Industrial project

[noelyone]

Hi Guys,

I have posted a couple of images for a project I am working on.... I have been using indigo for a year or so and have been improving month to month. However, I've come to as standstill now in terms of achieving more from my imagery.... The next stage in my 'education' is the more advanced side of indigo which I know a few of you on here are at that level. Some advice on making these images to a more professional level would be most appreciated! For instance, improving the shadowing so it's more realistic looking and the overall lighting of the image..... To give you some background into my general way of building my images:

I use sketchup to build the models
glass is 10mm thick (solid rectangle extruded)
bidirectional mlt rendering
sky is photoshopped in - I have use hdr files but they do not cast shadows so I've given up using them! Any tips on this would be great.
The people are taken from the sketchup warehouse and are 2d

Basically any advice on making the day visual look better/more realistic! It would also be good for someone to introduce me to some of the more advanced indigo tools - that would be great!

Many thanks,

Noel

[galinette]

Your hdr envmaps do not cast shadows because the sun disk intensity is too low (generally because the sun pixels are clamped by the camera)

If you edit your envmap to increase the sun disk strength, you can have perfect cast shadows, along with the nice soft lighting from the clouds.
- Open the hdr in photoshop (CS5 required)
- Switch to 32 bit/channel depth
- Use the brush with a round shape having the sun disk diameter, choose a bright color (using the color picker, which has an extra exposure input to make very bright values) and paint over the sun disk with a very high intensity.
- Save as EXR and use in Indigo, reinhardt tonemapping

You need several trials and error to set the correct sun intensity. If too high, your shadows will be overly dark. If too low, you will have no cast shadows.

Etienne

[palace12]

Hi noelyone, nice job. I think the people in the image don't look real enough. If i were you i would use a better quality from e.g. epictor.

[palace12]

Hi noelyone, nice job. I think the people in the image don't look real enough. If i were you i would use a better quality from e.g. epictor.

[noelyone]

Hi Galinette,

I know it's late but i just wanted to thank you for your help. I finally got around to adding a bright sun disk in photoshop and it's worked a treat!!! Many thanks!!

Noel

[noelyone]

Hey Palace, good call on that website!! I hadn't
Come across it before - cheers

[palace12]

Cheers noe