@roger said:

@jm2 said:

@andybot said:

much better
Are you adding trees back in post-pro?

Here are the two final renderings I did for the architect. We are actually going to show the client the black and white one but I thought the color looked good as well. I'm working on a second daytime rendering as well as a night rendering. I will post those within the next week. Thanks again for the tips!

JM2, there is still a problem, but you are getting much closer to a good result. Let me see if I can explain properly. The area of the projection screen shaded by the window frame projection should have saturated or at least more saturated color.
Ahh...I understand now. The image would be saturated in that area due to the image being shaded by the window frame projection. I would assume it would be a combination of more saturation and a darker tone?

Thanks.

@box said:

Looks nice, but I must say I'm a little confused by the Reflection or Image, it doesn't seem to reflect the correct subject if it is a reflection and it has colour in the black and white.

I know it is a little confusing...the window will serve both for viewing and light, as well as a projection screen for art.

I haven't done any post-pro work on it yet, but here's the other view of the project.

I was farther along than I thought I was, so here's the night rendering. I'm not as happy with this one, but for being my first one, I was still pleased.

@andybot said:

much better
Are you adding trees back in post-pro?

Here are the two final renderings I did for the architect. We are actually going to show the client the black and white one but I thought the color looked good as well. I'm working on a second daytime rendering as well as a night rendering. I will post those within the next week. Thanks again for the tips!

Thought I would post an updated rendering of the original image I posted. Still adding the finishing touches in PS, but overall I'm really happy with the results. Thanks to everyone for their advice

@iichiversii said:

Whow this looks great, but just out of interest how does the results look in SU, anyone have any examples that they can post for us to view???

It's quick and dirty, but this is an example of what can be produced using the displacement maps from ShaderMap Pro. I exaggerated the DISP so you can see it better. I'm thoroughly pleased with it

@cadfather said:

i use it - does the job well for a very good price. you also get the command line version (free) - which could be used with a ruby plugin to create bump maps etc.

in fact it was an idea i wanted to post but never did.

I definitely concur. I just purchased it last night and it's pretty good for the price. Definitely $20 well spent...

@andybot said:

That is an improvement! Maybe now you can try out a displacement map to make it really nice!

My thoughts exactly! I'm looking at possibly purchasing ShaderMap (since it's only $20) but I don't know if it will work well or not because you can't test the maps with just the demo version

I'll post an updated render when I get the maps working.

I know there's already a similar post about this program, but since it was over 4 years old, I thought I would start a new one. Is there anyone out there who uses ShaderMap to create their displacement maps, etc.? Since it's so cheap I was considering purchasing it (the demo makes the software look like it could work really well) but since you can't export any of the maps to test it, I was hesitant to drop the cash on it.

Thanks.

@dsarchs said:

Do you mean that it's not tiling correctly, or that the pattern is so obvious it's a VERY noticeable tile?

You can solve the first in GIMP -- there's a filter to make seamless. It's a pretty cheap job, but works if you're in a hurry.

If it's the second, and you're worried about noticeable tiling, I would definitely do it by hand. The first step is to run a high-pass filter over the texture; this evens out the contrast and saturates it some. This is good to eliminate shadows and bright spots.
After that, you can re-colorize the image, offset x and y, and clone stamp (or whatever method) to make the image seamless. Good luck.

Here's what I achieved after spending some time in Photoshop with my texture. I think it looks much better.

Thanks for the advice!

I think it's tiling correctly, it's just that my texture wasn't created in a way that would eliminate the tiling. I'll try the Photoshop "by hand" route and see how that works. Thanks for the help.

That makes sense. I guess I thought you could get rid of tiling within Vray, but it sounds like you have have it fixed within the texture before you even import it.

Here's a quick render of what I'm trying to do. I need to show the landscaping in front of the two buildings as being a kind of moon rock (river rock). The tiling isn't too bad, but it's still there. I followed a few tutorials on creating a seamless texture in Photoshop, but it's not quite there yet.

Ignore the lack of textures on the rest of the model...I haven't gotten that far yet

Hey all...

I'm having trouble with my texture mapping in Vray in that when I apply what is supposedly a seamless texture to my object, the rendering comes out showing some horrible tiling patterns. Is there a way to overcome this that I'm not figuring out? I imagined it had something to do with the UV and Offset values, but I don't understand enough about them to make the correct adjustments.

Is there a post somewhere that helps explain what all those settings mean?

Thanks.

@roger said:

The gray window is very confusing. Is it a window? If I am looking through it, I should see some hint of what is in teh building, not what seems to be a Southwestern scene. If it is a reflection from the outside, It should show elements of the courtyard. And, in any case, the scene would have some color in it, it would never be neutral gray.

Also, the top of the white fence is spikey, but its shadow is not spikey.

The white building in the background does not read properly. The end of the building is shown side on as a straight line. That should not happen if the white building is parallel to the red one. And even if that was a true perspective, you should move the camera as the result of that angle is visually ambiguous.

The purpose of the image on the window was to reflect the projector that will be installed inside the steel box which will show images on the window.

Copy that on the white building. It actually isn't parallel to the rust building which is why it looks awkward. I will have to address that problem I guess.

Thanks for your crits.

@roger said:

The tree shadow is moving in a different direction than the cube shadow. The sun is 93 million miles away so rays from teh sun should be virtually parallel. This leads me that you have inserted a light in the scene rather than using "set sun as light source."

The tree shadow was actually added in post pro in Photoshop. I didn't even catch that I hadn't matched shadow angles correctly

@Chris:

Thanks for all your comments! I'm still pretty new to the world of rendering so every bit of advice is appreciated.

@peter_shaw said:

looks good! really like the rusty look.

some criticism: the textures in the foreground (especially the white pebbles) and the shadows of the tree look a little off. i guess they have been done in post pro? i think u can do the whole scene minus the sky via modelling. also try "make fur" for the grass patches, really good and quick results.
my approach in general would be to make as much as possible via rendering, because my post pro skills aren't that good. but i guess thats a matter of personal taste and style

Thanks for the crits! I do in fact add most of my textures in post production, but I'm currently trying to figure out ways to do more in the actual rendering process, without having to resort to 3ds Max, if at all possible.

Hey everyone...

I'm doing some simple renderings for an architect I work for, and I wanted to see if I could get some constructive criticism on the quality, technique, etc. I've only been rendering for about a year and I really want to expand my knowledge and skills in this area. I've attached an example of my work for people to comment on.

Programs:
Sketchup 7
Vray 1.49
Photoshop CS5

I appreciate advice that can be given.

Thanks.