Lobby - WIP

Stinkie

stinkie.. i usually do just use alot of the mxm's from the gallery out of laziness time constraints..but for this one, the stone was pretty specific.. so had to make my own.. my lazy way of doing that is downloading a similar material.. and using the settings, but changing the reflectance map, bump map, etc... mostly b/c i dont usually understand all of that other stuff

lol. Yeah, same approach here. Works pretty well, though.

@marked001 said:

yeah, when i exported the 2 point.. it totally changed my viewpoint.. havent been using studio b/c my components get rotated all wacky...hopefully this new plugin today addresses this..

Nasty bug, that one. Unworthy of such an expensive app. Unchecking "instances" in the export options usually helps (that is, unless you're running Mac OS). There's another (less RAM hungry) way too: explode components you rotated in SU, and make new components out of them. Hope NL gets this one sorted fast!

@marked001 said:

hopefully, i'll get some time to mess with the shift lens on an upcoming project dave...or maybe biebel can since he's always playing around..then he can tell me how to do it lol

B?

Edit: 1.7 is out! New plugin too:

SketchUp plug-in for Maxwell Render 1.7
Improvements and fixes
• Proxy objects implemented. Proxy objects allow users to replace low polygonal versions of individual SketchUp components (which are used for easier work in SketchUp) by higher polygonal versions of the components when exporting to Maxwell Render.
• Camera parameters are now stored per SketchUp page. Previously there was just a single entry for all SketchUp pages.
• The plug-in UI has been adapted to integrate the new Physical Sky parameters.
• Shadow channel was added to the list of channels to export.
• Fix: wrong positioning of flipped objects in Maxwell Studio.
• Fix: crash when instancing components with no 3D geometry.

marked001

well..despite that last image being the 'final'... they came back with more changes.. despite seeing like 5 progress images.. and the things they want to change are the wood and the actual view..two things that have been the same all along! such a pain.. anywho, i figured out the shift lens...which is pretty cool.. i 'think' i'm still getting flipped components in studio though i was so all over the place rushing to fix this... i dont even know.. really want to try out the proxies.. i'm using 1.7 now, but didnt even look at the improvements to the plugin..duh..

here is a 5 minute test.. cheffey is hooking me up and running the new 'final' for me on his network... i need my one and only pc to work all weekend

Stinkie

Much better already. Care to share your knowledge on the esoteric art of camera shifting?

I did a few tests, and I'm not getting any flipped components anymore. So far. The new sky system is pretty impressive!

marked001

the lens shift was pretty trial and error.. i did it in studio, so not sure how it works in the plugin.. but you just throw in some numbers and it alters the perspective...reset the viewpoint and keep going until the lines are vertical.. something like that..haha..

here is what i came up with.. this rendered for 18 hours and hit SL14..something was def messing up my last file.. 24 hours and it barely broke SL12 i think..

kwistenbiebel

The image is a bit CG, but nice.
I didn't know Maxwells shift lens was that hard to control.
In Vray you set a value for shift lens (0.1 or 0.2 does the trick most of the time) and it will correct the perspective, but it's also a trial and error to get it completely parallel.

chavinskee

much easier workflow for me is to use transformation tool in photoshop and skew or distort the image til it appears "vertical". just my 2 cents worth

Durant Hapke

Chavinkee blast oven,

This is some Jack bird action wood... Like the wood looks very real...

I would buff that action with some honey butter.

Bring it, bring the mass.

Durant "fire in the bucket" Hapke

marked001

@kwistenbiebel said:

The image is a bit CG, but nice.
I didn't know Maxwells shift lens was that hard to control.
In Vray you set a value for shift lens (0.1 or 0.2 does the trick most of the time) and it will correct the perspective, but it's also a trial and error to get it completely parallel.

awwww... fine.. haha..the people definitely dont help the realism..i need to invest in some high poly peoples..

i might have exagerrated a bit.. its pretty much the same thing.. just that everytime you change the value, your viewpoint changes..

Stinkie

The new one's surely an improvement. Might be good to turn on ML and tweak the lighting when the rendering's done. Looks a tad "over lit" now. Although, come to think of it, lots of light may be better to sell a design, as less light produces a moodier feel. Dunno ... that's your area of expertise!

kwistenbiebel

I think the people aren't the thing that made me use the word CG.

You are using a lot of indirect light which as a consequence won't give you distinct shadows.
Actually,it has nothing to do with being CG, it's about the architect having chosen the light fixtures .

Same thing happens in a lot of office buildings, where architects choose indirect light fixtures and very little directional light. Very good for working (homogeneous spread light on PC screens etc..), but it flattens out the mood . Sometimes even a real photograph of certain office spaces can look 'CG' to me as the lighting is unnaturally diffuse.

Don't get me wrong here: the image looks good but I can't help thinking the half baked version looked more 'real'.

Leveling the light in Photoshop and enhancing the midtone contrast can give it a different look and can give it the appearance that the light produces more shadows.
I hope you don't mind me tangling with your image in Photoshop(I can take it off if you like):

marked001

no no.. tangle away..haha.. i'm constantly in need of assistance...lol.. it also doesnt help that i tend to oversaturate everything in pshop.. and that neither of my monitors are calibrated..so god knows what it looks like on everyone else's monitors..

totally agree wtih both you and anssi about the indirect light..there's a hell of alot of it.. unfortunately, have to work with what you're given, right? haha..

thanks for the comments.. always appreciated..

kwistenbiebel

Ah yes...monitor calibration.
I also should buy a Spider (calibration hardware) to hang on my monitor, but these things cost an arm and a leg. It's on my wish list. I know Solo uses one.

marked001

one of my friends has one and i'm always supposed to grab it when i'm up in nyc.. but always forget.. i'm tying a ribbon on my finger next weekend!