villa rendering assistance

[raja]

Hey ZomB

Yes I agree with you, I would have liked to use 3D trees and grass, but I had to finish things up, and I found it was taking too long. My low specs make trial and error a rather long and tiring process.

I know how to use instances, but I haven't heard of the Skindigo Scatter Tool, can you tell me what it is?

Here are the interiors I worked on. They don't look that good and are quite noisy, but I couldn't wait longer.

I still want to learn how to make that water curtain.

[raja]

If you have some finals to render don't hesitate to ask (PM), I can cock them on my 3 Systems for you (if I have free CPU time!)

Thanks so much for offering to help

[bubs]

These don't look photo realistic I agree, but whatever Post you have done on these has made the noise work to your favour I think! I actually like these as visuals, they have a painted / markers feel to them, which makes them feel like they are supposed to look like this, as opposed to renders that haven't finished rendering. I actually purposely rough up a lot of renders for Clients if they're meant to be more 'concept' that final polished image. I still render in Indigo to get the 'feel' to the lighting / reflections etc correct, but then use a lot of the artistic filters in Photoshop to totally get away from photo-real.

Anyway from my personal point of view I think you are to be congratulated for these! And good for you for not giving up on doing these just because your computer is struggling with them, I certainly know your pain there!

[Zom-B]

I know how to use instances, but I haven't heard of the Skindigo Scatter Tool, can you tell me what it is?

Chefk here & here for information.

Here are the interiors I worked on. They don't look that good and are quite noisy, but I couldn't wait longer.

This stuff looks neat, but somehow has some "sketchy drawing look" to it. Did you combine sketchup output with the Indigo render in PostPro or is that really what came out of Indigo?

btw: Doublecheck the UV maping on your columns,

[raja]

ZomB,
you're quite right. I did use sketchup linework over the indigo image, but very subtly. Thanks for the links.

How do I fix UV mapping on my column?

Bubs. thanks for the encouragement.

[Zom-B]

How do I fix UV mapping on my column?

This should be something done in Sketchup using cylindrical orientation: http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/sketchuv

[bubs]

How do I fix UV mapping on my column?

The link Zom-B sent you is a great plugin, also you could try Fredo06's 'thru paint' it's pretty good too, I use it all the time http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44552

However, for something 'easy' like a column, you can just turn on 'hidden line' in SU and use the dropper on each vertical panel of the column - pick one paint the next, then pick that 2nd one to paint the 3rd etc... Unless the texture width is exactly the same as the column circumference you will get one joint where they won't match - just make sure the seam where they don't match is facing away form the camera!

[raja]

Hey guys,

thank you again for being so helpful. I haven't tried these plugins yet, but I will in the future. I've tried bubs' suggestion and it seems to work well.

I've had to quit working on this project and move on to another because of time constraints. I'm uploading an image of the new one. I'm using 2D plant components and wanted to ask if they should be Diffuse or Phong (or something else) and why. It seems that Skindigo automatically assigns them as Phong materials. Any thoughts on that?

I've also tried using the Scatter Editor, and I'm pleased, because grass was giving me a hard time. Any tips on how to make it look more realistic? I'm currently using the preset.

Otherwise, any thoughts or comments about the image would be appreciated. Clouds were photo-shopped.

I also want to ask about dummies. I'm using dummies here for trees.
When I make the dummy and use it, the component i'm replacing shows up outside the boundaries of the dummy box (too much to the left or right and not centered in the dummy box) so I have to move the dummy to get the component in the right location. Why is that? Does it have to do with the size of the dummy box?

I am getting more excited about Indigo.

Thanks

[bubs]

As a general note, personally I think the colours in your image are over saturated, maybe tone it down a little. Also, you need to be really careful if using 2D vegetation... I would only do so in the modelling app if;
1. The image is really high res
2. They aren't very close to the camera
3. The lighting on the base image is very neutral

Some problems you are having,
1. The lighting on the bushes is totally wrong on the left side of your image where the sun is coming from right to left, but the left side of these bushes is bright...
2. I assume the components are 'face me' so they all look exactly the same irrespective of the viewing angle (obvious repetition is the enemy of Arch Viz )

There are lots of reasonably good free 3d plants & tree models out there if you have a look, and with some very simple random scale & rotate you would be surprised how realistic these can look with only a small number of models.

For the grass to look better you probably need a bit more variation... different types of grass, different colours (slightly!) little plants / daisies, clover etc... As an example see below the grass I normally use, note how many different thing actually make it up.

Good modelling again tho! So keep it up!

[Pibuz]

Hey bubs: speaking of which, are your grass patch components actually loaded into the sketchup file? I tried to use xrif objects but I've had a hard time getting them to work properly, some material issues..

[bubs]

@Pibuz - Everything is External Mesh... can't say as I've had any issues lately..

[Pibuz]

...what the hell have I been doing then....... I tried spreading a tree with the scatter tool, but was impossible to get the leaves applied to the leaf geometry and not the trunk, for example..... Ono is working on a bundled material creation when using external objs..maybe that will make any doubt clear..

Silly question: some time ago to get the materials applied to the referenced geometry it was enough to have the correctly-named SU material in the material list. Now I see we actually have to apply the SU material to the faces of the dummy.. Does this sound correct to you?

[OnoSendai]

:I tried spreading a tree with the scatter tool, but was impossible to get the leaves applied to the leaf geometry and not the trunk?

This should work. Are you using an external mesh?

[bubs]

The above wasn't done using Skindigo scatter... I used the 'make crowd' plugin, I'll be honest I haven't really used the scatter yet, except of a simple test a few months ago... unless the issue is there?
As for the materials I always have applied the materials to the dummy to avoid accidentally deleting them on a model purge, so again I wasn't aware of any change...

[Pibuz]

@Ono: yes I was testing the scatter tool spreading dummies. I'll wait to test the automatic SU material creation you're implementing and I'll test again! Thanks!

@bubs: sorry mate I was assuming that was scatter tool in action! I do the same thing to avoid the purging, I was only asking if you knew anyway.. Thanks!