Skindigo Begin-OR

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blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:27 pm

Decided to run one more through before getting tighter and doing studies as suggested. Settings are about the same as before but pushed a little to see what changes would take place over the same render time. As always, very interested in thoughts and suggestions.
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Last edited by blair on Thu Jun 11, 2009 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Mon May 25, 2009 5:33 am

No thoughts or suggestions by others :?:

Have fun, find fault, tear um apart and suggest things to do/try that would cause improvements :!:

:o :mrgreen:
Last edited by blair on Mon May 25, 2009 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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suvakas
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by suvakas » Mon May 25, 2009 5:44 am

Uhm, add a Superman maybe?
What suggestion do you exactly want?

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Mon May 25, 2009 7:52 am

suvakas

Unique suggestion!

You ask "What suggestion do you exactly want?" Any suggestions, using SketchUP, Skindigo and/or Indigo, that would make this scene look like a real foto taken on the Mississippi river (or similar) at a location where the distant shore cannot be seen - thats all. For example, on your website you have a very nice render of what appears to be a large housing complex adjacent to a large body of water. Is that the Gulf of Riga in the foreground? One thing you could surely tell me, amongst many other things, is how can I get my water to look similar to yours with reflections. The only thing I would be interested in doing a little differantly would be to add a little blue and ripples. Can you offer suggestions that are more rendering specific???? :idea: 's

PS:
Were all of the renderings on your website done with Indigo?
Last edited by blair on Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:18 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Whaat
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by Whaat » Tue May 26, 2009 10:39 am

It is hard to give suggestions because I am not sure if you are going for photoreal or a quirky piece of artwork. If you are going for photoreal, you are breaking about every rule in the book. :) If you are going for bizarre artwork, then well done! :P

Here are some very beginner comments to make your renders look better:
* The render is only as good as the model
* Never use pure white
* Desaturate your colors
* Bevel your edges
* Always model using real-world scale
* Very few real-world materials are 100% diffuse - make good use of phong materials and bump maps
* It's all in the details...

(We should really get some of these beginner tips in the Wiki. I'm sure I've missed some)

Keep experimenting at your renders will keep getting better.

neo0.
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by neo0. » Wed May 27, 2009 7:36 am

Heheh, this reminds me of where I used to be with indigo when I first started like half a year ago.. Anyyhooww...

First off, the lighting. Keep in mind that indigo simulates lighting just like real life. To many people, although this is art which implies a certain degree of creative freedom, making your renders more realistic makes them look "better." Lighting can greatly enhance your realism. To get more realistic lighting, simply create more realistic lighting situations and indigo will do the rest for you. Even if they are just rough approximtions, the differences will be dramatic. Simply make a hollow box and add in a few square shaped holes for window representations and re-render. The light will now permeate around your scene in a much more realistic fashion. :) If you want to take things to the next level, you can use what are called "mesh emitters" which basically turn your objects into light sources. Think about where lights go in real life and how big they are. Usually lights are on the celing, and in rare case, on the walls...

Second off, the materials. As, Dale said, almost nothing in real life is diffuse. It seems like you are just using color maps. In order to make your materials look better, I would recommend using skingindo's material editor, which let's you tap into indigo's incredibly powerful physical materials. :) Walls usually aren't just white, they have a texture for them. For this. Use a bump map. Creating a bump map is surprisingly easy. Just find a full color wall picture/texture and go into photoshop and use adjustments => desaturate or convert the photo to black and white color mode. This should extract the "height" information from the texture and allow indigo to give your walls depth. Use a propor texture for your floor too. Whether it's tiles or marble, it probably will be shiny, and that can be accomplished with an exponent map. Go into sketchup and choose your texture for your floor. Next, open up the skindigo material editor and select a phong material type. Set your exponent and index of refraction. The index of refraction determines how much your material reflects and the exponent affects how sharp those reflections are. For example, if you want to make something that is "glossy" rather than shiny, you would use a high exponent to blur out your reflections. Anyhow, next to the numerical input for the exponet, there should also be something where you can load a texture. Click new and load your texture you loaded earlier. The people also look a little fake sinc they are flat, which really stand out because the rest of the scene is fully 3D. For propor water, use a bump map too. Water is rarely perfectly flat. :wink:

You can preview your materials by clicking the preview button. While it is hardly ideal (I would much rather prefer automatic previewing, that ran invisibly in the background without opening up another window for you to manage), it saves you alot of time, as opposed to having to render out your entire scene to check. If nothing happens when you click the preview button, you probabaly don't have the preview scenes or have installed them wrong. Check the post for instructions.

