. This will give you a fast rendering solution that simulates bounce light, and keeps your models from having overly harsh shadowing on their undersides.

[SimonReeves]

nice one Aldaryn, some cool tips

I definetly agree with the coloured lights.
I'll try to add any tips if I can think of anything hehe

[EricChadwick]

An easy thing that softens a render, creating a professional photo-studio kind of look, is to apply a blurred copy of the render on top of itself, at a low %.

Try the different Layer blend modes in Photoshop, or your favorite video editing software.

Learned it from Andy Murdock who uses it a lot in his work...
http://www.lotsofrobots.com/

[NRat]

2posm
Good advice... i like the result... :beer:

[The Banned One]

Hi everyone!

Offtopic, but please read it! :)

Just to be honest: I'm actually Aldaryn.

So, you can see, I'm banned. For "soliciting warez". Man, I don't even know what it means exactly... :(

This is a bit offtopic, so please forgive me, but I feel currently a bit misfit, or a little unjustice.

If you have a second, please look at me last post, ant tell me, where the hack can "soliciting warez" or any other offending text be found in that. I'm curious to know. So please, look at it carefully, because I was banned after that post. And by the way, all my other postst contained summed 1 image, and some tips, and advices so far...

So, I don't really know how I offended the policy to be kicked out without a warning or a post removal....

Well, end of offtopic.

So, thanks for the thanks. :) Actually I've only got a stable internet access down here in nowhere recently, and my first stop was CGTalk to come. I really enjoy the people and topics here.
You rock!.... And I really want to chat, discuss about CG. It's a lifestyle... :)

About the Barzil RS settings on the second image: (And on all the images, just for a good sampling and GI...)
2 QMC bounces with 20rays, some fine AA. The images are only lit by an area and a skylight.
The shader on the second image is just a standard wax shader, with the thickness set to the diameter of the sphere, so the SSS comes out clearly.
Two maps, one to map the shallow color, and one to map the diffuse, both the same, the "grass closeup" texture...

I would be happy to post an image of the settings, or something, maybe a .max file, but I'm afraid I'll be banned again,and I really fear I wouldn't be able to come up with another good Nickname... :)

posm : Godd idea! By the way, have you tried the same process with the blurred layer set to a multiply mode? (still at low opacity) It really gives the image a deeper feeling. Like the color range would be wider...

May your god bless upon you all!

- Aldaryn

[veto]

hi, i'm pretty new to 3d and i have a question which fits into this thread.
i see this wip renders(picture) pretty often and i wonder how to set the lights and the shadows to achive a result like in the picture below. maybe somebody can help me out.

thx

http://www.upart2.de/mav/200251784714154.jpg

[plaguelord]

Aldaryn, what can I say, I dont understand why you have been banned...

veto, that image has GI, or Global Ilumination, you can achieve this effect without put any light in your scene. Just activate the Global Ilumation on max 5 o the Skylight on brazil r/s.

[The Banned One]

To plaguelord: Oh, Man!

Holy cow. I've figured it out!!! I figured out why I've been banned!....

Heck, you won't belive it! Here it comes, be sure to sit down, and relax:

As my signature I've chosen the following text:

"Life is the biggest game you'll ever experience, however, it seems to be shareware, and comes with a short and annoying time limit... If you know a crack or serial, plese let me know it!"
(or somethin' like that)

So, there it was! Just look at my posts (Aldaryn's... hehe...) this is wicked! It supposed to be a JOKE! A grotesque scentence, something really true about Life...
So the last piece of my signature, "Asking for a crack!" was deleted form my posts.
I know how hard it is to a moderator, and they can't read everything.... But this is totally rich. I'll try to talk to the moderators, to reactivate my account.... :)

Yep, this was it...

