Residential Pool 2

[photoman]

Hello! Once again it has been a while since I have posted a new project.

 

This one is more of a sketch. The idea came when I was daydreaming in class .

 

Here is where I am at:

I am using a z-buffed kleig as the sun light, AO for the indirect lighting, and a few fill lights here and there.

Notice the wavyness in the shadows, thats from low z-buffer map resolution.

 

I marked up what I plan to do now:

 

Photoman

[TheSpleen]

wonderful use of shadows!

[robcat2075]

I like the cantilevered steps. Are they clear or just reflective?

 

Probably a code violation, though.

[photoman]

I like the cantilevered steps. Are they clear or just reflective?

 

Probably a code violation, though.

 

They are very cliché, also they are 100% reflective, I may experiment with them being glass. Also since there is no handrail it is illegal, does not pass ADA.

 

Photoman

[Xtaz]

Nice project ....Did you try radiosity ?

[MattWBradbury]

Radiosity would be a good choice over AO, but using z-buffered shadows is kind of a no-no with that, and I assume you're going for speedy renders for now. Those reflective stairs could look a lot more realistic if you turn on some soft reflections and get their specular size way up. After a while, you get something that looks a lot like brushed metal.

[photoman]

Nice project ....Did you try radiosity ?

 

Generally I like to save radiosity for indoor scenes, I find it more of a hassle sometimes when using it outdoors (I constantly adjust radiance values everywhere). BUT I may experiment with it later.

 

My render times are about 18minutes a pass at 1200x675 16pass. The IOR on the water with the bump map really adds to the render time.

 

@MattWBradbury

How do you set an individual material to have soft reflections? I like the sharp ones on the water. Also I may experiment with the steps being glass.

 

 

Thanks for the crits!

 

Photoman

[photoman]

Here is a quick radiosity run:

100,000 photons

It was taking an hour a pass at 1000x665 5pass so I canceled it at its 3rd pass to get more work done.

 

I am currently tinkering with other things as well.

 

Photoman

[MattWBradbury]

It's looking better, and much brighter too.

 

To use soft reflections, turn on Soft Reflections in the rendering options window (it's inside of reflections), make sure your surface has some reflectivity, and change the specular size to make the reflection more or less blurry (0% being like a mirror, and 10,000% being like brushed metal). You might want to play around with those settings before you do any long renders. I believe the blurriness of the reflections is exponential, so 10% will be twice as blurry as 1%, and 100% will be twice as blurry as 10%, and so on.

[photoman]

It's looking better, and much brighter too.

 

To use soft reflections, turn on Soft Reflections in the rendering options window (it's inside of reflections), make sure your surface has some reflectivity, and change the specular size to make the reflection more or less blurry (0% being like a mirror, and 10,000% being like brushed metal). You might want to play around with those settings before you do any long renders. I believe the blurriness of the reflections is exponential, so 10% will be twice as blurry as 1%, and 100% will be twice as blurry as 10%, and so on.

 

Wow I never knew that, I had always thought blurred reflections was a mass override for all reflections in the scene, interesting. Thanks!

 

I have experimented with photon counts ranging from 25,000 to 1,000,000. Besides render times and lighting accuracy is there any reason to have more photons?

 

Photoman

[John Bigboote]

It was taking an hour a pass at 1000x665 5pass so I canceled it at its 3rd pass to get more work done.

Photoman

 

An hour per pass for a still image...? Thats not bad at all. My motto... program all day- render all night. Here it's the weekend and I have 3 A:M instances toiling away at sequences at 9 passes for 45 second scenes (Rack 'em Up vid) and most-likely I'll go in Monday morning to have a look...see something I don't like and delete it all. When your computer is sitting idle it may as well be rendering images in A:M!

[MattWBradbury]

The ammount of photons you need for a simple model should be low, but that doesn't mean you can't add more to make the radiosity calculations more accurate. The most important step is to get the sample size correct. In order to get it just right, do quick renders of your radosity without Final Gathering turned on. Increase your sample size incrementally (usually by 100), until you stop seeing any change in the shading. That's usually a good sample size to work with, but I find that once I hit that point, dividing the sample size by 2 gives me better results once I turn final gathering back on.

[photoman]

The ammount of photons you need for a simple model should be low, but that doesn't mean you can't add more to make the radiosity calculations more accurate. The most important step is to get the sample size correct. In order to get it just right, do quick renders of your radosity without Final Gathering turned on. Increase your sample size incrementally (usually by 100), until you stop seeing any change in the shading. That's usually a good sample size to work with, but I find that once I hit that point, dividing the sample size by 2 gives me better results once I turn final gathering back on.

 

That what I usually do, I had the radiosity plugin with v13 but Ive been too lazy to install it with v14. Right now I am using 100,000 photons, photon sample size is 5,000. It works with 1,000,000 photons, size 500 and 25,000 photons size 20,000. The only difference I can see is accuracy, is there a render hit with more photons?

 

Also here are some photonmapped shots:

 

 

I have renders rendering right now with final gathering on, 1hour passes at 3x3pass 1000x665.

