SU>Maxwell Renders
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Wow guys you've made me feel special today!
I'll try and answer all these questions! Ok:
Firstly yeah the first one came out a bit weird in post processing in PS actually I did that on my laptop and actually find that hard because of the reflective screen - half of the time I find myself trying to edit out the big ugly face that shows over everything I model and render. Its not until I look at it on the desktop monitor that I realise hwo strange sme things look!
Rcossoli:
Thanks mate! I learnt some tricks from the maxwell forums in regards to pools and expanded on this to get better results.
Gaganraj:
I agree mate some peeps would be nice - I always get just that bit troubled using too much (actually I haven't used any i guess - hmm?) for me often they can tend to steal the show!
Remus:
Yeah the lights in the first just didn't come out right again due to my PS work on the lappy! Hate that! Upon export from SU to maxwell I always export the material ID image as well - this image just uses single colours for each material in scene and allows for quick masking and image editing of the render in PS with regards to the materials - I made the dumb mistake of increasing the contrast of that masked by the glass which has increased the lighting.
And yep your right the poly count would make you cringe! Good scene and layer management has been a must as all those little path side plants are polys not clips! Actually the shrubs on the right are were an interesting exercise they are clipped but projection mapped on to a severly sandboxed surface to give them depth and far better response to sun and shadows - nice little technique I developed and want to work on pushing some more!
Oh and the roof tiles and cladding all poly too - no bump or displacement! So yep the poly count HIGH!
Steelers:
Thanks mate for dropping in for some feedback! I must say when I look at any documentation on Vray I just get blown away by the depth of learning required - I readlly do find maxwell just a set and shoot camera application. I pretty much just model my scene in SU > set the camera and take a photo! The beauty with maxwell is the multi-light feature which allows you to change your lighting and camera settings on the fly either during or on completion of the rendering. Actually once the render is completed if you save the render file (MXI) you can open it at any time and make these adjustments.
This was particularly useful recently - my client wanted to add a new design to their project home range with the same frontage as a previous version. To make the designs look disimilar I opened previous MXI and changed the lighing to more of a night shot and used the Material ID image to mask the materials in PS > adjusted the grey theme to a warmer look and presto new rendering.
The multilight feature is most useful in situation like your bathroom where you could in just seconds reduce the brightness of your recessed lighting and save the image!
HDRI in maxwell is great though it burns out the shadows a bit if you don't utilise physical sky with it. though for now you unfortunately cant adjust the mix of these two in the multilight feature however there has been many users request this functionality so I'm sure the developers will respond.
Marked001:
Good to hear from you mate! I must say I avoid over saturated images as I feel they often tend to be a bit unrealistic. My first image in this post I feels suffers a bit from this!
Chango:
Mate I've got two machines (desktop and lappy) both dual core and 1g and 2g ram. Though I don't network render. I actually do all the setup on the desktop then "pack and go" the maxwell file to the laptop and let it run overnight. So I don't have any cranking machines as you can see so the processing takes a while, though again with maxwell that is what I find nice - the machines might be doing some work but at least I have time for a beer (well champaigne actually - hmmm!) instead of spending my time with tons of scene settings.
Tinanne:
Thank You! The background trees are actually clip maps generated quickly from Onyx and added post pro in PS. The foreground trees in the third image are remodelled from the Xfrog free ash I think it was - imported into SU much of the foliage erased and the leaf maps altered. I placed the trees in Maxwell studio (the stand alone scene editor) as the face count just blew SU out the window.
I normally count on the use of clipped trees hidden from the camera for window reflections and shadow cast. This is a simple function in SU using the maxwell export plugin. Actually it's funny in SU just before I export I turn the layer on and these tree billboards actually hide the model from the camera so you just have the back of the billboard in view but they dont show in the render but cast reflections and shadow - very cool!
Juan's entertainment centre (fourth image) was a real fun one! His model was messy (great designer / terrible modeller) I added a thickness to his faces and used a "cheap plexiglass" material from the MXM gallery (maxwell material gallery) for this. The model was scaled way down so it actually performs as an actual model when photographed with maxwell (correct depth of field). The people were all 3d low poly models painted with a shinny grey plastic.
The model was rendered and image edited in PS with the sky being replaced to grey it up and neutralise, and the coloured uplighters added using the lights filter in PS also. I actually changed these a few times and exported new images to compile an animated gif to demonstrate how Juan's idea of lighting sweeping across the sail would change the scene. It actually came out nice!!
I take on board your suggestions regarding the lighting of the interiors in the first images to warm them up a bit! Thanks!
Orgelf:
Thanks mate as I said I really had fun rendering that project for Juan, I couldn't help but spin around and run render after render - I think I did about 15 in total given it was so much fun! One of the things I like about thes types of model renders is that they really suit SU as you can really cut down on the detail but still get a great result.
Brodie:
Mate my workflow from SU to maxwell is possibly a lot different to most! I find the biggest problem for me using SU isn't poly count as I utilise good scene and layers management. Maps are what really drive me mad given any time you want to use the paint bucket the material browser opens and if using big maps that is required for good renders it can take forever.
I overcome this by opening the map firstly in PS and using the "save for web" function mainatin the image size but reduce the quality way down and often make it B&W (this actually helps a lot to get more accurate texture placement in SU). You willsee from the brickwork in the first images I'm pretty anal about texture placement. Obviously I use full resolution maps in the MXM!
In australia luckily we almost always use the same brick size so then what I do is just paint the faces with the same map and where I want varied face brick colours or even bagged brick I create a new material and add colour to the map with SU material editior (I name these materials Garage walls, living rooms walls, fin walls etc). Then when finished modelling and texturing I just go through the SU material list and indiviually link each material to an MXM.