Back to the topic:
veto: To have GI calculations at lest one light is needed, or for example a HDRI environment setup... But if you're using an older version of max than 5.0, you can "fake" GI by putting carefully chosen, and well tweaked lights (usually with small intenses, and with strong clors) "simulating" light bouncing off from surfaces. This is a "less accurate" but quicker way to render. And a true "lightning art"... :)

I've found some other "How to make it look more realistic" notes written by little o' me back there long ago, but I'll try to post them as Aldaryn...

Wish me luck with the moderators... :)

[Erka2]

Why cgtalk admins ban Aldaryn? I dont see any "warez soliciting"... and u can at least make a warning to him.

[zarkos]

Bring back Aldaryn!!!!!:scream:

[veto]

thx guys, it works

http://www.upart2.de/mav/gb.jpg

[plaguelord]

Its very good to see this post helping people like veto.

aldaryn, I hope the admins understand that was a simple joke, (for me is obvious...) , and they reactivate you account.

[SimonReeves]

for your more generic gi render look

[looks quite good really]

add a slightly yellow light, with nice sharp shadows too the blue skylight

:thumbsup:

[Erka2]

Only really stupid man can ban such a great ppl for such a great signature, it looks like a clever joke, nothing more :surprised

[The Banned One]

Thanks for the sympathy guys!
Really cheard me up after this... :)

So after 3 e-mails to admins, a personal e-amil to a moderator and all compleatly without reply, I'm loosing hope. But this matters little...

This topic is getting better and better. :) So I'll try to add another idea into the collective mind:

It seems to me that it's a bit more professional to render in passes, not only you save rendertime, but the slight modification of the composition and color harmony is much more easier that way.
The "final tuch", the artistic hand among the digitally calculated pixels adds some great feeling to the final image. And this works even better with separate passes, where you have to combine (and you'll probably feel the need of some adjustments while compositing...) the different layers, play with alphas...
This even grants some extra controll and special FX to work with...

Sometimes, or more like "always" pure the rendered images carry the "sterility of math" by thei side. So some handy tutch in Photoshop, or other image manipulation software, (Or just print it out, and grab a pencil!) is always welcome!

[NRat]

Yeah, it is useful to add some grain.

[Aldaryn]

Graining an image can be really useful, and adding grain as a modificational layer over the image, such as multiply, or Photoshop's burn with an opacity of 40%-60% can twist the image a little bit as well.

Also IMO the extreme clear lines and shapes can produce a professional look.

[SimonReeves]

wahey you got your account back

this isnt mine btw, its something I picked up somewhere

http://www.simonreeves.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/postprocessing.jpg

[FabioMSilva]

for sunny days i council u to use a soft white/oranged yellow toned light, and not the soft-blue one.

[Aldaryn]

reeves1984 : Exactly the point of my words!...An image tells, while the text sometimes just talks... :))

By the way, this type of image manipulation creates an "idealistic effect", something you would expect form a painting, (even from dark and sad pictures, they've also got this "color bloom") maybe this is why it gives the "look of the pro"... :)

Have you ever noticed that sunlight on a bright day is really low on opacity, but it's still clearly visible because of the clear edges, and because of the clear edges it seem to be darker... Somehow... And that the little areas of the scene shielded from skylight seem really black due to the contrast with the other elements of the whole picture?

The Solid Snake : So IMO: ....but still leving the secondary lights (sky) blue, while the key light (sun) can be that colour...
orange sky gives again the "idealistic" feeling... Maybe cause' the dusklike athmosphere.

[Marcel]

USE REFERENCE MATERIAL AT ALL TIMES

For me this is the greatest tip to make good renders, wheter it is photorealistic or not. Use Google Imagesearch, use your eyes, just look around...

Also don't take critiques personally, use them to make your image better. 9 out of 10 times the critique makes sense, even if it is not coming from a god-like artist.

[Aldaryn]

Pretty big red thing ower there Marcel... :)

Sometimes it's frightening how unreal a scene can be compared to reality, and to the fact, it was "soooo damn realistic" when you worked on it...

