i just started using lightwave

[dene]

Hi, i have been working with lightwave for 2 months now and there are many things i dont understand.

For the moment im having problems with a model that i need it to seem more realistic. The model was made in archicad and saved as .3ds, now im texturing and lightng it on lightwave.

Ive attached the .jpg for someone to see it and give some tips on how to achieve more realism.

I used 1 vloumetrics light and sky tracer, and for textures i went to the construction site and took some pictures. The final render will be used on a billboard of 12 m *3 m and the client is expecting a good work.

I really dont know how to get it any better so please give some good ideas...

thanks...

[composermanII]

where is the jpeg file?

Troy

[dene]

Sorry here is the JPG

[composermanII]

First of all, everything is simply to clean. try using procedural textures in the diffuse channel. Are you rendering with raytracing shadows and reflections? The glass seem to have no transparent properties. Also you need to work with the specular and glossy settings for the various surfaces. Almost nothing in the real world is completely flat in tone. The shrubbery will also need more detail to achieve a "photo-real" look. If this is to be a still shot I would use actual photos of skies that suite what you are looking for. Try to select skies that would match the lighting angles that you have used in your scene. It is a nice model. Another thing that may help is to set you ambient light color to a value of aprox 5, 5, 5 (RGB). You will need to experiment with the settings to find what works for you. I think the key is to "dirty up" your scene. Even new construction is not perfect. Adding the depth-of-field blur to your render will help add to the realism. You will need to try some settings to get what you are looking for. Your eye will let you know when you hit the mark. Another suggestion is to go out an just look at buildings and real world scenes that are similar to your model and break it down into elements such as color, transparency, reflection, specularity, glossiness and so on. Think of things one surface at a time and continue building and integrating all of the elements. I hope this helps.

Good luck

Troy McCellan

[dene]

i will try everything you say and ill post the result for you to see and comment.
once again thank you for your help
hope it works

[composermanII]

Not a problem! That is what this site is all about, people helping people! I wish there was more of that in everyday life. I hope the tips work well for you.

Troy

[fig]

one thing i also noticed is that your lighting is extremely flat. try cranking your ambient light most of the way down (if not totally off) and just use your lights to light the scene, it'll take some tweaking to get the right set-up and shadow settings but it'll give you a MUCH more realistic look. good luck :)

chris

[stib]

I was going to say what fig said about yr lighting - turn down/off the ambient light. For realism turn on radiosity, and add some depth of field. And you don't seem to have any shadows there. You'll need ray traced shadows on too.

I find you framing a bit strange - all of the buildings are in the lower half of the frame. That could be deliberate to leave space for text or something, but I look at that image and want to move the camera higher into the air, and tilt it down a tad so that the subject is roughly centred. Though looking at it again I see that it is a view from eye level. That could be what the client wants, It just doesn't seem to give much of an insight into the details of the buildings.

The buildings are very white. If your image was a real world photograph I'd call it over exposed. I'd tone down the colour of the walls a bit. Nothing is ever pure white in reality. And are the roofs really the same colour as the walls?

A good trick for realitic glass is to add a gradient to the reflection based on incidence angle. This is how glass in the real world works. At 90 degrees incidence (looking straight through it) there is very little reflection and at 0 degrees (looking along the piece of glass) the reflection is just about 100%.

This applies not only to reflections in glass, but to reflections and specularity of just about any surface. Look at a brick (or whatever) so that you're looking along the surface (close to 0 degrees incidence) and you'll see that it's quite shiny, but straight on it isn't. So you can apply gradients based on incidence angle to the specuarity as well. Keep this subtle or you end up with something that looks like shiny plastic.

BTW you might want to put this thread in the WIP gallery, rather than tips & tricks, you'll prolly get a better response.

[dene]

Thanks for all the help but i just seem to be doing something wrong. I allready delivered the work and the client seemed pleased but only because the previous work he had was really bad, but im still not satisfied. Now im taking an interior photo and the results are even worst. Did i mentioned this is a model imported as .3ds, could that have anything to do with textures and lighting problems?

Anyway thanks and ill keep trying to get this thing right...

dene