 

Photoman

[brainmuffin]

It looks like a very relaxing place for a swim, but not a good place to get a tan. Also, for some reason, I can't look at the upper deck without seeing a giant brushed aluminum gas bbq grill, the kind they have at home depot for $1,400.00 and some fancy patio furniture. Not suggesting you put it in there, just saying if I could afford to live there, that's where I'd put that stuff.

 

It's an awesome pool!

[pixelplucker]

Nice render... personally I would turn that into a salmon farm and toss a couple smoke houses in the back.

[MattWBradbury]

Some of the scenes look pretty dark, so you might want to add some gamma correction to your images. Render a small image (320x240 would do) as an EXR and use the A:M Compositor to find the exact gamma that looks best, and then apply that to your renders. The reason for not rendering everything with EXRs is because you have a lot of the sky visible, and EXRs tend to make all of those sky pixels black. If you put in a sky box, then you could use EXR without worrying about getting a solid black sky.

[robcat2075]

The reason for not rendering everything with EXRs is because you have a lot of the sky visible, and EXRs tend to make all of those sky pixels black. If you put in a sky box, then you could use EXR without worrying about getting a solid black sky.

 

That's because an alpha channel is rendered. If turning alpha OFF in the render settings doesn't stop EXR from rendering an alpha channel, it could be blanked in Photoshop.

[photoman]

Some of the scenes look pretty dark, so you might want to add some gamma correction to your images. Render a small image (320x240 would do) as an EXR and use the A:M Compositor to find the exact gamma that looks best, and then apply that to your renders. The reason for not rendering everything with EXRs is because you have a lot of the sky visible, and EXRs tend to make all of those sky pixels black. If you put in a sky box, then you could use EXR without worrying about getting a solid black sky.

 

Its kinda funny actually, I am working on a MacBook right now and according the LCD gamma everything looks fine, but I know it is too dark, what I will do is gamma correct in photoshop on my PC when I am done.

 

Also I am using a skymap/skydome for the sky, also I have alpha channel turned off as well.

 

Photoman

[MattWBradbury]

I do see the skybox now. The sky is a gradient instead of one solid color. I have found that laptops, and LCD screens aren't that great for getting the right gamma settings, especially since the image can change dramatically depending on which angle you are viewing the screen; this is one of the main reasons I still have a CRT monitor (that and it makes gaming a lot easier on the eyes).

 

I've tried several methods to get EXRs to render the background color, but every time it all turns black. Usually I do add the sky back in in photoshop.

[robcat2075]

I've tried several methods to get EXRs to render the background color, but every time it all turns black. Usually I do add the sky back in in photoshop.

 

Yup, your right, it's actually putting black in the RGB channels so no amount of alpha erasing will solve that. I'm gonna need to paint myself some skies for my EXR renders now.

[MattWBradbury]

Yes, and what's more of a problem is the pixels on the boarder of your geometry will take some of the color from the background sky. It might be best just to set the background to something strange like neon green and just do a completely green screening in post processing; that, or I guess we could use sky boxes

[photoman]

Yes, and what's more of a problem is the pixels on the boarder of your geometry will take some of the color from the background sky. It might be best just to set the background to something strange like neon green and just do a completely green screening in post processing; that, or I guess we could use sky boxes

 

Im not actually having many problems with the sky being black.

 

I have started the final render now.

 

1600x900px 3x3pass, 100,000 photons (i could have done 1,000,000 or 25,000 but 100k was the middle ground) final gathering at 50.

 

According to A:M it should take about 27 hours since each pass is just shy of 3 hours, also ignore the giant string of random numbers where the time is, its a glitch that happens occasionally.

 

Thanks for the crits!

 

Photoman

[HomeSlice]

With those render times, I sure hope you are rendering with Light Buffers.

[photoman]

With those render times, I sure hope you are rendering with Light Buffers.

 

I am rendering with every buffer on except alpha and shadow.

 

I take the finished render into aftereffects I run a script which separates each buffer into a layer and I then export that frame as a multilayer PSD which I edit in photoshop.

 

Photoman

[HomeSlice]

Great workflow! One thing I remember when A:M Composite first came out is that in order to adjust light colors, the light has to be something other than pure white or pure black. Very light gray will do. Not sure if that still applies though...

[photoman]

27 hours later.....

 

Render finished!

Despite crippling my computer for the past day or so the render has made it through the finish!

 

I have been playing with it in After FX and photoshop. I guess your right Matt I seem to be getting black skys when I load up the buffers and the reflections from the sky are all gone . But in the main RGB buffer everything is fine.... hmmm....

 

Anyway I brought the straight EXR into photoshop and did some adjusting, dodging, and burning. Converted to a 8-bit rgb jpeg for the web too, though the 32-bit version looks a lot better .

 

Please critic the gamma, tell me if it looks right please!

 

 

Photoman

[MattWBradbury]

You're inspiring me to try for another radiosity scene.

 

It's looking very nice, though I think that towel may be a bit too blue.