You see what you believe... And this is one main root of "amature" images, without the "pro" look.

You've got your own imagenation world iside your mind, and you express yourself through it's sometimes wierd filters.

So, it is really helpful to use resource materil. Mostly whan you want to model "everyday" objects, you can come up with the most extravagant models without a good reference, so take some time, and pictures... :)
The camera is a useful gadget.

[me_aaeem]

i always use [unsharp mask] plugin in photoshop to get more crisp in the image. [levels], [brightness & contrast], [hue & saturation]...basically the tools for digital photography editting really works for me...

yeah...having references are great...it can train to give you "the eye" for better image quality...

having good sense of composition will help as well...

[sadghost]

why isn't this thread sticky yet :thumbsup: I'ved been looking for a thread like this for a while.. I don't have brazil,final stage so basic way to get good render results is great!! keepem comming guys specially with picture examples when ever possible!


Now my question :does the amount of light in a scene add to render time..probably yes so what about if some of those lights are dimmer then others?does max respect the amount of the light thus varies the render time?

[JayCMiller]

does the amount of light in a scene add to render time..probably yes so what about if some of those lights are dimmer then others?does max respect the amount of the light thus varies the render time?

for raytracers VRay, Mentalray ect. the amout of lights will affect render times, but limiting things like the amout of ray bounces will help with render times and not affect quality,mostly (depending you your scene).



Awesome to see you back Aldaryn, I think that they could have been a bit more courteous to someone who is helping out so much, guys like you make this the great place it is :)
(I think the moderators do a good job, so don't bite my head off:D)

[rodrigogua]

scripts and free plugins can make your workflow more efficient. i am currently using orionflame extensively and find it to be really useful. scriptspot.com has hundreds of categorized free scripts for public use

another thing is to observe other people's work, specially on wireframes, because it can give you a sense of topology or meshflow. also playing around with textures is important since it will be the last level of detail you can accomplish

[f97ao]

One tip if you get "blind" to your own picture is to mirror it. You will usually see the image like another viewer would. Often you can find good or bad things in it then. Often you realise that it's better than you thought!
/Andreas

[mister3d]

I think its a good idea to desaturate textures much,because photo is already lit when shot,so rgb multiplies one time by ral lighting and second-in max.
And quality of textures is very important,it can add up to 80 percent of realism.
And I think that theres a way to shift your attention not to cubes,but to details:you adjust yourself to pay 80 percent of attenton to model and texture small objects and details,not to big forms mainly.
And I think its a good idea not to neglect good textures and unwrappers to small objects too,not just procedural textures.

[erilaz]

One tip if you get "blind" to your own picture is to mirror it. You will usually see the image like another viewer would. Often you can find good or bad things in it then. Often you realise that it's better than you thought!
/Andreas

Totally agree. One of the most useful things i've ever learned.:)

[ARTillery]

use specular bloom..it's unvaluble to any scene..adds the depth of environment to your view.

[mahmoudcg]

hi guys, gr8 thread
what about lighting an animated object
i mean not just simple motion, but when objects move significant distances
like a racing car, or spacecraft ...falling objects
do we animate the lights with'em
or do we place lights far enough to encompass all the distance moved
when i place lights far away, i always get problems with shadows

[s2a-adamk]

Good topic - could be edited or started over and cleaned up. Also could be in the resource section.



Not gonna give away any studio2a secretes here but here are some tips:

My 3 golden rules:

1. Only model what you can see in the scene (don't waste time with extra details).
2. If it looks right it probably is.
3. Use (good) bitmap textures when possible.


Obviously lighting is key. It doesn’t matter how good your modeling and texturing are if you can’t light the scene. 3d software was made to reproduce real-world solutions, so if you are serious - you need to study how lighting and photography work. I recommend the following books:

Digital Lighting and Rendering (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1562059548/cadmonkeycom/) , Jeremy Birn, 2000

Essential CG Lighting Techniques (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0240516893/cadmonkeycom) , Darren Brooker, 2002

Don't understimate the power of high-quailty texture maps. Take a digital camera with you where ever you go. If anything catches your eye - shoot it. Also read:

Digital Texturing and Painting (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735709181/cadmonkeycom) , Owen Demers, 2001

Good Luck.

