Took it outdoors !

[ntxdave]

OK, I decided to go outdoors for a little fun. Not exactly a home run but some success. I did not use the sun in this and was mainly trying to capture the outside of the building with windows that you can see through and also have some reflection of the city in the windows. Some success but also some failure. In particular, if you look about half way up the windows, you will see a line that I have not been able to eliminate.

Car Wash-Outside Render v1.jpg (319.61 KiB) Viewed 10493 times

I have not yet set up any interior lights so it is a little hard to see the equipment inside.

As always, feedback is needed for me to continue learning.

[Chris]

It looks to me like the line through the middle is the horizon line of your background reflected in the window. How to best deal with that... I'm not sure Maybe someone can make some good suggestions. That you have a background image to reflect at all is great! One of the biggest mistakes people make is not providing something to be reflected (background, lighting, geometry, whatever).

Otherwise, 2 things. In the Post-Pro popup (lower right corner of the Render editor) there is a 'Temperature' option. Enable 'Temperature Adjust' and change the Unadjusted setting to somewhere between 7000 and 8000 (you will have to play with it to get the right value). This will help remove the blue-ish cast to the building. The other thing is, there seems to be something weird with the 3rd window from the left. Does that window have it's back face showing? If so, you'll want to reverse it. (Or is it missing completely?)

[ntxdave]

Made some adjustments like you suggested.....

Car Wash-Outside Render v2.jpg (295.95 KiB) Viewed 10467 times

I did copy one of the windows over but I think what we are seeing is that looking through the 2nd & 3rd windows you are seeing through to the outside and all of the other windows you are seeing inside the building. Was able to eliminate that other line a little but still shows some. I also found that to control the lighting a little, I needed to have an object over the entire scene so that the colors did not bleed out completely. Again, making some progress. Will keep messing around. Each time I seem to find other things that can improve the render.

One thing I am not real happy about and have not found a way to solve with the hobby version. I have not found a good template to use for the grass. I think the Pro version has some better templates for that but I am not sure.

Still a couple more minor changes including moving the car into view.

Car Wash-Outside-Render v3.jpg (309.87 KiB) Viewed 10464 times

[TSolt]

nice work! good to see someone else in Texas using twilight! I am also in texas

[ntxdave]

I know of 2 others here in north Texas (Solo and tuna57). Ooops - I do not think Solo uses Twilight but he is a SketchUp user.......

[tuna57]

Dave, Good start on something new. Going to throw a couple of comments your way. You've got a kind of weird color shift in the stone texture. It almost creates a banding effect. Look at the area above the windows to about midway up the car wash sign. It's nothing you did , it's a weird effect when the SU stone texture repeats itself I think. I've gotten the same effect before. Scale the texture a little bigger and it seems to fix it. How did you set the stone texture up in TW material editor ? Just curious why your not showing more of the building, parking area etc. It sort of makes It a little "just what am I looking at" kind of thing, if that makes any sense.

[Chris]

It's looking better!

For the stone, switch to one of the Stone templates, and set bump map to SketchUp. It doesn't have to be dramatic, but a little bump will definitely help here.
As far as grass, that's always going to be a struggle. A lot of users will photoshop in the grass. There are plugins like Skatter to create grass instances but that requires a TWR Pro license, can add a lot of render time, and it's not free. I'm not a good source for the best way to make grass look good. I know Fletch has done probably every trick there is so he can probably give a recommendation.
For the Sky, if it is blowing out your colors there are 2 things. First, try turning down the Exposure (under the Post-Pro editor, lower right corner). Second, try turning down the brightness of the Sky (in the Sun & Sky editor).

[ntxdave]

OK - Here is first one that kind of shows the entire building with the payment booth and vacuum system.

Not much messing around on this version.

NTX Car Wash-Outside Render v1_Scene 1.jpg (324.99 KiB) Viewed 10451 times

[tuna57]

keep it up Dave, your making good progress. Do you see yourself doing more full blown "arch viz" type presentations for your client ? Curiosity got the better of me, did a little internet searching. Good background panoramas that would represent a realistic backdrop for where these car washes are probably being sited are pretty scarce. That might be one of the more difficult things for you to come up with ?

[Fletch]

The best for realistic grass is to post-process it. (PRO LICENSED USERS TUTORIAL: Subject: [Post Production - Secret 2] Real Grass )

This is the same in all render engines, IMHO. However, Skatter and the other Component Spray and Fur plugins all yield pretty good results for grass. I have never really liked any displaced grass, though it looks better than bump effect on grass for sure. That is a moot point, as there is no displacement in Twilight Render (yet).

The SketchUp grass textures are really no good for renderings of large grass areas. No template will pop the grass up in the air for you, so the best results I've had with straight SketchUp, no Skatter or Fur plugins for grass, is to get a very good grass lawn texture that is very well seamless. A thorough search of the web should yield something for you.

FOR PRO LICENSED USERS there's a good grass texture here... or a good high resolution grass lawn texture here: Subject: Textures for Twilight - High Resolution