i´m going to add more views as time allows. birds view is in work
there are lot of details in there and i have to figure out some nice camera angles to let you see the nice roof structure which is made of two layers (inner & outer) and the fitting rafters and columns.

the biggest problem was to assemble all those organic shapes together and fit in the rafter structure - i pulled out some hairs while figuring out a way to accomplish that

after being member of this forum for about three years now and profiting so much from all the valuable hints, tips and plugins i wanted to share my latest work. although i have not been posting for the longest time (everything was already answered) i was always actively following this forum.

the project: i discovered this beautiful and genius leaf house (casa folha) by architects patalano&mareines on the web and was fascinated by the complexity and shape of the structure (see pictures here: http://openbuildings.com/buildings/the-leaf-house-profile-39231 ).so i thought i´d give it a try and rebuild it in sketchup for training purposes.

as it turned out it was an insane idea. with nothing but the few drawings (jpg) available on the web i tackled the challenge and was sometimes close to giving up. i started the whole project in c4d but quickly switched to SU as i really underestimated the complexity of the roof structure and failed to do it in c4d. with the help of all the plugins available by the kind members of this forum it was finally possible. here is a first shot rendered in vray. i hope i can post follow up views if time allows.

your feedback, critics and hints are very welcome!

thx fuzzion but the usage of hdris is not my actual problem. to clearify see the following pictures:

as you can see the lack of reflections in the second example makes it impossible to use an alternate BG in photoshop as it looks simply wrong.

grateful for your help!

ok - here´s a follow up to the last problem. as discussed before i got the alpha to be transparent behind the window with the "affect alpha" checkbox in the glass materials reflection layer.

unfortunatley i ran into an new problem with that kind of setting. to understand you maybe have to know i´m using the vray sun and hdri method trick with the unchecked reflection slot in the environment rollout. now when i try to put my backdrop behind the model in photoshop the glass seems to lose its reflections in the areas where the background shines through the window. looks not very nice and destroys the illusion of photorealism. in fernandos tutorial on youtube the reflections seem to stay. i tried so many things in the meanwhile that i think even if the solution was obvious i wouldn´t get it anymore.

another minor thing that happens when you save to png are the sharp white borders around the model you get in the alpha channel of the png. funny thing, if you crop the model to the alpha pass (not the alpha mask of the diffuse png)you can get rid of them easily.

if it´s uncelar what i´m talking about let me know and i´ll try to illustrate my problem with some pics tomorrow.

again thx for any pointing into the right direction!

i found out how to do it - if someone else is interested - its explained by fernando in this video: http://www.youtube.com/user/asgvis#p/search/0/PjbrGcbzyjY

you have to check affect alpha in the materials refraction layer to make it work!!!

@andybot: thx for your example this is exactly the effect i was looking for, but it didn´t work because of the above.

the background channel didn´t help either ;-(

thy so much for your quick answers, but unfortunately thats not true. in the png only the areas that are not covered by windows are transparent... at the moment i can still see the environment background from the render through them ;-( the transparency of the png is exactly the same as the alpha mask.

i now try to render a separate "background" channel and see what that will give.

any other ideas of what i´m doing wrong or can be done?

i own quite a few hdris already. i saw the ones from peter gunthrie - they are great! thx for your recommendations.

edit: btw - do you know if vray accepts .exr files in the environment slots?

hello everybody!

i´m playing with the environment settings and channels as well and have a problem i seem to be unable to solve on my own.

i have put a hdri in the environment background slot of the vray output window. everything works as expected. i can see the background and its reflections in windows and reflective surfaces. no problem so far. now i want to put a background image behind the model in photoshop which is actually no problem using the alpha channel that is saved with the image BUT i do have areas in the image where the vray environment background is visible through windows/glass areas. now i have no idea of how to get the new background behind those windows as those areas are not part of the alpha mask. even if i don´t use a background image in vray the problem would still be the same because then the background color would still be visible behind windows.

is there a way to overcome this problem? a specific channel maybe? or is this something that can not be done easily?

thx in advance for all your tips and hints....