Render texture colors
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I have started to render my SU drawings, and have a great deal of trouble getting a resonable balance of material colors in the process. I can get close enough in SU, but when I render it is a hit or miss process. It is more of a problem with illustrating interiors then exterior views because of balancing natural, and artificial lighting. Perhaps its the controls of the software I use, but how do others handle this? Is it just expierence? Thanks
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To me it has always seemed to be a lot of experiment and eventually collecting experience.
When modelling in SU, it is obvious what you are doing; the model is right in front of your eyes gradually evolving. With renders however, it's always a trial and error experiment (not only with materials but scene setup, lighting, environment etc.) until you have enough experience that you can "predict" what the final result will be already when setting things up.
Note that ME saying this and I am not very proficient at rendering at all - but at least you get the opinion of a "similarly beginner"
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Hi Gai, (sorry if that is not your nick name?) I only have experience with one renderer, if you have to match a real world color, and use a different renderer, will the results be very different?
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That's why clay rendering is so popular!
Yep, it's like Gaieus says, a trial and error experiment.
My error is that I tend to achieve the perfection inside the rendering program, while skilled people uses a lot of postproduction: it's quicker.
In other words, don't waste time in fine-tuning your materials inside the rendering program and correct your final image with a good editor like Photoshop.
When you find the correct light, most of the work is done.
/matteo
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@honoluludesktop said:
...I only have experience with one renderer, if you have to match a real world color, and use a different renderer, will the results be very different?
I guess that while the rendering app will display that particular colour "to the tracing rays" the same way, the way it handles ray tracing (and additional lights/reflections etc.) may considerably modify the final result.
But again; I'm just thinking loud with little experience.
@Matteo: I have even less experience in Post-processing so I DO tend to try (or at least wish) to achieve what I like right from the render engine
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Hmmm... I previous used post processing to adjust the overall render, but havent had much success with specific elements within a render (say the wood cabinet). I will give post processing another hard look. Thanks for the direction.
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well, if it's just a matter of color, post-processing is the right way: there are lots and lots of tutorials on the web and the learning curve is not too steep. Once you learned, you can edit your image in real time, and that's good. No more waiting for the rendering engine to complete it's task.
Besides all hue and gamma adjustments that you can do, I've found very useful the Optikverve plugin: it works with photoshop and the gimp, even if in gimp the preview doesn't work well.
It's free and you can download it here: http://www.optikvervelabs.com/
Uh! they updated it... I just discovered it searching the url.
This application helps you to adjust the overall aspect of a picture, or of just a selected part. It also helps to enhance dark areas.
The b&w output is also worth a try: many times a b&w image is better than a colored one.I hope it can help you.
/matteo -
Most good render apps will allow you to export a separate image for material identification or masking later in post processing. If the engine you are using doesn't create one you can do it direct from SU.
I actually prefer this way often as it allows you to export an image with much better colour separation.
What I normally do is firstly export my render, and while that is running (save the skippy file first) then go to the material editor and one by one go through and whilst editing each material delete the texture map and set the material to wildly different colours (blue, yellow, red, green, pink, purple etc!). It doesn't take that long to do especially for simple scenes, and also you don't need to do it for all materials mainly those that you know will likely required post pro colour editing and those in proximity to them.
Then export a really high res image at the same camera angles and proportions as your render, then use this in PS as a layer of the final render to allow quick and accurate separation and masking by using the magic wand! Then make sure when you close the SU file you don't save the last you have altered to delete the textures!
I know it sounds like a long process but really it's only minutes and can save you ten times that in post processing later. I tend to do HEAPS of colour correction is post pro on materials rather than having to run test of a render or material tweaking! It also allows for quick material colour changes should the client later request!
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Matteo, Richard, Thanks for the feedback. I never thought about creating masks in that manner, and always wondered if the renders posted even attempted to approximate the right colors on compled shapes. Now I have a idea how they did it.
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@honoluludesktop said:
Matteo, Richard, Thanks for the feedback. I never thought about creating masks in that manner, and always wondered if the renders posted even attempted to approximate the right colors on compled shapes. Now I have a idea how they did it.
Mate there have been several cases of buyers taking legal action because the end product didn't look like the renders!
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