For more tips you can check my (other) website:www.cadmonkey.com (http://www.cadmonkey.com)

[stuh505]

I've only read the Digital Texturing & Painting book. This particular book I did not find to be helpful at all. It has great reviews, but as a self taught beginner, everything mentioned in this book I had already picked up myself within the first couple months of fooling around, so I was a bit disappointed.

[rightclick]

when your lighting a scene, varying your light intensities slightly will always give your scene a more realistic feel in a really fundamental way. :)

[mister3d]

[/size][/font] [font=Verdana][size=2]Digital Lighting and Rendering (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1562059548/cadmonkeycom/) , Jeremy Birn, 2000

This book was really helpful for me,nevertheless I have more than 15 years in design and art.

[CHRiTTeR]

Dont copy stylez!

I know its tempting, especially on a site like CGtalk. But make things as YOU see them and dont try to (re)create stuff like one of your fav artists does it.

No 2 persons see stuff the same way. Try to show ppl how YOU see things. It'll give that image you're unique style. Thats always good; that's something you'll always be the best at: your own style!

Use your eyes to study the real world.
Think:
1. What am I seeing?
2. What elements are making this sight special? What elements stand out in this image? What elements are important in this image?
3. How do these elements work? Why does that happen/look like this?
4. How can I use the available tools to recreate these elements so I can show others how I see this scene?

If u want to make photorealistic stuff -> get to know some science-stuff! Thats a must!
Wanna go cartoon -> Exagerate the important elements!

[superted27]

I thought i'd pop a few pictures in here just to see what you guys think and to get some solutions to improving my scenes. Maybe by looking at these some of you could suggest techniques that you know would improve the overall feel, rather than me trying all these different methods in here (though there are some good ones).

The first pic has 2 target direct lights coming in through the window for the sunlight and ive used a series of about 10 omni's to bounce the light around the room, each one reflecting the colours of the wall and floor with varying intensities.

The second is basically the same but with the colours and intensity died down and darkened and with less omni's.

Any suggestions to get a more proffesional look?

Also i need this same room but lit at night, with a lamp/light on the ceiling being the only light in the room. Any suggestions for tackling a night lit room as people only seem to talk about rooms lit by sunlight?

I hope this hasnt gone off track at all. I thought it might be good to have a direct example to see how different people would tackle this scene.

By the way this scene is for an animation im working on and im reasonably new to max so comments would be appreciated too, thanks guys!

[BartW]

i always use [unsharp mask] plugin in photoshop to get more crisp in the image. [levels], [brightness & contrast], [hue & saturation]...


Instead of Unsharp Mask, you shoud give the following a try: In Photoshop, copy your layer and go to Filters > Other > High Pass and set it to 1.0 pixels exactly.
Now just adjust your new layer's blend mode to vivid light or soft light or hard light and create a mask to cover up the parts that aren't needed (or just erase them).
Works best if you use soft light and copy the layer multiple times so you can work the sharpness up where you need it, without destroying other parts of your image.

Gives more control on your final renders than unsharp mask.

Hope it's usefull :)

[BartW]

Dont copy stylez!

I know its tempting, especially on a site like CGtalk. But make things as YOU see them and dont try to (re)create stuff like one of your fav artists does it.


I don't agree with you at all ! :) If you want to recreate reality, yes, reality itself is your best reference, BUT looking and studying other people's work can be invaluable too. Just make sure you're looking at good examples and try to find out why and how someone did something.
What that could learn you is the workflow of a pro user. This might give you an idea what problems to expect and how to anticipate on them. Most pro's love to answer your questions about their work, usually because they understand how important it is to share knowledge.

