How to improve?

[Peter Milner]

I've been tasked with "taking my renderings to the next level".

My boss has seen a competitors brochure containing some excellent renderings and wants me to produce something similar. The question is whether I've gone as far as I can with Accurender or whether there's something more I can do.

The first 2 images are samples of the best I can achieve with Accurender. The other images are from the competitors brochure. In particular, note the very natural lighting conditions.

[Peter Milner]

Yes, I want to squeeze every drop out of Accurender.

I may also have to be a bit more creative with Photoshop.

[mike makki]

set a side jokes and everything else....NXT still the package to beat for price and speed comparing to other expensive software ....And yes you need to touch up your render in PS....as they all do even vray people do it.....vray has to many setting before you start to render....lots of trail and error to get it spot on.....

 

[Peter Milner]

That's exactly why I want to stick with Accurender.

I'll keep pushing to see what I can come up with.

[mike makki]

I Recommend LUMION for animation and external  daylight rendered images.

max vray....for rendered still images

maxwell for max or sketchup....rendered still images.

 

[Maciej]

Peter,

Differencies between your last image and Vray are really hard to spot. If any...  

HDRI / background change changed a lot.  And you are right, Vmax ambient light is someway smooth, and indirect color reflections are clear to see. But it will takes hours to familiarize with all settings to get similar effect using max, be fore you start to render, as Mike noticed.

One more thing - I reckon you just have squeezed every drop of Accu/nXt.  :-)))

[Jelena]

Hi Peter,

the big difference makes the use of postprocess. if you need this qualitiy, you have to do this.

the "difference" is much more behind the product: Vray have renderelements (its called pass - but something totaly different than passes in nXt): reflection, refraction, light, shadow, depth-of-field and much more passes. you combinine them in photoshop and here starts the work where it ends with nXt.

you are even able to change full color, gamma/intense or maybe sharp/unsharp a little bit of your selected element in the postprocess. with third-part-product like NUKE you are able to combinine all of the passes in one within seconds and just adjust DOF, light and sharpen as you wish. in combination with NUKE you are not moving one step forward, its more like to work in a different universum within 32 bit that you even cant reach in Photoshop.

settings and rendertime in Vray: well, you have unlimited settings there, because of unlimited stories you can do. there are many tutorials out there, but the basic is always the same. you lay a grey material all over your models (except windows) and so you control within seconds the light and shadows in your scene. after a short time you will have the full range from white to black in your scene. i dont want to go to deep in, but there is a pass called "samplerate". here you control the quality and speed. even a grainy look - if you prefer - you can do.

here are the renderelements: http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/help/150SP1/render_elements.htm

btw, your pics are already high quality. how long is your typical rendertime for one of your ungrainy pics? 60 hours? more?

best regards, Jelena

[Peter Milner]

Another attempt.

Looking at some Photoshop tutorials it appears that 3DS Max can output renders with many different layers which can then be individually tweaked and composited together. This is probably the stumbling block I am encountering with nXt.

See this tutorial:

http://www.miralemkruho.com/post-production-technique-for-architectural-renderings-by-mark-lester-ocampo/

[Jorge Javier Lara Domínguez]

Peter, si quieres podfias mandarme el archivo NXT(para poder manipularlo en el editor de imagenes). Trabajaria con la tecnica qu empleo en mis imagenes y te enviaria el archivo photoahop de vuelta.De algo podria servirte. Email: [e-mail]

[Peter Milner]

Hi Jorge,

I already use the image editor to adjust the light balance, brightness, contrast etc.

I think I'll have to invest some time in learning some more advanced Photoshop techniques.

[Jorge Javier Lara Domínguez]

Peter, he aqui un ejemplo de postproduccion, a la izquierda esta el render "crudo" y a la derecha esta con postproduccion, (emplee el editor de imagenes para tener el ID de los materiales, emplee diversas capas de ajuste, curvas, brillos, niveles, etc. Saludos

[Dario James]

hace unos 25 años aproximadamente qye hago renders, las mejoras que se pueden lograr con photoshop es limitada ya que el programa en cuanto a calidad esta un poco menor a otros programa,s que en mi caso y en el caso de varios mas como ser alejandro testa, jorge lara y otros suponiamos era cuestion de tiempo y con las constantes actualizaciones se ivan a acercar cosa que ya hace 1 año que no esta pasando.

 

[Dario James]

Yo y gran parte de los que compramos nxt lo hicimos por las imagenes que logra peter, y creo que peter ah llegado al limite de lo que puede dar el programa, no considero del todo que la post produccion sea la solucion , lamento mucho que no se sigan las actualizaciones