Mountain villa

[brainpolka]

Hi! Trying to get better with natural landscapes and enviroments. Alot of instancing went into this! Any CC?

[Janusz Biela]

Hello! Welcome!
You managed very well with Instance !
The render has a bit "flat" feeling but no offence please I know how hard is deal with plants. The biggest problem is not with exterior as everybody thinks, but with plants. It is so difficult render grass, leafs, trees , etc because they are full of physics (SSS, transparency, reflections, bumps, different diffuse) ...in my opinion this is very, very difficult part of renders and personally it get me Crazy! Also are some limits in Kray (not big deal but they are). The house looks very good. Clouds I would change for better quality and more blue Sky.
If you used Weight Map for planting then is very good, If not then I suggest use this.

[medzo]

Welcome to forums!

I agree with Janusz. It looks like you left ambient light on or maybe you have risen too much shadows in post work.

Anyway great work!

[brainpolka]

Hello! Thanks for commenting. Only thing i did in post was auto levels in photoshop and some slight sharpening. I use some weights for plants and some just random. These are just normal lightwave surfaces with no nodes and with HDR lighting (so you see the sky from the HDR image). No ambient light, but a spot for sun. I am gonna research more into better plant materials, but this goes very slow for me since i tend to get confused with nodes..

[Janusz Biela]

I would like suggest not to use HDRi (...but no body listening me on this forum )
Only Physical Sky give us clean and accurate photon map.
If we talk about Nodes, it is tough stuff and is no doubts you have to enter into...the faster then better. All best people in 3D render use them. I have some plans to help with this part but I can not tell more now.

[brainpolka]

I need all the help I can get, so please do tell more

Anyway, I don't really like the physsky in Kray that much and I thought the HDRi looked better.
I wish it had more options etc. etc.

[Janusz Biela]

I need all the help I can get, so please do tell more

Anyway, I don't really like the physsky in Kray that much and I thought the HDRi looked better.
I wish it had more options etc. etc.

So I tell you more:

- Photon Map receiving by this source of light is very "dirty". Give a lot of "Hot Photons" which are difficult to smooth or reduce. It can affect light leaks, different colors in regions which should be at all.

- strong reflection which source of that is strong light information is some parts of HDRi image. This affect no accurate reflection (yes!) and combine with not accurate light because user increasing power of light from HDRi to bright up scene create not balanced light. Situation force users to tweak surfaces and going away from accuracy.

- No direct light from HDRi force user to add physical light to scene which mix all ideas of accuracy.

- The reason why people use HDRi in Exteriors is perhaps the natural light which HDRi offer WHICH is NOT in my opinion. It gives only illusion created by clouds and Sun which we see in image. But light and color information is very disordered and solution for that is to BLUR this map.

- HDRi map CAN NOT offer you direct light! There is some ideas to add physical light in place where is Sun automatically by scanning HDRi image and finding place with the stronger light information (in this situation will be averaged place of Sun in HDRi image)

- HDRi also has light information from ground part of image. Tweaking power of HDRi also you raise up power of light coming for example from grass in HDRi. It affect sometimes strange colors in render. You can desaturate HDRi of course but I you noticed it`s starting be wasting time (control power, blur, desaturate, surfacing tweaking)

Physky light for example Kray Physky is exactly the same idea as HDRi! but:
- it offer accurate and balanced light which give to us also Direct Light (Sun)
- Photons coming from Physky are "clean"
- Physky is create according to real atmospheric behaviour.
- Physky offer faster render because photon map created but this are much more cleaner. Final Gathering, QMC are just faster.
- Physky offer better control (yes!) and still photon map achieving by this source of light is clean.
- Do not worry about clinic light which offer Physky. Important in render are balance light and color close to real light. In my opinion is easier make post process after Physky then HDRi.
- it offer no control because is done according to physic (of course we can raise up power or turbidity but I think best idea is not touch those functions especially in future in Physky2)
- you can turn OFF direct Sun from physky and use this as ambient environment light!

Summary:
Physky2 in Kray3 (http://cgg.mff.cuni.cz/projects/SkylightModelling/) Will offer us great opportunity which we never had before. It working very well in Podium for Google Sketchup where people working now with Kray3 engine. It will be activated soon for LW (in a couple day I will receive next test K3 where Physky2 will be activated)

If is there something wrong or questions on this very difficult topic pleas ask or correct me.
Personally I do not use HDRi at all....

[salvatore]

I totally agree with these arguments
tnx Janusz !

I need all the help I can get, so please do tell more

Anyway, I don't really like the physsky in Kray that much and I thought the HDRi looked better.
I wish it had more options etc. etc.

So I tell you more:

- Photon Map receiving by this source of light is very "dirty". Give a lot of "Hot Photons" which are difficult to smooth or reduce. It can affect light leaks, different colors in regions which should be at all.

- strong reflection which source of that is strong light information is some parts of HDRi image. This affect no accurate reflection (yes!) and combine with not accurate light because user increasing power of light from HDRi to bright up scene create not balanced light. Situation force users to tweak surfaces and going away from accuracy.

- No direct light from HDRi force user to add physical light to scene which mix all ideas of accuracy.

- The reason why people use HDRi in Exteriors is perhaps the natural light which HDRi offer WHICH is NOT in my opinion. It gives only illusion created by clouds and Sun which we see in image. But light and color information is very disordered and solution for that is to BLUR this map.

- HDRi map CAN NOT offer you direct light! There is some ideas to add physical light in place where is Sun automatically by scanning HDRi image and finding place with the stronger light information (in this situation will be averaged place of Sun in HDRi image)

- HDRi also has light information from ground part of image. Tweaking power of HDRi also you raise up power of light coming for example from grass in HDRi. It affect sometimes strange colors in render. You can desaturate HDRi of course but I you noticed it`s starting be wasting time (control power, blur, desaturate, surfacing tweaking)

Physky light for example Kray Physky is exactly the same idea as HDRi! but:
- it offer accurate and balanced light which give to us also Direct Light (Sun)
- Photons coming from Physky are "clean"
- Physky is create according to real atmospheric behaviour.
- Physky offer faster render because photon map created but this are much more cleaner. Final Gathering, QMC are just faster.
- Physky offer better control (yes!) and still photon map achieving by this source of light is clean.
- Do not worry about clinic light which offer Physky. Important in render are balance light and color close to real light. In my opinion is easier make post process after Physky then HDRi.
- it offer no control because is done according to physic (of course we can raise up power or turbidity but I think best idea is not touch those functions especially in future in Physky2)
- you can turn OFF direct Sun from physky and use this as ambient environment light!

Summary:
Physky2 in Kray3 (http://cgg.mff.cuni.cz/projects/SkylightModelling/) Will offer us great opportunity which we never had before. It working very well in Podium for Google Sketchup where people working now with Kray3 engine. It will be activated soon for LW (in a couple day I will receive next test K3 where Physky2 will be activated)

If is there something wrong or questions on this very difficult topic pleas ask or correct me.
Personally I do not use HDRi at all....