The more work you do, the more detached you will become from your 'examples' and develop your own style.

[BartW]

I thought i'd pop a few pictures in here just to see what you guys think and to get some solutions to improving my scenes. Maybe by looking at these some of you could suggest techniques that you know would improve the overall feel, rather than me trying all these different methods in here (though there are some good ones).


I really love your work - looks very pro already as far as I'm able to judge :)
Looking at them there are a few things that I notice, but these are just my thoughts, it's not critique or anything negative.

About the daylight render:
I noticed there isn't much reflected light inside the room, while there are a lot of objects that are very reflective and/or would bounce light well enough. The white part of the bed catches full sunlight, but a white painted wood would usually reflect the light more into the room I think. Also the parts underneath the window should catch some very small hints of reflected light.

But on the other hand, if you want one clear, bright sunlight, you could also decrease the reflective objects (like the floor) and make the unlit areas a little darker to create a better contrast. Because in this case, anything that is directly opposite to the sunlight would create a dark silhouette. Right now it seems a little 'in between' if you know what I mean :)

About the night render:
The light source and the moon don't match (obviously). To make it a little more interesting you could create the suggestion of artificial (street) lights with slights hints of a different color. Imagine that houses, cars, street lights all emit light and your room at night catches all the lights (various intensities, but it still catches it).
I think it would make it look a little more interesting - right now there is one clearly identifyable light source.

Another idea: how about adding some very small light sources at night for electronics, toys or a night light
And how about adding a little extra to the sky outside ? Some other objects would create a little more sense of scale/height to the room itself. You really have to be in a high building to get a view like that. (just clouds).

I hope I don't sound too negative - these are just some 'rough' thoughts I had when looking at the renders.
Quality is very good already imo! Pixar-quality :)

[superted27]

Thanks alot. That doesnt sound negative at all. I wouldnt have posted them if i wanted you to say there perfect.

I'll have a little play around. In the day time room im only bouncing light of the walls and floor so i'll bring in some different colours from the furniture and tables and see if i can get something a little more interesting.

As for the outside scene, i'll try and bring more light in from outside like maybe some lamp posts and cars like you said and get some more colours involved. I like the idea of the night light too. Maybe one of those little glow plugs will make it a bit more interesting.

Thanks alot for your help Bart, i'll see what i can come up with.

Any other suggestions out there....

[BartW]

Thanks alot. That doesnt sound negative at all. I wouldnt have posted them if i wanted you to say there perfect.

Good, cause the last thing I want to do is take away the fun :)
I was just trying to imagine off the top of my hat what the room in Pixar's Monsters Inc looked like. It's a bit like your work and as far as I can remember there weren't many objects or details inside the kid's room.

But I like to say that both renders do look realistic and at the same time very playful, with those drawings and other little objects. Not at all static and very believable :)

[CHRiTTeR]

I don't agree with you at all ! :) If you want to recreate reality, yes, reality itself is your best reference, BUT looking and studying other people's work can be invaluable too. Just make sure you're looking at good examples and try to find out why and how someone did something.
What that could learn you is the workflow of a pro user. This might give you an idea what problems to expect and how to anticipate on them. Most pro's love to answer your questions about their work, usually because they understand how important it is to share knowledge.

The more work you do, the more detached you will become from your 'examples' and develop your own style.

We're not talking about the workflow here, just about the render. I agree you can learn alot from looking to other artists their work, but there's a limit in how far u should go with that and I hate ppl who copy unique ideas and styles!!

[BartW]

We're not talking about the workflow here, just about the render. I agree you can learn alot from looking to other artists their work, but there's a limit in how far u should go with that and I hate ppl who copy unique ideas and styles!!

Ah yeah indeed, you are absolutely right about that :) Sorry for misunderstanding your post.

On the other hand, it's better to make a good copy than a bad original, as the saying goes ;)

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