What I should add is that because I create all my own maps my brick and tile library are all made from the same base map that way I can very quickly change the material selection just by relinking the SU material to an alternative MXM. This has been a goodsent on a recent project (top images) where I can actually have the client sit with me and export quick test renders (low res and just run for 5 minutes) In an hour I can do about 8 alternative material tests with them! I keep all the light, internals, scene surrounds and landscaping layers turned off for this!
And the other thing I do is only model what I need to - all these scenes are just a few boxes for the facades. In fact even the tiled roofs are just a single side (the tiles are are modelled though) as I just turn these on before export it doesn't slow SU down but cuts out the drag on rendering if I relied on displacement to get the detail. I also use scene management to select wireframe before turning on all layers and then export!
Christ I've written a lot sorry! But hopefully someone learns something from it or someone can shed light on any tips they have for better workflow!
Thanks all! Richard
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besides the excellent rendering, compliments for your architectural style.
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Richard,
Great renderings, what else to say, You really are a SU-Maxwell Guru.
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Richard, thanks for the detailed novel
I did indeed learn quite a lot. have to have a go with onyx - your trees look awesome.
and I am getting tempted to try out the new Maxwell release...
cheers,
Jakob
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Hi Richard, its about time you got busy over here!
Really glad to see your usual excellent work on display,
keep it coming mate
Mike
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Hi richard,
I didn't have time to read the full thread yet(but will do so), but I just drop in to say those images are really good.
And indeed, you are the SU-Maxwell master. Thanks for sharing your work. -
Thanks again guys!
Must say you could just read the last few paragraphs of my lengthy reply - addressing Brodie's request for work flow, has a few tips!
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Oh my god Richard so verynice rendering .Maxwell 1.7 right? It very impression to me
also I feel noiselessly in the Impression image .I think you can add some people or some movement life for your work to fell dynamic for perfect and I Think your image want colour contrast for more.
whether or no I must follow up your work and hope you give comment for me in next time.
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Richard
These are fantastic renders, I have never used Maxwell and probably will not as the pricing and render times are a little high for my needs, having said that the setup times are on the other hand very fast.
I think you have the art of foliage, your trees, shrubs and grasses always look so realistic, however the third image seems to lack your high detail trees as the ones you used look a little flat and takes away from an otherwise fantastic single source light render.
The HDRI image (first) has an awesome ambience to it, a suburban morning or dusk, with subtle shadows from a nearby tree on the lawn, the erratically positioned mondo grass in the pea gravel beds.
The second image of the same house has a very clean perfect day feel to it, great reflections on the glass, however I think the specular reflection on the bricks near entrance may be a tad too much.Very nice to see some more of your work, there are a few really talented artists on this forum and you are certainly one of them that inspires me to up my game... thanks.
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Really great renders..!!
Lots of details in the scenes...
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Excellent work, Richard. Now I am very tempted to try Maxwell.
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Fewdavid:
Funny how we all have a different perspective on colour contrast and saturation, I posted the opposite to your post earlier this week with the suggestion to desaturate the images a little.
That said it is always had to know or to be accurate with that - balancing your light, sky and colour is really what I find the hardest. Maxwell does a pretty good job at judging these and I do up the saturation just a little from that output. oh and all rendered with version 1.5.
And yes as others have said and I agree people and movement would be an improvement!
Pete (solo):
Warm words mate, thanks! Yeah those trees in the third image are a bit of a put off! As mentioned earlier they were remodelled from the xfrog public free one. I tried to trim them back to look younger and to screen less but maybe too much. I rendered this prior to playing with onyx 3d trees. I might go back and redo this image for keepsake later with Onyx trees and see if I can improve it.
In regards to grass, I've played a lot to get that right - with maxwell you can build some very complex multi layered materials that allow you to put more than one bump map - so I use one for the grass blades and one to gain a more subtle bump to the lawn.
Mate as you suggested the render times with Maxwell are an issue but the simplicity of workflow and quality that can be gain from the less techno like myself is amazing!
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Given the response I thought I would load up a few more images to this gallery!
To show off just how good maxwell materials and camera performs before you add landscaping (which for me I feel lets down most renderings) Material test for the earlier townhouse post:
One of my first renderings with maxwell 1.1 and one of my favourite design projects so far - LOFT:
The sheer beauty of Maxwell's MultiLight feature:
A recent design project that I don't care for much given the clients want for too many material variations Maxwell V1.5:
A Material test for leather on this SPACE chair:
And although rendered with Artlantis R during beta testing in the days I had the patience to play with settings for hours and hours on end - why people persevere to that end is beyond me! But again one of my favourite design projects - THE PODIUM (named well before TBD created the renderer by the same name!:
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Hey Richard when I see your more picture in this post I notice some window Is open some window close.
You are big creatman and cherish in you work.can I give you're my idol in render in maxwell
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@fewdavid said:
Hey Richard when I see your more picture in this post I notice some window Is open some window close.
You are big creatman and cherish in you work.can I give you're my idol in render in maxwell
Hey thanks mate! Yeah I like to open a few windows (gets hot here too sometimes!) and I also pull up or leave down blinds, turm some lights on and some off! I think this all adds to gain some realism!
Must say I just checked out Silver-Shadow's Eye candy post - Now I feel like an amature!
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Excellent stuff, Richard.
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@rv1974 said:
@richard said:
...The background trees are actually clip maps generated quickly from Onyx and added post pro in PS...
I played with onyxtree a bit.It doesn't allow adding textures in studio itself only in 3D packages. Am I wrong?
Mate I've had no issues mapping the leaves from Onyx in maxwell studio - I exported as OBJ (this could make a difference!)!
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Beautiful sunset Richard! two thumbs up.
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Great work, Richard
I must say, I love the soft ambiance of your work, very easy on the eye
Inspirational!!!
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