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Sun May 31, 2009 7:31 am

I tried to post a longer reply than now and could not. I then tried to reduce, by editing, the text in this total thread but in both cases I get the following message.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 1966080 bytes) in /var/www/indigorenderer.com/forum/includes/utf/data/utf_compatibility_decomp.php on line 2

Any suggestions?

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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by PureSpider » Sun May 31, 2009 8:11 am

http://nopaste.org and link back here :)

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:44 pm

Whaat

Thanks for responding and comments related to generalities of render improvement. I am now dedicated to the water scene and I want it all - photoreal, quirky and bizarre. Never thought about it but in keeping with the INDIGO Image Gallery the best slot for my fit might be -sort of- “Fantasy”. My primary interest (photoreal) is the cabinets which are non-textured glossy plastic laminate contained within a cut-away room (modeled very accutately) with painted smooth finish sheetrock walls, paint grade trim with a gloss finish and carpet. The props are 3D Warehouse stuff which are not important for photoreal but the closer the better. The cutouts, we are what we are but good enough for me and the scene as is. The sky just IS and I am not sure it can be any better (what do you think) but I am sure the water could use some tender loving care so the question there is how. I have tried bump etc. on the water but what I have done so far don’t get it. Maybe Suvakas will give me some pointers on water based upon a render, previously mentioned, I saw on his website and perhaps things mentioned here will better express “What suggestions do you exactly want?” Is water an area where bump would be helpful? I would guess the carpet could use some bump (I have tried some) but before that maybe I should be using a different material than the stock “Carpet Loop Pattern” in SketchUP (SUv7pro) which is tiling and therefore definitely not real world scale. Do you think I should use a different carpet material and if so where can I get something better and if you would like to tell me how to best use carpet that will not do any harm. Do you see anything else that needs attention as far as real world scale or bump? I feel certain that INDIGO can do good if I give it good stuff to work with and get the lighting and settings correct. Should I render at a higher resolution and let INDIGO run longer then reduce later?
Last edited by blair on Wed Jun 17, 2009 12:16 am, edited 8 times in total.

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:46 pm

After modeling it seems to me the lead characters are lights and settings which are definitely a mystery to me and apparently others. On the cabinets I have tried something less than pure white (what is the best RGB to use) but one of my problem seems to be lighting and getting a sharp image. At the moment, from the scenes distance, I do not think beveled edges are critical but correct me if I am wrong. I think my biggest problem with the cabinets might be light. I cannot get something right in order to generate well defined lines that delineate where doors and drawers exist. I have gone back to SketchUP and increased cabinet/drawer separation to 3/16” but maybe that is not enough. In relation to the cabinets, walls, carpet and trim only what do you feel should be desaterated, diffused, bumped or phonged more and how should it be done in a specific way?

You said I am breaking about every rule in the book. Wheeeerreesss da book with rules??? I think I NEED a book. I have some good books for SketchUP etc. but have not found anything about how to best prepare a model scene, take to and work with a model scene in a render program. Can you suggest a book? Will the commercial version of INDIGO have a new manual to explain such things?

I started at “0” doing model/render things and feel I have progressed forward from my first greenie but definitely have a long way to go. If you, or anyone, can offer specific suggestion related to photoreal it could be very helpful!

Whaat, I am anxious to read very specific suggestions from you. Can you offer suggestions that are more rendering specific???? :idea: 's

neo0

Thanks, once again, for taking the time to give me some very specific information, things to do/investigate and work on. I greatly appreciate your feedback.
Last edited by blair on Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:24 pm, edited 6 times in total.

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:50 pm

Special Note:

All the above would not go into one post so it had to be split and then it could not be edited.

A later edit.

I am pleased to see that this has now been repaired.

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:15 am

Whatt/Suvakas

Please suggest some things to try/do in order to improve water in the scene above?

Whaat
Some of your areas of great knowledge and specialty relate to SketchUP and Skindigo so you can surely help with those.

Suvakas
In one of your most recent post

http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/vie ... f=4&t=6121

I see that you have also accomplished a very fine render of water. Would you please tell me what you did to render your water?

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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by CTZn » Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:24 am

(side note: since you are not going to render water, but an ocean, an opaque phong with ior ~1.334 and a dark greenish-blue color should do. You virtually don't need transparency there)
obsolete asset

neo0.
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by neo0. » Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:54 am

You can get some neat water effects by adding clouds in photo shop and then playing with the levels (adjustments → Levels.)

blair
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Re: Skindigo Begin-OR

Post by blair » Tue Jun 30, 2009 12:05 am

Thanks to all who offered specific rendering suggestions, they were helpful!

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