Animator Prep

[ntxdave]

@Pilou - Glad all is working well for you now.

I have another learning experience that I need some feedback on. I have a building that has a number of windows in the side and when I render it, I would like for the viewer to see the equipment inside the building. After an email exchange with Chris, I have tried some new settings and need some feedback.

Render Glass.PNG (606.44 KiB) Viewed 7070 times

In particular, notice the following:

• Glass in SketchUp file
• Rendered glass in full TWR render. Although a little dark, you can see the equipment through the windows
• Rendered glass in the Exploration Render. Glass looks much darker and you can just barely see the equipment through the windows
• Render setting for the glass. The IOR is set at 1.1
• In general, the Exploration Render looks much darker than the regular render
• Notice the difference in time between the exploration and full renders

As I said, I am making progress here and would like to hear your comments. My concentration in this render/post is on the glass. I will be using this information for an animation render that will be about 1000 frames which will take more that 12 hours thus I want to address this issue before I start that render.

BTW: Is there a way to save all of my render settings so I do not have to start from scratch each time (size, simple settings, etc. - I know the material settings are save with the model)?

[Chris]

First off, the Exploration Renderer uses different render presets. The idea is that these presets should be fast so you don't have to wait around for your scene. So they have certain settings turned off or down and that specifically effects indirect lighting. Because you don't have any direct lighting on the interior (it doesn't look like it), the brightness on the interior is dependent on indirect lighting only. The Exploration Renderer presets have very low indirect lighting, or even turned off completely, so that makes it darker. Now... why the exploration renderer actually takes longer... I don't know. I think it's worth revisiting the presets used for the E.R. and make sure they are actually usable and effective.

The glass is looking good. I think putting lights in the interior will really help (as long as that doesn't compromise your design).

What render settings are you referring to, that you would like to save?

[ntxdave]

A little more progress here........again, just concentrating on the glass and being able to see inside the building. Many other model changes to be made later

Equipment Side of Building

Car Wash-Equip Side-TR- v1_Render View.jpg (488.9 KiB) Viewed 7062 times

Pretty satisfied with this one. I did add a couple of spot lights over the equipment and I think it helped a lot.

Office Side of Building

Car Wash-Office Side-TR- v1_Render View.jpg (469.81 KiB) Viewed 7062 times

This side has a problem. I added a spot light in the lobby and another one in the office and that seems to work pretty good. However, I have a problem with the glass on either side of the double door entrance. They are the same glass as in the windows and the double door but for some reason they are not reacting the same at all (cannot see through them at all).

If you look carefully in both images you will notice that you can see completely through the windows and out the other side of the building when there is an "overlap" in the windows. If fact, there is also a wall of windows inside the building between the equipment and the lobby. So in a couple of cases, you can actually see through 3 layers/rows of windows.

As always, feedback is both welcomed and appreciated.

Chris, what I was saying about saving settings was that I thought from looking at things there might be away to save all of my settings kind of like a template that could be used for other models/images.

I also just noticed that you do not see any shadows in either image and I thought I had shadows turned on both in SU and in the TWR settings.

[Fletch]

Geometry can not cast shadows onto an HDR or other spherical image. Pro users can insert an infinite plane from the Insert Objects option in the Twilight V2 list of choices in the SU Plugins(Extensions) pull-down menu. Paint the infinite plane object with a good grass texture.

The glass problem is likely that you have painted the back face and the front face with 2 different types of glass material. Paint both faces with the same. Be sure you do not use double layered glass, it adds render time.

[ntxdave]

Well I thought I had this fixed but then it looks like somehow I broke it so have to get back to having the windows fixed.

Now I have another problem. I would like to have some high resolution building scenes that I could use for a background. I have found some that I like but they are WAY to small (like 320x126 or similar sizes) but I need some big ones like the "treeline" ones I was able to download from your sight. Anyone know of a good source for finding some good images that I can use as spherical background images that contain buildings (say like a strip mall or some type of city/village). I want my car wash to show up in something other than a park or forest.

[ntxdave]

OK - I got glass working again (almost too good) so here are my latest renders:

Equipment Side

Car Wash-Full-TR- v2_Render View - Equipment Side.jpg (520.45 KiB) Viewed 7047 times

Office Side

Car Wash-Full-TR- v2_Render View - Office Side.jpg (494.71 KiB) Viewed 7047 times

I think I might need to back off on the alpha a little I currently have it set at 15. Might want to bum it to 20. I have the IOR set at 1.1.

I also played around with shadows a little and when I turn shadows on you can just barely see through the windows and in a couple of cases you could not see at all. I messed around with the shadow setting some (changing both time of day and month). Mixed results with this. One other thing I notice is some green tint in a number of places. Not sure if that is reflections or if there is something else causing that tint.

I am still going to need to do some other messing around I think because the renders took over 4 minutes each. If I am trying to do an animation that has about 1000 frames this would take a LONG time.

Need to do some more exploring I think but I do feel that I am making progress. As always, any hints/tips/suggestions/critique is welcomed.

[Chris]

Now I have another problem. I would like to have some high resolution building scenes that I could use for a background. I have found some that I like but they are WAY to small (like 320x126 or similar sizes) but I need some big ones like the "treeline" ones I was able to download from your sight. Anyone know of a good source for finding some good images that I can use as spherical background images that contain buildings (say like a strip mall or some type of city/village). I want my car wash to show up in something other than a park or forest.

My recommendation is to use image plane background buildings, not a spherical background. There are a ton of options for just simple background building images. You could easily construct "backdrops" from these images (and many of them are very large, very high quality). Stuff like this: https://wallpaperscraft.com/download/ci ... /2560x1600 or this: http://ernmedya.com/system/blog/blog.php

[ntxdave]

Now I have another problem. I would like to have some high resolution building scenes that I could use for a background. I have found some that I like but they are WAY to small (like 320x126 or similar sizes) but I need some big ones like the "treeline" ones I was able to download from your sight. Anyone know of a good source for finding some good images that I can use as spherical background images that contain buildings (say like a strip mall or some type of city/village). I want my car wash to show up in something other than a park or forest.

My recommendation is to use image plane background buildings, not a spherical background. There are a ton of options for just simple background building images. You could easily construct "backdrops" from these images (and many of them are very large, very high quality). Stuff like this: https://wallpaperscraft.com/download/ci ... /2560x1600 or this: http://ernmedya.com/system/blog/blog.php

Thanks for the links but these would not work well for backgrounds for my car wash buildings. Especially when I want to use them in animations where I rotate/orbit the building. I do not anticipate very many, if any at all, still images/renders. I found some nice images of strip malls but as I said before, they are way too small for this purpose.